Abstract

Semiconductor lasers may play an important role in future photonic telecommunication switching networks. By mode-locking these semiconductor laser devices, compact and efficient sources become available for use in future photonic networks, ultrafast diagnostics, and high speed instrumentation. This talk presents recent results on the generation and application of high power ultrashort optical pulses from semiconductor laser diodes. The pulse duration and peak power of the generated optical pulses are 207 fs and 165 W, respectively, making these pulses both the shortest and most intense ever generated from an all semiconductor diode laser system. Applications of these high power optical pulses include ultrafast spectroscopy, where the nonlinear gain dynamics of the amplification process in traveling wave amplifiers have been investigated by using standard time resolved pump-probe techniques. Other applications utilizing these high power optical pulses will also be discussed, with an emphasis on optical clock distribution and network synchronization for SONET networks, high speed switching systems, and supercomputers.

© 1992 Optical Society of America