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Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics

Construction and Characterization of External Cavity Diode Lasers for Atomic Physics

Published on: April 24, 2014

Room temperature electrically pumped topological insulator lasers.

Jae-Hyuck Choi¹, William E Hayenga^1,2, Yuzhou G N Liu¹

¹Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Nature Communications

|June 9, 2021

Summary

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Researchers developed the first room temperature, electrically pumped topological insulator laser (TIL). This breakthrough in topological photonics enables single-frequency emission at telecom wavelengths, paving the way for advanced laser technologies.

Area of Science:

Photonics
Condensed Matter Physics
Laser Science

Background:

Topological insulator lasers (TILs) utilize synthetic gauge fields for phase locking in edge modes of topological lattices.
Their topological modes offer robustness against defects, leading to higher efficiencies than trivial lasers.
Previous TILs required optical pumping or cryogenic temperatures for electrical pumping.

Purpose of the Study:

To demonstrate the first room temperature, electrically pumped topological insulator laser.
To achieve single-frequency emission at telecom wavelengths using topological principles.

Main Methods:

Fabrication of a laser array mimicking the quantum spin Hall effect for photons.
Utilizing topologically non-trivial optical lattices and edge modes for lasing.

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Electrical pumping at room temperature.

Main Results:

Successful operation of an electrically pumped topological insulator laser at room temperature.
Single-frequency emission at telecom wavelengths.
Demonstration of a device leveraging topological photonics principles.

Conclusions:

This work presents a significant advancement in laser technology by enabling room temperature, electrically pumped operation of TILs.
The developed laser array opens new avenues in topological photonics and laser science.
Further developments in laser science and technology are anticipated.