High peak power femtosecond pulse VECSELs for terahertz time domain spectroscopy

We report on a high peak power femtosecond modelocked VECSEL and its application as a drive laser for an all semiconductor terahertz time domain spectrometer. The VECSEL produced near-transform-limited 335 fs sech2 pulses at a fundamental repetition rate of 1 GHz, a centre wavelength of 999 nm and an average output power of 120 mW. We report on the effect that this high peak power and short pulse duration has on our generated THz signal.