SKM 2021 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten

DS 5: Focus Session: Highlights of Materials Science and Applied Physics I (joint session DS/HL)

DS 5.2: Topical Talk

Dienstag, 28. September 2021, 14:00–14:30, H3

Tuning Semiconductor Mode-Locked Laser Frequency Combs by Gain and Cavity Design — Stefan Meinecke and •Kathy Lüdge — Institute of Theoretical Physics, Technische Univ. Berlin

Passively mode-locked semiconductor lasers produce sequences of short optical pulses at high repetition rates without the need for an external driving frequency. They find applications in optical data communication and metrology and are promising candidates for comb generation in all-optical integration schemes [1].

The gain material as well as the cavity design play a crucial role for their performance and can be designed easily via epitaxial growth. We explore the pulse performance optimization of a three-section tapered quantum-dot laser by means of a numerical model that assumes both the microscopic charge-carrier scattering processes as well as the light-propagation along the device. Motivated by an experimentally characterized device [2], we utilize pulse peak power, pulse width and long-term timing jitter to characterize the performance. The results predict optimal configurations for both the angle of the tapered gain section and the position of the saturable absorber section. These findings can be interpreted and understood in terms of the gain and absorption recovery processes within the active regions of the laser and thus explain why the nano-structured quantum-dot gain medium is especially suited for optimizing the pulse performance.

[1] R. Guzmán et al., Opt. Lett. 42, 2318 (2017).

[2] S. Meinecke et al., Sci. Rep. 9, 1783 (2019).