Ultrashort pulse generation in diode lasers

The basic ideas and current state of the art of ultrashort pulse generation by injection lasers are reviewed. All developed techniques, including gain switching, Q-switching, and mode-locking are described and compared. A simple theoretical treatment of a diode laser which emits picosecond light pulses is discussed. Some fundamental limits of the pulse parameters are discussed. Finally, compression of chirped optical pulses by optical fibres and the soliton effect is considered. © 1992 Chapman & Hall.

Generation of picosecond pulses with a repetition frequency of 100 GHz by a multicomponent injection laser

A mode for generating a sequence of spectrally limited pulses with a duration of 2 nsec and a repetition frequency of approximately 100 GHz in AlGaAs/GaAs by an injection heterolaser, which has amplifying and absorbing parts combined in a common resonator, is discussed.

DIRECT DETECTION OF PICOSECOND PULSES EMITTED BY AN INJECTION LASER WITH ACTIVE MODE LOCKING.

An Agat-SF linear-scan streak image-converter camera was used to record output pulses of 2. 7 psec duration generated by an injection laser with an external dispersive resonator operated in the active mode-locking regime. The duration of the pulses was determined by the reciprocal of the spectral width and the product of the duration and the spectral width was 0. 30.

GENERATION OF PICOSECOND PULSES IN AN INJECTION LASER WITH AN EXTERNAL SELECTIVE RESONATOR.

Pulses of 15 psec duration were generated by an injection laser with an external dispersive resonator operating in the active mode-locking regime. This regime was attained by subjecting the laser diode to a current of high frequency equal to the intermode interval in the external resonator. The duration of the pulses was determined by an autocorrelation method in which the second harmonic was generated in an LiIO//3 crystal.

Gain saturation in 60-fs mode-locked semiconductor laser

A passively mode-locked optically-pumped InGaAs/GaAs quantum well laser with an intracavity semiconductor saturable absorber mirror emits sub-100-fs pulses. Pulse energy declines steeply as pulse duration is reduced below 100 fs due to gain saturation. © 2010 Optical Society of America.

Gain bandwidth characterization of surface-emitting quantum well laser gain structures for femtosecond operation

We present a method to experimentally characterize the gain filter and calculate a corresponding parabolic gain bandwidth of lasers that are described by "class A" dynamics by solving the master equation of spectral condensation for Gaussian spectra. We experimentally determine the gain filter, with an equivalent parabolic gain bandwidth of up to 51 nm, for broad-band InGaAs/GaAs quantum well gain surface-emitting semiconductor laser structures capable of producing pulses down to 60 fs width when mode-locked with an optical Stark saturable absorber mirror. © 2010 Optical Society of America.

169 GHz repetition rate passively harmonically mode-locked VECSEL emitting 265 fs pulses

High repetition rate passively mode-locked sources are of significant interest due to their potential for applications including optical clocking, optical sampling, communications and others. Due to their short excited state lifetimes mode-locked VECSELs are ideally suited to high repetition rate operation, however fundamentally mode-locked quantum well-based VECSELs have not achieved repetition rates above 10 GHz due to the limitations placed on the cavity geometry by the requirement that the saturable absorber saturates more quickly than the gain. This issue has been overcome by the use of quantum dot-based saturable absorbers with lower saturation fluences leading to repetition rates up to 50 GHz, but sub-picosecond pulses have not been achieved at these repetition rates. We present a passively harmonically mode-locked VECSEL emitting pulses of 265 fs duration at a repetition rate of 169 GHz with an output power of 20 mW. The laser is based around an antiresonant 6 quantum well gain sample and is mode-locked using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. Harmonic modelocking is achieved by using an intracavity sapphire etalon. The sapphire then acts as a coupled cavity, setting the repetition rate of the laser while still allowing a tight focus on the saturable absorber. RF spectra of the laser output show no peaks at harmonics of the fundamental repetition rate up to 26 GHz, indicating stable harmonic modelocking. Autocorrelations reveal groups of pulses circulating in the cavity as a result of an increased tendency towards Q-switched modelocking due to the low pulse energies.

