Wideband, high-resolution terahertz spectroscopy by light-induced frequency tuning of quantum-cascade lasers

Abstract

Near-infrared optical excitation enables wideband frequency tuning of terahertz quantum-cascade lasers. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of the approach for molecular laser absorption spectroscopy. We present a physical model which explains the observed frequency tuning characteristics by the optical excitation of an electron-hole plasma. Due to an improved excitation configuration as compared to previous work, we observe a single-mode continuous-wave frequency coverage of as much as 40 GHz for a laser at 3.1 THz. This represents, for the same device, a ten-fold improvement over the usually employed tuning by current. The method can be readily applied to a large class of devices.