Laser Tuning in Layered h-BN Crystals.

Abstract

Integrated optics shows great potential in the current optical communication systems, sensor technology, optical computers, and other fields. Tunable laser technology within a certain range is the key to achieving on-chip optical integration; to realize which, Raman scattering is a competitive method that can effectively transfer incident laser energy to optical phonons due to the photon-phonon interaction. Here, we take hexagonal boron nitride as the energy conversion medium, and based on the angle-resolved polarized Raman spectroscopy, it is found that when laser polarization vector ei ⊥ c axis, the spectrum obtains maximal scattering across the cross section and a minimal depolarization ratio. At room temperature, h-BN obtains an output signal with a wavelength of 522.8 nm and a full-width at half-maximum of 0.24 nm under the excitation of 488 nm pump laser, and the depolarization ratio is 0.09 (theoretically, it is 0, and this difference is due to experimental errors). And then, within the temperature range of 80∼420 K, the scattered light wavelength shows a high-precision shift of 0.006 nm/25 K, indicating that continuous wavelength tuning has been successfully achieved in h-BN.