PROCEEDINGS ARTICLE | February 20, 2017
Proc. SPIE. 10123, Novel In-Plane Semiconductor Lasers XVI
KEYWORDS: Quantum wells, Transparency, Continuous wave operation, Mode locking, Laser applications, Optical fabrication, Semiconductor lasers, Optical metrology, Laser resonators, Distance measurement, Aluminum, Laser damage threshold, Picosecond phenomena, Laser metrology, Pulsed laser operation, Absorption
Mode-locked semiconductor laser technology is a promising technology candidate considered by European Space Agency (ESA) for optical metrology systems and other space applications in the context of high-precision optical metrology, in particular for High Accuracy Absolute Long Distance Measurement. For these applications, we have designed, realized and characterized a multi-section monolithic-cavity tapered laser diode with a record cavity length of 13.5mm. The laser operates at 975nm wavelength with average output power up to 600mW. It is based on a MOVPE grown laser structure with Aluminium free active region enabling high optical gain, low internal losses and low series resistance. It reaches passive mode-locking operation on fundamental cavity round trip frequency of 2.88GHz with chirped pulse width of 6.2ps and time bandwidth product of 8 for the average output power of 250mW. Alongside with passive mode-locking operation, we discuss other lasing regimes in these very long tapered lasers.
