Gain-switched dual frequency comb at 2 µm

This article shows a dual frequency comb in the 2 µm wavelength region using mutually injection locked gain-switched semiconductor lasers. Strained InGaAs multi-quantum-well discrete mode lasers and gain switching were used to generate two optical frequency combs with repetition rates of 2 GHz and 2.0001 GHz respectively, centred at 2.002 µm. Each optical comb spanned approximately 100 GHz. Through mutual injection locking to an edge comb line common in both combs, a phase locked dual frequency comb was demonstrated with 44 beating tones unique to single comb line pair interactions. This scheme allows for the comb information to be compressed into a 5 MHz detection bandwidth and captured with millisecond acquisition times, which could be of benefit to a number of sensing applications.