Broadband semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors in the 1.55-μm wavelength range for pulse generation in fiber lasers

Xiang, N.; Guină, Mircea; Vainionpaa, A.; Lyytikäinen, Jari; Suomalainen, Soile; Saarinen, M.; Okhotnikov, Oleg G.; Sajavaara, Timo; Keinonen, J.

doi:10.1109/3.992550

Cited by 27 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Passive mode-locking by semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors ͑SESAMs͒ has been successfully developed in solid-state lasers, [1][2][3][4][5] fiber lasers, [6][7][8][9][10] and semiconductor lasers 5,[11][12][13] in a wide wavelength region to produce ultrashort optical pulses. For data storage applications, in order to achieve high-speed operation as well as high-density storage, the high-repetition-rate, ultrashort optical pulses in the blue/ultraviolet ͑UV͒ region have become indispensable.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Interference-Induced Reflectivity Fluctuations in GaN-Based Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror

Lin

Xiang

Wang

et al. 2008

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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Simulations and experiments were carried out to suppress the interference-induced reflectivity fluctuations in a nonmonolithically grown broad-band GaN-based semiconductor saturable absorber mirror ͑SESAM͒. Laser lift-off of the sapphire substrate, inductively coupled plasma etching of the GaN buffer, and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition of the antireflective coating were conducted according to the simulated optimization processes. The interference-induced reflectivity fluctuations were effectively reduced. Characterizations by atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and photoluminescence further indicated that the SESAM after the optimization processes exhibited a good surface morphology, crystal quality, and emission property.Passive mode-locking by semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors ͑SESAMs͒ has been successfully developed in solid-state lasers, 1-5 fiber lasers, 6-10 and semiconductor lasers 5,11-13 in a wide wavelength region to produce ultrashort optical pulses. For data storage applications, in order to achieve high-speed operation as well as high-density storage, the high-repetition-rate, ultrashort optical pulses in the blue/ultraviolet ͑UV͒ region have become indispensable. However, the blue/UV ultrashort optical pulses have so far been obtained mainly by frequency conversion methods from infrared solid-state lasers, such as Ti:sapphire lasers 14 or Cr:LiSAF lasers. 15 The direct generation of ultrashort blue/UV optical pulses by passive mode-locking has not been reported yet. One of the major reasons is the difficulty in monolithically fabricating broad-band high-reflective GaN-based distributed Bragg reflectors ͑DBRs͒, due to the lack of suitable semiconductor DBR materials lattice matched to GaN. Though GaN/AlGaN DBRs monolithically grown on GaN have been reported, 16-20 they had very narrow stopbands ͑about 15 nm near the 415 nm wavelength͒ 19,20 due to the small refractive index difference between GaN and AlGaN.To overcome the limitation of the monolithic DBR, we have recently reported the fabrication of a broadband SESAM with a SiO 2 /Si 3 N 4 dielectric DBR. 21 Taking advantage of the dielectric DBR, an over-100 nm stopband with a high reflectivity was achieved. However, this nonmonolithic SESAM suffered from severe interference-induced reflectivity fluctuations within the stopband. For example, in a small wavelength span of about 5 nm, the magnitude of the interference-induced reflectivity fluctuations could be ϳ6% ͑see Fig. 5 in Ref. 21͒, which was comparable to the modulation depth of the saturable absorber ͑ϳ5%͒. 21 If used for mode-locking, this SESAM would encounter severe instability. Therefore, further optimizations were necessary to suppress the reflectivity fluctuations.In this paper, a series of optimization processes was conducted on the GaN-based nonmonolithic SESAM to suppress the interference-induced reflectivity fluctuations. The optimization processes were first designed by simulation. Laser lift-off of the sapphire substrate, indu...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Suppression of Interference-Induced Reflectivity Fluctuations in GaN-Based Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror

