Abstract

Passively modelocked VECSELs continue to improve their performance in terms of output power, repetition rate and pulse duration. Recently, up to 6.4 W of average power in 28-ps pulses have been achieved from a modelocked VECSEL with an integrated saturable absorber (MIXSEL, [1]). The shortest pulse duration generated by a VECSEL was 60 fs and below 35 mW of average output power in harmonic modelocking [2]. To date, femtosecond VECSELs were based on quantum well (QW) gain structures and the average output power has been limited to <150 mW [3, 4] (Fig. 1a). In contrast, modelocked VECSELs based on quantum dot (QD) gain structures have been restricted to 18 ps using QW-SESAMs [5].

© 2011 Optical Society of America