Paper 14090-49
Paper 14090-49
Shot-noise-limited operation of quantum and interband cascade lasers
14 April 2026 • 18:10 - 20:00 CEST | Galerie Erasme (Niveau/Level 0)
Abstract
The intensity noise of a laser source represents one of the key factors limiting the ultimate sensitivity in laser-based systems for sensing and limits the signal-to-noise ratio in telecommunication. For advanced applications based on interferometry, the availability of a shot-noise-limited local oscillator is even more important. The intensity noise features of quantum cascade and interband cascade lasers will be presented. A thorough electro-optical characterization was performed, together with a detailed intensity noise analysis.
Presenter
Francesco Cappelli
Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (Italy), LENS - Lab. Europeo di Spettroscopie Non-Lineari (Italy)
Francesco Cappelli (PhD) obtained the PhD degree in 2016 with a thesis entitled "Mid-infrared single- and multi-frequency coherent sources for high-resolution molecular spectroscopy". Then, he spent three years working as postdoc at the Italian National Institute of Optics (CNR-INO) in Florence. Since 2019 he works as senior research scientist at CNR-INO. His most significant achievements concern investigations on quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) and in particular on quantum cascade laser frequency combs (QCL-combs). In 2019 he conceived a novel technique named FACE for the characterization of the coherence of the emission of QCL-combs monitoring the Fourier phases of the frequency-comb modes and measuring the phase relation. Afterwards, he investigated the intensity noise of quantum and interband cascade lasers down to the quantum limit, studying also the intensity correlations characterizing the multimodal emission.