Femtosecond external-cavity surface-emitting InGaAs/InP multiple-quantum-well laser

Femtosecond synchronously in-well pumped vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser

We demonstrate the first synchronously in-well pumped vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL). Depending on the cavity mismatch, laser pulses with a duration from 1 ps to 7 ps at a repetition rate of 76 MHz were generated directly from the laser at 860 nm. The application of extra-cavity pulse compression further shortened the pulse to a duration of 210 fs providing a peak power of 226 W.

Femtosecond synchronously mode-locked vertical-external cavity surface-emitting laser

The behavior of a room temperature synchronously mode-locked vertical-external cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) operating at 980 nm is reported. The laser performance was found to be qualitatively the same for different pump pulse duration (3.6 ps and 70 fs). The pulse duration of the laser is limited by strong self-phase modulation to around 10-40 ps. By compressing the strongly chirped pulses generated directly from the laser, ultrashort pulses with duration of around 200 fs with maximum peak powers of 1.3 kW at 80 MHz were obtained. Multiple pulsing of the laser was observed and the effects of cavity length detuning on pulse width and spectral bandwidth have been investigated.

Electrically pumped mode-locked vertical-cavity semiconductor lasers

We demonstrate what is to our knowledge the first electrically pumped mode-locked vertical-cavity surfaceemitting laser. The lasing threshold current is 15 mA with a 1% output coupler. The output pulse width is 80 ps at a repetition rate of 1 GHz.