Mid-infrared dual-comb spectroscopy with room-temperature bi-functional interband cascade lasers and detectors

Interband cascade (IC) laser structures offer attractive potential for operation at room temperature as both broadband coherent sources of mid-infrared light and fast photodetectors. This makes the realization of extremely compact spectrometers on a monolithic platform possible, and even dual-comb spectroscopy (DCS) configurations. IC comb devices are perfect candidates for this configuration, since they develop near-THz-wide optical frequency comb spectra from a millimeter-sized cavity, using a multi-stage structure that can also function as a very fast photodetector. In this work, we leverage IC photodetectors with a gigahertz bandwidth to demonstrate a self-contained, free-running, room-temperature DCS system in the mid-infrared. The DCS system used detection by the same bi-functional IC device structure to measure 1,1-difluoroethane over ∼600 GHz of optical coverage around 3.6 µm. These results show that the IC platform is suitable for full integration as a broadband, high-resolution on-chip spectrometer in a future chemical sensing system.