Generation and quenching of intensity pulsations in semiconductor lasers coupled to external cavities |
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Authors: | Kam Lau Figueroa L. Yariv A. |
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Affiliation: | California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA; |
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Abstract: | The behavior of self-pulsing and nonpulsing lasers coupled to external cavities is investigated experimentally and theoretically. We investigate the dependence of the pulsation characteristics on the external cavity length using a saturable absorber model for self-pulsing lasers. It was found that quenching of self-pulsation occurs only for a certain limited range of external cavity length, and the frequencies of external-cavity induced pulsations lies within a certain range determined by the coupling coefficient. Small-signal analysis allows these ranges to be derived analytically. Hitherto, complex pulsation phenomena can be explained very intuitively by interpreting the combined laser-external cavity system as a microwave oscillator with a limited gain band and discrete mode structure. |
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