Passively mode-locked diode-pumped surface-emitting semiconductor laser

Abstract

A surface-emitting semiconductor laser has been passively mode locked in an external cavity incorporating a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The gain medium consists of a stack of 12 InGaAs-GaAs strained quantum wells, grown above a Bragg mirror structure, and pumped optically by a high-brightness diode laser. The mode-locked laser emits pulses of 22-ps full-width at half maximum duration at 1030 nm, with a repetition rate variable around 4.4 GHz.