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US 6,449,301 B1Granted
Method and apparatus for mode locking of external cavity semiconductor lasers with saturable Bragg reflectors
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of California
InventorsMing C. Wu, Ji-Lin Shen
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Abstract
External cavity semiconductor lasers using a saturable Bragg reflector as an external reflector are mode locked and produce output pulses of 1.9 ps from a semiconductor lasers without dispersion compensation. By coupling the output to a standard single mode fiber with a length of 35 m to compensate the linear chirp, the mode-locked pulse duration as short as 880 fs is achieved.
Claims21
A laser capable of generating short pulses of less than 1000 femtoseconds comprising:
- a semiconductor laser;
- and
- a resonant optical cavity having a reflecting mirror, said mirror comprising a saturable Bragg reflector.
A laser comprising:
- a semiconductor buried heterostructure multiple quantum well laser;
- and
- an external resonant optical cavity having a saturable Bragg reflector as a reflecting mirror for said external resonant optical cavity.
A method of generating short laser pulses of less than 1000 femtoseconds in a mode locked laser comprising:
- providing a semiconductor laser;
- providing a resonant external optical cavity having a reflecting mirror, said mirror comprising a saturable Bragg reflector;
- coupling said resonant optical cavity in alignment with said semiconductor laser;
- adjusting external cavity alignment, reverse-bias voltage of an on-chip saturable absorber in said semiconductor laser, and forward gain currents of a gain section in said semiconductor laser to obtain a stable optical pulse output;
- and
- biasing said forward gain currents and reverse-bias voltage to minimize pulse width of said stable optical pulse output.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.