A novel non-intrusive sampling technique for CO2 laser on-line beam monitoring utilising a silicon mirror

The measurement of high speed laser beam parameters during processing is a topic that has seen growing attention over the last few years as quality assurance places greater demand on the monitoring of the manufacturing process. The targets for any monitoring system is to be non-intrusive, low cost, simple to operate, high speed and capable of operation in process. A new ISO compliant system is presented based on the integration of an imaging plate and camera located behind a proprietary mirror sampling device. The general layout of the device is presented along with the thermal and optical performance of the sampling optic. Diagnostic performance of the system is compared with industry standard devices, demonstrating the high quality high speed data which has been generated using this system.

Long-wavelength monolithic mode-locked diode lasers

A detailed study of the design issues relevant to long-wavelength monolithic mode-locked lasers is presented. Following a detailed review of the field, we have devised a validated travelling wave model to explore the limits of mode-locking in monolithic laser diodes, not only in terms of pulse duration and repetition rate, but also in terms of stability. It is shown that fast absorber recovery is crucial for short pulse width, that the ratio of gain to absorption saturation is key in accessing ultrashort pulses and that low alpha factors give only modest benefit. Finally, optimized contact layouts are shown to greatly enhance pulse stability and the overall operational success. The design rules show high levels of consistency with published experimental data.

High power short pulse generation at high repetition rate from InGaN violet laser diodes

The generation of 22 ps pulses with peak powers of 0.74 W by a gain-switched InGaN violet laser diode is reported. Significant pulse width dependence on repetition rate is observed. © 2011 OSA.

Simultaneous pulse compression and jitter reduction at 10GHz using novel self-seeding gain-switched DFB laser incorporating a DILM

A novel scheme using a 10 GHz gain-switched DFB laser with simultaneous pulse width and jitter compression allows generation of 380fs pulses with both system limited 150fs jitter and 30 dB extinction ratio. ©1999 Optical Society of America.

First demonstration of two photon absorption in a semiconductor waveguide pumped by a diode laser

For the first time, lasers have been used to induce a fast all-optical nonresonant nonlinearity at wavelengths well beyond the band edge in a GaAs/GaAlAs multiquantum well waveguide. Using a Q-switched diode laser, which gave optical pulses of 3.5 ps duration and 7 W peak power, an intensity-dependent transmission was recorded that was consistent with the presence of two photon absorption in the waveguide. The measured two photon absorption coefficient was 11 ± 2cm/GW.

Low short term timing jitter in an integrated monolithic extended cavity semiconductor mode-locked laser

Jitter measurements were performed on a monolithically integrated active/passive cavity multiple quantum well laser, actively mode-locked at 10 GHz via modulation of an absorber section. Sub-10 ps pulses were produced upon optimization of the drive conditions to the gain, distributed Bragg reflector, and absorber sections. A model was also developed using travelling wave rate equations. Simulation results suggest that spontaneous emission is the dominant cause of jitter, with carrier dynamics having a time constant of the order of 1 ns.

Effects of pedestal suppression on gain-switched laser sources for 40 Gbit/s OTDM transmission

The performance of 40 Gbit/s optical time-division multiplexed (OTDM) communication systems can be severely limited when the extinction ratio of the optical pulses is low. This is a consequence of the coherent interference noise between individual OTDM channels. When taken alone, the multiple quantum well-distributed feedback laser+dispersion compensating fiber source exhibits a relatively poor extinction ratio which impairs its potential for use in a 40 Gbit/s OTDM system. However, with the addition of an electroabsorption modulator to suppress the pulse pedestals to better than 30 dB extinction, coherent interference noise is reduced, the bit-error-rate performance is greatly improved, and the source shows good potential for 40 Gbit/s OTDM communication.