A scheme of picosecond pulse shaping using gain saturation characteristics of semiconductor laser amplifiers

To obtain high power, well shaped picosecond pulses from gain-switched semiconductor lasers, the use of dynamic gain saturation characteristics of semiconductor laser amplifiers was investigated theoretically and experimentally. A configuration of a reflected-wave amplifier (RWA) with single-side external coupling is introduced for pulse shaping, which is found to be suitable for enhancing dynamic gain saturation. By a combination of a distributed feedback laser oscillator at 1.3 mu m in wavelength and a reflected-wave amplifier of 400 mu m cavity length with asymmetric facet reflectivities of 0.01% and 30%, single-mode optical pulses with almost no tailing, full width at half maximum of 15 ps, and peak power exceeding 50 mW were obtained without pulse broadening, despite the considerable tail structure of the incident pulse. >

[1]  Gregory Raybon,et al.  Repetition Rate Dependence of Gain Compression in InGaAsP Optical Amplifiers , 1989, Integrated and Guided-Wave Optics.

[2]  Arthur J. Lowery.  New inline wideband dynamic semiconductor laser amplifier model , 1988 .

[3]  W. Powazinik,et al.  Strong influence of nonlinear gain on spectral and dynamic characteristics of InGaAsP lasers , 1985 .

[4]  L. Frantz,et al.  Theory of Pulse Propagation in a Laser Amplifier , 1963 .

[5]  A. Lowery.  Explanation and modelling of pulse compression and broadening in near-travelling-wave laser amplifiers , 1988 .

[6]  Chin B. Su,et al.  Effect of doping level on the gain constant and modulation bandwidth of InGaAsP semiconductor lasers , 1984 .

[7]  E. Schöll.  Dynamic theory of picosecond optical pulse shaping by gain-switched semiconductor laser amplifiers , 1988 .

[8]  Dietrich Marcuse,et al.  Computer model of an injection laser amplifier , 1983 .

[9]  N. Olsson,et al.  Self-phase modulation and spectral broadening of optical pulses in semiconductor laser amplifiers , 1989 .

[10]  W. J. Devlin,et al.  Amplification of 1.5 ps pulses by a semiconductor laser amplifier , 1989 .

[11]  Gregory Raybon,et al.  Amplification of high repetition rate picosecond pulses using an InGaAsP traveling-wave optical amplifier , 1988 .

[12]  Spectral hole‐burning and gain saturation in semiconductor lasers: Strong‐signal theory , 1988 .

[13]  H. Inaba,et al.  Generation of subpicosecond coherent optical pulses by passive mode locking of an AlGaAs diode laser , 1982 .

[14]  Scott W. Corzine,et al.  Actively mode‐locked GaInAsP laser with subpicosecond output , 1988 .

[15]  Masato Kawahara,et al.  High-power output over 200 mW of 1.3 µm GaInAsP VIPS lasers , 1987 .

[16]  N. Frigo.  Ultrashort pulse propogation in saturable media: A simple physical model , 1983 .

[17]  Govind P. Agrawal,et al.  Gain nonlinearities in semiconductor lasers: Theory and application to distributed feedback lasers , 1987 .

[18]  K. Lau.  Gain switching of semiconductor injection lasers , 1988 .

[19]  Gregory Raybon,et al.  Distortionless picosecond pulse amplification and gain compression in a traveling‐wave InGaAsP optical amplifier , 1988 .

[20]  S. Corzine,et al.  Actively mode-locked semiconductor lasers , 1989 .

[21]  John Hegarty,et al.  High‐speed modulation and switching with gain in a GaAlAs traveling‐wave optical amplifier , 1984 .

[22]  John C. Connolly,et al.  High peak power picosecond pulse generation from AlGaAs external cavity mode‐locked semiconductor laser and traveling‐wave amplifier , 1990 .

[23]  Erich P. Ippen,et al.  Subpicosecond gain dynamics in GaAlAs laser diodes , 1987 .

[24]  Masahiro Asada,et al.  Density-matrix theory of semiconductor lasers with relaxation broadening model-gain and gain-suppression in semiconductor lasers , 1985 .

[25]  H. Itoh,et al.  Pulse energy gain saturation in subpico- and picosecond pulse amplification by a traveling-wave semiconductor laser amplifier , 1989, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[26]  P. Vasil'ev,et al.  Subpicosecond pulse generation by a tandem-type AlGaAs DH laser with colliding pulse mode locking , 1986 .

[27]  Michael J. Adams,et al.  Analysis of semiconductor laser optical amplifiers , 1985 .