Lin

Xiang

Wang

et al. 2008

J. Electrochem. Soc.

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“…However, the quaternary alloy CLs significantly complicate the epitaxial growth process, and the high In content in InGaAs CLs degrades the crystalline and optical quality of the QDs, which introduces more nonradiative recombination centers. The 1550-nm emission has been obtained with InAs/GaAs QDs grown on metamorphic substrates, but poor reliability and repeatability remain as the severe issues for such technique [34]. In our previous work, the asymmetric InAs/GaAs QDs working at 1550 nm were fabricated, by which a mode-locked Er-doped glass oscillator has been achieved with 2 ps pulse width [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a 1550-nm InAs/GaAs Quantum Dot Saturable Absorber Mirror with a Short-Period Superlattice Capping Structure Towards Femtosecond Fiber Laser Applications

Jiang

Ning

et al. 2019

Nanoscale Res Lett

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Low-dimensional III–V InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) have been successfully applied to semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) working at a 900–1310-nm wavelength range for ultrafast pulsed laser applications benefitting from their broad bandwidth, wavelength flexibility, and low saturation fluence. However, it is very challenging to obtain a high-performance QD-SESAM working at the longer wavelength range around 1550 nm due to the huge obstacle to epitaxy growth of the QD structures. In this work, for the first time, it is revealed that, the InAs/GaAs QD system designed for the 1550-nm light emission range, the very weak carrier relaxation process from the capping layers (CLs) to QDs is mainly responsible for the poor emission performance, according to which we have developed a short-period superlattice (In0.20Ga0.80As/In0.30Ga0.70As)5 as the CL for the QDs and has realized ~ 10 times stronger emission at 1550 nm compared with the conventional InGaAs CL. Based on the developed QD structure, high-performance QD-SESAMs have been successfully achieved, exhibiting a very small saturation intensity of 13.7 MW/cm2 and a large nonlinear modulation depth of 1.6 %, simultaneously, which enables the construction of a 1550-nm femtosecond mode-locked fiber lasers with excellent long-term working stability.

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“…In addition, as in the case of modelocking by SESAM, the wavelength tunability depends on its resonant nonlinearity. A major consequence of this issue is that the wavelength range of operation is limited to a few tens of nanometers [22][23][24][25][26][27], and thus is not suitable for broadband tunable pulse generation [7,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon nanotube-based mode-locked wavelength-switchable fiber laser via net gain cross section alteration

et al. 2016

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We have proposed and demonstrated a carbon nanotube-based mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser with switchable wavelength in the C-band wavelength region by varying the net gain cross section of erbium. The carbon nanotube is coated on a tapered fiber to form the saturable absorber for the purpose of mode-locking by exploiting the concept of evanescent field interaction on the tapered fiber with the carbon nanotube in a ring cavity configuration. The propagation loss is adjusted by inducing macrobend losses of the optical fiber in the cavity through a fiber spooling technique. Since the spooling radius can be gradually adjusted to achieve continuous tuning of attenuation, this passive tuning approach can be an alternative to optical tunable attenuator, with freedom of external device integration into the laser cavity. Based on this alteration, the net gain cross section of the laser system can be tailored to three different lasing wavelength ranges; 1533, 1560 nm and both (1533 and 1560 nm) with the minimum pulse duration of 734 fs. The proposed design is simple and stable with high beam quality and good reliability for multiple applications.

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Broadband semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors in the 1.55-μm wavelength range for pulse generation in fiber lasers

Cited by 27 publications

References 16 publications

Suppression of Interference-Induced Reflectivity Fluctuations in GaN-Based Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror

Suppression of Interference-Induced Reflectivity Fluctuations in GaN-Based Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror

Development of a 1550-nm InAs/GaAs Quantum Dot Saturable Absorber Mirror with a Short-Period Superlattice Capping Structure Towards Femtosecond Fiber Laser Applications

Carbon nanotube-based mode-locked wavelength-switchable fiber laser via net gain cross section alteration

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