Picosecond pulse generation with a cw GaAlAs laser diode

Abstract

We report the generation of 20-ps optical pulses at microwave repetition rate from a GaAlAs double-heterostructure diode operating cw at room temperature. The diode is operated in an external optical resonator and is actively modulated at 3 GHz. The pulses are measured by autocorrelation using SHG in LiIO3. They are the shortest pulses ever reported for a cw laser diode.