We experimentally study the emission dynamics of a monolithic multi-section semiconductor laser based on InAs/InGaAs quantum dot (QD) material in the regime of passive mode-locked (ML) operation obtained via saturable losses in the absorber (reversed biased). When the active section is biased above the lasing threshold we observe emission of a regular train of optical pulses at 1250nm with characteristic repetition rate of 6 GHz. By sweeping back the pump current below lasing threshold, we verify that the ML solution coexists with the zero intensity ("off") solution, even in absence of any external optical injection.¹ These evidences are very promising for the observation of temporal localized structures in compact, monolithic semiconductor photonics devices. Experimental results are validated by numerical simulations performed using a multi-section delayed differential equation (DDE) model to compute the evolution of the electrical field, coupled with the rate-equations that describe the carrier dynamics in the QD active and absorber media.

Date Published: 4 March 2019
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 10939, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers XVIII, 109391S (4 March 2019); doi: 10.1117/12.2510221

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10939:
Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers XVIII
Alexey A. Belyanin; Peter M. Smowton, Editor(s)