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NONLINEAR OPTICS

Very large bandwidth lasers

Nature Photonics volume 15, pages 247–249 (2021)Cite this article

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Laser-like radiation with a very large spectral coverage is obtained with a comb-like spectrum by concatenating nonlinear processes. Such a light source is extremely useful for detecting molecular trace gases.

A light source with simultaneous emissions of a broad wavelength region is ideal for spectroscopic targets where absorption lines are spread over a wide spectral range. Molecular absorption lines that originate from vibrational and rotational transitions are the best examples. These vibrational modes, especially those of organic molecules, lie in the fingerprint region from 3 μm to 20 μm. The direct generation of broadband coherent sources in this fingerprint region is, however, challenging.

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Fig. 1: The route to broadband mid-infrared laser emission.
Fig. 2: Ro-vibrational lines of some important trace gas molecules.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max-Planck-Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching, Germany

    Akira Ozawa & Thomas Udem

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  1. Akira Ozawa
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  2. Thomas Udem
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Correspondence to Thomas Udem.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Ozawa, A., Udem, T. Very large bandwidth lasers. Nat. Photonics 15, 247–249 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00788-w

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