Self-Detecting Mid-Infrared Dual-Comb Spectroscopy Based on High-Speed Injection-Locked Quantum Cascade Lasers

Dual-comb spectrometer based on quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) is gaining fast development and revolutionizing the precision measurement with high-frequency and temporal resolutions. In these measurements, high-bandwidth photodetectors are normally used for signal acquisition and processing, which complicates the measurement system. QCL is well-known for its picosecond gain-recovery time with an intrinsic bandwidth of tens of GHz. In this work, a compact self-detecting dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) is demonstrated based on dispersion-engineered, high-speed packaged QCLs under coherent injection locking. The laser source is designed and fabricated into a hybrid-monolithic-integrated waveguide and epi-down packaged on a wideband-designed submount to fully explore the high-speed feature up to fourth-order harmonic state with a cutoff frequency of 40 GHz. The effective radio frequency (RF) injection locking diminishes the issue of optical feedback and enables high-bandwidth self-detection based on QCLs. Clear and stable multiheterodyne signal corresponding to a spectral range of 68 cm⁻¹ and narrow comb tooth linewidth of ≈10 kHz is observed without using external detector or numerical process. The demonstrated broadband, high-power, self-detecting mid-infrared QCL DCS has a great potential for future applications of molecular sensing and spectroscopy.