Heterodyne coherent detection of the electric field temporal trace emitted by frequency-modulated comb lasers

Frequency-modulated (FM) combs are produced by mode-locked lasers in which the electric field has a linearly chirped frequency and nearly constant amplitude. This regime of operation occurs naturally in certain laser systems and constitutes a valuable alternative to generate spectra with equidistant modes. Here, we use a low-noise fs-pulse comb as the local oscillator and combine dual comb heterodyne detection with time domain analysis of the multi-heterodyne signal to reveal the temporal trace of both amplitude and phase quadratures of FM comb lasers’ electric field. This technique is applied to both a dense and a harmonic mid-infrared free-running quantum cascade laser frequency comb and shows direct evidence of the FM behavior together with the high degree of coherence of these sources. Our results furnish a deeper insight on the origin of the FM combs and pave the way to further improvement and optimization of these devices.