A six-octave optical frequency comb from a scalable few-cycle erbium fibre laser
Lesko DM, Timmers H, Xing S, Kowligy A, Lind AJ, Diddams SA (2021)
Publication Type: Journal article
Publication year: 2021
Journal
Book Volume: 15
Pages Range: 281-286
Journal Issue: 4
DOI: 10.1038/s41566-021-00778-y
Abstract
A coherent, compact and robust light source with coverage from the ultraviolet to the infrared is desirable for heterodyne super-resolution imaging1, broadband infrared microscopy2, protein structure determination3 and standoff trace-gas detection4. To address these demanding problems, frequency combs5 combine absolute frequency accuracy with sub-femtosecond timing and waveform control to enable high-resolution, high-speed and broadband spectroscopy6–9. Here we demonstrate a scalable source of near-single-cycle pulses from robust and low-noise erbium fibre (Er:fibre) technology. With a peak power of 0.56 MW we generate a comb spanning six octaves, from the ultraviolet (350 nm) to the mid-infrared (22,500 nm), achieving a resolving power of 1010 across 0.86 PHz of bandwidth. Second-order nonlinearities in LiNbO3, GaSe and CdSiP2 provide phase-stable infrared ultrashort pulses with simultaneous brightness exceeding a synchrotron10, while cascaded nonlinearities in LiNbO3 yield four octaves simultaneously (0.350–5.6 μm). We anticipate that these advances will be enabling for basic and applied spectroscopy, microscopy and phase-sensitive nonlinear optics.
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APA:
Lesko, D.M., Timmers, H., Xing, S., Kowligy, A., Lind, A.J., & Diddams, S.A. (2021). A six-octave optical frequency comb from a scalable few-cycle erbium fibre laser. Nature Photonics, 15(4), 281-286. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00778-y
MLA:
Lesko, Daniel M.B., et al. "A six-octave optical frequency comb from a scalable few-cycle erbium fibre laser." Nature Photonics 15.4 (2021): 281-286.
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