Since the invention of VECSELs, vast spectral coverage has been demonstrated with emission wavelengths in the range from the UV to almost the MIR. Accordingly, a great variety of different quantum well and quantum dot gain designs have been applied so far to achieve such versatility. A novel gain design for GaAs based VECSELs emitting at wavelengths >1.2 μm employs type-II quantum wells, which exhibit spatially indirect charge-carrier recombination. The first VECSEL based on such a design has been demonstrated very recently. Our device consists of ten (GaIn)As/Ga(AsSb)/(GaIn)As heterostructures arranged as a resonant periodic gain. We summarize the development of this pioneering structure and discuss the fundamental laser characteristics, such as carrier densities, gain temperatures and slope efficiency. Remarkable output powers up to 4 W are demonstrated in multi-transverse mode operation at 1.2 μm. Also, the performance in TEM00 operation is investigated, with an M2 < 1.13. One major difference to conventional type-I gain structures is a characteristic blue shift of the material gain. Due to the importance of the detuning in quantum well based surface-emitters, the blue shift has to be considered as a critical designing parameter. Hence, we carry out a detuning study in order to determine an optimal detuning. As an important part of the optimization, the experimental results are compared with fully microscopic simulations.
Ultrashort laser pulses from vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) have been receiving much attention in the semiconductor laser community since the first demonstration of sub-ps-pulsed devices more than a decade ago. Originally relying on semiconductor saturable-absorber mirrors for pulse formation, mode-locked operation has not only become accessible by using a variety of saturable absorbers, but also by using a saturable-absorber-free technique referred to as self-mode-locking (SML). Here, we highlight achievements in the field of SML-VECSELs with quantum-well and quantum-dot gain chips, and study the influence of a few VECSEL parameters on the assumed nonlinear lensing behavior in the system.
We present a serially-connected two-chip vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser design, which generates dual wavelength emission with a wavelength separation of 10 nm and over 600 W intracavity power. Intracavity type-I second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency generation have been performed in a LiNbO3 crystal. By employing different chip-combinations as well as birefringent filters, the laser is able to generate high-power emission with two wavelengths, which exhibit the same polarization and a desirable wavelength separation. Furthermore, the dependence of the emission wavelength on the cavity angle on the VECSEL chip is highlighted, which provides an additional means of wavelength tuning in VECSELs.
Vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) have proved to be versatile lasers which allow for various emission schemes which on the one hand include remarkably high-power multi-mode or single-frequency continuouswave operation, and on the other hand two-color as well as mode-locked emission. Particularly, the combination of semiconductor gain medium and external cavity provides a unique access to high-brightness output, a high beam quality and wavelength flexibility. Moreover, the exploitation of intra-cavity frequency conversion further extends the achievable radiation wavelength, spanning a spectral range from the UV to the THz. In this work, recent advances in the field of VECSELs are summarized and the demonstration of self-mode-locking (SML) VECSELs with sub-ps pulses is highlighted. Thereby, we present studies which were not only performed for a quantum-well-based VECSEL, but also for a quantum-dot VECSEL.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.