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Short pulse generation from a graphene-coupled passively mode-locked terahertz laser

Nature Photonics volume 17, pages 607–614 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The generation of stable trains of ultrashort (femtosecond to picosecond), terahertz-frequency radiation pulses with large instantaneous intensities is an underlying requirement for the investigation of light–matter interactions for metrology and ultrahigh-speed communications. In solid-state electrically pumped lasers, the primary route to generate short pulses is through passive mode-locking; however, this has not yet been achieved in the terahertz range, defining one of the longest standing goals over the past two decades. In fact, the realization of passive mode-locking has long been assumed to be inherently hindered by the fast recovery times associated with the intersubband gain of terahertz lasers. Here we demonstrate a self-starting miniaturized short pulse terahertz laser, exploiting an original device architecture that includes the surface patterning of multilayer-graphene saturable absorbers distributed along the entire cavity of a double-metal semiconductor 2.30–3.55 THz wire laser. Self-starting pulsed emission with 4.0-ps-long pulses is demonstrated in a compact, all-electronic, all-passive and inexpensive configuration.

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Fig. 1: Device schematics and optical simulations.
Fig. 2: Electrical and optical characterization of the DGSA-QCL.
Fig. 3: Terahertz TDS emission profiles.
Fig. 4: Maxwell–Bloch dynamical simulations.

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Data availability

The data presented in this study are available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Code availability

The relevant computer codes supporting this study are available from the authors on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the European Research Council through the ERC Consolidator Grant (681379) SPRINT (MSV), FET Open project EXTREME IR (944735) (MSV, SSD), Quantera Project QATACOMB (MSV, SSD, CJ), ERC GSYNCOR (ACF), HETERO2D (ACF), EIC CHARM (ACF), the French National Research Agency (ANR-18-CE24-0013-02 - ‘TERASEL’) (SD), and the EPSRC (UK) programme grant ‘HyperTerahertz’ (EP/P021859/1) (EHL, LL, AGD), EP/L016087/1, EP/K01711X/1, EP/K017144/1, EP/N010345/1, EP/V000055/1 (ACF) and Graphene Flagship (MSV, ACF).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work: Elisa Riccardi, Valentino Pistore.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. NEST, CNR—Istituto Nanoscienze and Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy

    Elisa Riccardi, Valentino Pistore & Miriam S. Vitiello

  2. Laboratoire de Physique de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure ENS, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris, Paris, France

    Seonggil Kang, Anna De Vetter, Juliette Mangeney & Sukhdeep S. Dhillon

  3. TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany

    Lukas Seitner & Christian Jirauschek

  4. TUM Center for Quantum Engineering (ZQE), Garching, Germany

    Christian Jirauschek

  5. School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Lianhe Li, A. Giles Davies & Edmund H. Linfield

  6. Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Andrea C. Ferrari

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Contributions

M.S.V. and V.P. conceived the concept. E.R. fabricated the devices, set up the transport and optical experiments. V.P. performed numerical simulations and interpreted the data. E.R., S.S.D., S.K. and A.D.V. acquired the experimental data. L.L, A.G.D. and E.H.L grew by the QCL structure molecular beam epitaxy. C.J. and L.S. developed the theoretical model. The manuscript was written by M.S.V. and V.P. M.S.V. coordinated and supervised the project. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript and discussed the results.

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Correspondence to Miriam S. Vitiello.

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Nature Photonics thanks Mahmood Bagheri and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–4 and Supplementary Discussion 1–4, which is broken down as follows: (1) flowchart of the fabrication process; (2) measurement of the refractive index in MLG; (3) DGSA-QCL with different cavity dimensions and MLG thickness; and (4) micro-Raman characterization.

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Riccardi, E., Pistore, V., Kang, S. et al. Short pulse generation from a graphene-coupled passively mode-locked terahertz laser. Nat. Photon. 17, 607–614 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-023-01195-z

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