Cascaded Brillouin lasing in monolithic barium fluoride whispering gallery mode resonators

Abstract

We report the observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering and lasing at 1550 nm in barium fluoride (BaF2) crystal. Brillouin lasing was achieved with ultra-high quality (Q) factor monolithic whispering gallery mode mm-size disk resonators. Overmoded resonators were specifically used to provide cavity resonances for both the pump and all Brillouin Stokes waves. Single and multiple Brillouin Stokes radiations with frequency shift ranging from 8.2 GHz up to 49 GHz have been generated through cascaded Brillouin lasing. BaF2 resonator-based Brillouin lasing can find potential applications for high-coherence lasers and microwave photonics.