Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 15: Ultrakurze Pulse: Erzeugung III

Q 15.8: Talk

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 12:15–12:30, Audi-A

Modelocked Integrated External-Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (MIXSEL) — •T. Südmeyer, D.J.H.C. Maas, A.-R. Bellancourt, B. Rudin, M. Hoffmann, M. Golling, Y. Barbarin, and U. Keller — Department of Physics, Institute of Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland

Vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) combine the benefits from diode-pumped solid state and semiconductor laser technologies with wavelength flexibility, high power and excellent beam quality. Previously, ultrafast VECSELs required a folded cavity with a separate semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for passive modelocking. Recently, we demonstrated that SESAM and VECSEL gain structure can be integrated into a single semiconductor structure, which is referred to as modelocked integrated external-cavity surface emitting laser (MIXSEL). The compact and simple MIXSEL platform has a high potential for numerous applications such as the optical clocking of multi-core microprocessors. In this presentation, we illustrate the VECSEL advantages by presenting a continuous wave VECSEL generating a record-high output power of 20.2 W in fundamental transverse mode operation with an overall optical-optical efficiency of 43%. We discuss the integration challenges and present a MIXSEL generating an average output power of 185 mW at 2.86 GHz in 32-ps pulses. Moreover, we discuss novel MIXSEL designs for achieving higher average output power and shorter pulse duration.