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Improving the modulation bandwidth in semiconductor lasers by passive feedback
We explore the concept of passive-feedback lasers for direct signal modulation at 40 Gbit/s. Based on numerical simulation and bifurcation analysis, we explain the main mechanisms in these devices which are crucial for modulation at high speed. The predicted effects are demonstrated experimentally by means of correspondingly designed devices. In particular a significant improvement of the modulation bandwidth at low injection currents can be demonstrated.
Mode transitions in distributed-feedback tapered master-oscillator power-amplifier
Theoretical and experimental investigations have been carried out to study the spectral and spatial behavior of monolithically integrated distributed-feedback tapered master-oscillators power-amplifiers emitting around 973 nm. Introduction of self and cross heating effects and the analysis of longitudinal optical modes allows us to explain experimental results. The results show a good qualitative agreement between measured and calculated characteristics.
Traveling wave analysis of non-thermal far-field blooming in high-power broad-area lasers
With rising current the lateral far-field angle of high-power broad-area lasers widens (far-field blooming) which can be partly attributed to non-thermal effects due to carrier induced refractive index and gain changes that become the dominant mechanism under pulsed operation. To analyze the non-thermal contribution to far-field blooming we use a traveling wave based model that properly describes the injection of the current into and the diffusion of the carriers within the active region. Although no pre-assumptions regarding the modal composition of the field is made and filamentation is automatically accounted for, the highly dynamic time-dependent optical field distribution can be very well represented by only few modes of the corresponding stationary waveguide equation obtained by a temporal average of the carrier density and field intensity. The reduction of current spreading and spatial holeburning by selecting proper design parameters can substantially improve the beam quality of the laser.
Dynamics in high-power diode lasers
High-power broad-area diode lasers (BALs) exhibit chaotic spatio-temporal dynamics above threshold. Under high power operation, where they emit tens of watts output, large amounts of heat are generated, with significant impact on the laser operation. We incorporate heating effects into a dynamical electro-optical (EO) model for the optical field and carrier dynamics along the quantum-well active zone of the laser. Thereby we effectively couple the EO and heat-transport (HT) solvers. Thermal lensing is included by a thermally-induced contribution to the index profile. The heat sources obtained with the dynamic EO-solver exhibit strong variations on short time scales, which however have only a marginal impact on the temperature distribution. We consider two limits: First, the static HT-problem, with time-averaged heat sources, which is solved iteratively together with the EO solver. Second, under short pulse operation the thermally induced index distribution can be obtained by neglecting heat flow. Although the temperature increase is small, a waveguide is introduced here within a few-ns-long pulse resulting in significant near field narrowing. We further show that a beam propagating in a waveguide structure utilized for BA lasers does not undergo filamentation due to spatial holeburning. Moreover, our results indicate that in BALs a clear optical mode structure is visible which is neither destroyed by the dynamics nor by longitudinal effects.
Additive splitting methods for parallel solution of evolution problems
We demonstrate how a multiplicative splitting method of order P can be used to construct an additive splitting method of order P + 3. The weight coefficients of the additive method depend only on P, which must be an odd number. Specifically we discuss a fourth-order additive method, which is yielded by the Lie-Trotter splitting. We provide error estimates, stability analysis, and numerical examples with the special discussion of the parallelization properties and applications to nonlinear optics.
Time-dependent simulation of thermal lensing in high-power broad-area semiconductor lasers
We propose a physically realistic and yet numerically applicable thermal model to account for short and long term self-heating within broad-area lasers. Although the temperature increase is small under pulsed operation, a waveguide that is formed within a few-ns-long pulse can result in a transition from a gain-guided to an index-guided structure, leading to near and far field narrowing. Under continuous wave operation the longitudinally varying temperature profile is obtained self-consistently. The resulting unfavorable narrowing of the near field can be successfully counteracted by etching trenches.
Efficient coupling of inhomogeneous current spreading and dynamic electro-optical models for broad-area edge-emitting semiconductor devices
We extend a 2 (space) + 1 (time)-dimensional traveling wave model for broad-area edgeemitting semiconductor lasers by a model for inhomogeneous current spreading from the contact to the active zone of the laser. To speedup the performance of the device simulations, we suggest and discuss several approximations of the inhomogeneous current density in the active zone.
Amplifications of picosecond laser pulses in tapered semiconductor amplifiers : numerical simulations versus experiments
We apply a travelling wave model to the simulation of the amplification of laser pulses generated by Q-switched or mode-locked distributed-Bragg reflector lasers. The power amplifier monolithically integrates a ridge-waveguide section acting as pre-amplifier and a flared gain-region amplifier. The diffraction limited and spectral-narrow band pulses injected in to the pre-amplifier have durations between 10 ps and 100 ps and a peak power of typical 1 W. After the amplifier, the pulses reach a peak power of several tens of Watts preserving the spatial, spectral and temporal properties of the input pulse. We report results obtained by a numerical solution of the travelling-wave equations and compare them with experimental investigations. The peak powers obtained experimentally are in good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The performance of the power amplifier is evaluated by considering the dependence of the pulse energy as a function of different device and material parameters.
Efficient coupling of electro-optical and heat-transport models for broad-area semiconductor lasers
In this work, we discuss the modeling of edge-emitting high-power broad-area semiconductor lasers. We demonstrate an efficient iterative coupling of a slow heat transport (HT) model defined on multiple vertical-lateral laser cross-sections with a fast dynamic electro-optical (EO) model determined on the longitudinal-lateral domain that is a projection of the device to the active region of the laser. Whereas the HT-solver calculates temperature and thermally-induced refractive index changes, the EO-solver exploits these distributions and provides time-averaged field intensities, quasi-Fermi potentials, and carrier densities. All these time-averaged distributions are used repetitively by the HT-solver for the generation of the heat sources entering the HT problem solved in the next iteration step.
Beam combining scheme for high-power broad-area semiconductor lasers with Lyot-filtered reinjection: Modeling, simulations, and experiments
A brightness- and power-scalable polarization beam combining scheme for high-power, broadarea semiconductor laser diodes is investigated numerically and experimentally. To achieve the beam combining, we employ Lyot-filtered optical reinjection from an external cavity, which forces lasing of the individual diodes on interleaved frequency combs with overlapping envelopes and enables a high optical coupling efficiency. Unlike conventional spectral beam combining schemes with diffraction gratings, the optical coupling efficiency is insensitive to thermal drifts of laser wavelengths. This scheme can be used for efficient coupling of a large number of laser diodes and paves the way towards using broad-area laser diode arrays for cost-efficient material processing, which requires high-brilliance emission and optical powers in the kW-regime.