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NONLINEAR OPTICS

Very large bandwidth lasers

Laser-like radiation with a very large spectral coverage is obtained with a comb-like spectrum by concatenating nonlinear processes. Such a light source is extremely useful for detecting molecular trace gases.

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Fig. 1: The route to broadband mid-infrared laser emission.
Fig. 2: Ro-vibrational lines of some important trace gas molecules.

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Correspondence to Thomas Udem.

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Ozawa, A., Udem, T. Very large bandwidth lasers. Nat. Photonics 15, 247–249 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-021-00788-w

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