Experimental study on spectral characteristics of room temperature operated pulsed quantum cascade laser

Mid-infrared lasers are very effective for the spectroscopic measuring of the fundamental absorption lines for most gases. The quantum cascade laser (QCL), with the advantages of high power, wide tuning range and room-temperature operation, is one of the ideal mid-IR sources for trace gas detection. In this paper, the spectral characteristics of room temperature operated pulsed QCL with a cental wavelength of 1274 cm(-1) is presented. By using high-bandwidth HgCdTe detector and high-speed data acquisition devices, and combining with a high-resolution etalon, the features of the spectrum in the frequency domain can be acquired. Analysis of the measured spectral data gives the information about spectral shape, tuning characteristics and resolution variation with time, also about the influences of voltage and temperature on spectrum. The effective way to improve the spectral resolution and optimize the spectral quality is obtained, and it can be used to improve the accuracy of spectrum quantitative analysis.