Continuously tunable coherent pulse generation in a semiconductor laser.

Abstract

In a laser, the control of its spectral emission depends on the physical dimensions of the optical resonator, restricting it to a set of discrete cavity modes at specific frequencies^1-4. Without modifying the optical cavity, this results in substantial gaps in the obtainable laser emission spectrum, as well as a fixed repetition rate, limiting the device's usability in various experiments and applications where a considerable degree of tunability is required in the spectral or temporal domain. Here we overcome this fundamental limit by demonstrating a monolithic semiconductor laser^5-7 with a continuously tunable repetition rate from 4 GHz up to 16 GHz, by using a microwave driving signal that induces a spatiotemporal gain modulation along the entire laser cavity^8,9, generating intracavity mode-locked pulses^10-13 with a continuously tunable group velocity¹⁴. At the output, frequency combs^15,16 with continuously tunable mode spacings are generated in the frequency domain, and coherent pulse trains with continuously tunable repetition rates are generated in the time domain¹⁷. Our results pave the way for fully tunable chip-scale lasers and frequency combs, which will be advantageous for use in a diverse variety of fields, from fundamental studies to applications such as high-resolution and dual-comb spectroscopy^18,19.