Hartung-Gorre Verlag
Inh.: Dr. Renate Gorre D-78465 Konstanz / Germany Fon: +49 (0)7533 97227 Fax: +49
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|
Series
in Quantum Electronics
edited
by
Henry Baltes, Peter Günter, Ursula Keller,
Fritz K. Kneubühl †, Walter Lukosz,
Hans Melchior, Markus W. Sigrist
Vol. 51
Benjamin Rudin
High-Power Optically Pumped
VECSELs and MIXSELs.
1st edition 2010. XXVIII, 160 pages, € 64,00.
ISBN 978-3-86628-368-8
Ultrafast lasers drive applications in areas
as diverse as biology, telecommunication, metrology, or material structuring.
So far, multi-Watt power levels required ion-doped dielectric laser materials
in combination with additional intra-cavity components for the pulse formation,
resulting in high complexity and costs. Modelocked
semiconductor lasers have the potential for cost-efficient mass production, a
necessary requirement for applications such as biomedical imaging or optical
clocking. For modelocked edge-emitters the
dispersion, nonlinearities and end facet damage are severe challenges for
achieving multi-Watt power levels. Vertical external cavity surface emitting
lasers (VECSELs) appear to be better suited, because the pulses propagate
mostly in the external cavity and experience only low dispersion and
nonlinearities from the vertical propagation through the epitaxial
semiconductor layers of only a few m thickness. Since the gain structure and the saturable absorber for the pulse formation, typically a
semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), are
both made of semiconductor material, the integration of both elements into a
single structure become possible, leading to very simple ultrafast lasers.
In this thesis we present we the first
realization of such a laser, which we refer to as modelocked
integrated external-cavity surface emitting laser (MIXSEL). One of the key
challenges has been the development of quantum dot (QD) saturable
absorbers that enable modelocking with equal mode
sizes on gain and absorber. The laser generates 185 mW
average output power in 32 ps pulses at a
repetition rate of 2.8 GHz. With the development of low saturation fluence quantum dot absorbers, enabling a more
sophisticated MIXSEL-structure design, and with improved thermal management, we
were able to boost the average output power to 6.4 W. Due to the shorter
pulse length of 22 ps, the repetition rate could
be increased to up to 10 GHz. We believe that these devices will fill a
gap in the performance spectrum of today’s laser technology.
Benjamin
Rudin received his
diploma degree in physics from the ETH Zurich in 2004. He joined the Institute
of Quantum Electronics at ETH Zurich in 2005. His research focused on ultrafast
high-power vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) and modelocked integrated external-cavity surface emitting
lasers (MIXSELs) and on measurement methods for timing jitter and amplitude
noise. He has written and co-authored more than 40 scientific journal articles
and conference proceedings. In his spare time he is designing and constructing
electronics and mechanics for autonomous walking robots.
Keywords:
VECSEL, MIXSEL, semiconductor disk laser, ultrafast, modelocking
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