Turn-off characteristics of bistable laser diode

Abstract

Turn-off characteristics for tandem-electrode bistable laser diodes (bistable LD’s) were analyzed both experimentally and theoretically. A long tail in the light output waveform was observed when the turn-off injection current was near the switch-down current. Rate equations were solved with adiabatic approximation and gave a good explanation indicating that the tail was due to the relatively slow recovery of the saturable absorber. The analysis also showed that the turn-off time for bistable LD’s can be reduced to that for ordinary laser diodes, with sufficiently small injection current. Subnanosecond operation for bistable LD’s was found possible under optimal turn-off injection current.