Low timing jitter, sub picoseconds pulse source at 1.55 μm is demonstrated by integrating a fast saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) with an optically-pumped mode-locked vertical-extended-cavity-surface emitting laser (ML-VECSEL). In such a soliton-like pulse-shaping mechanism, short pulse generation requires to control the group delay dispersion (GDD) in the cavity in order to balance the nonlinear phase shift induced by strong semiconductor gain and absorber saturation. By using selective etching technology, we controlled the SESAM optical cavity by varying from a resonant to anti-resonant configuration (which corresponds to a GDD variation from -2000fs2 to +500fs2 at 1.55 μm) in the passive mode-locking cavity. Using the same VECSEL chip, we observed that the mode-locked pulse duration could be reduced from several ps to less than one ps with a resonance managed SESAM.

Date Published: 22 February 2012
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8333, Photonics and Optoelectronics Meetings (POEM) 2011: Optoelectronic Devices and Integration, 833308 (22 February 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.919018

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8333:
Photonics and Optoelectronics Meetings (POEM) 2011: Optoelectronic Devices and Integration
Erich Kasper; Jinzhong Yu; Xun Li; Xinliang Zhang; Jinsong Xia; Junhao Chu; Zhijiang Dong; Bin Hu; Yan Shen, Editor(s)