By using strong optical injection locking, we report resonance frequency enhancement in excess of 100 GHz in semiconductor lasers. We demonstrate this enhancement in both distributed feedback (DFB) lasers and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), showing the broad applicability of the technique and that the coupling Q is the figure-of-merit for resonance frequency enhancement. We ha...

We propose a novel all-optical structure of phase lock loop for locking two semiconductor lasers with a stable microwave offset for use in phased-array antenna systems.

The performance, functionality and productivity of the semiconductor laser have been dramatically improved since its invention in 1962. Today it came to be indispensable for our life as optical components connecting home and the Internet as well as long-distance large-capacity trunk networks. It may be said that the information revolution pulled by the explosive spread of the Internet is origin...

Recent years have shown the importance of tunable semiconductor lasers in optical sensing. We describe the status quo concerning DFB laser diodes between 760 nm and 3,000 nm as well as new developments aiming for up to 80 nm tuning range in this spectral region. Furthermore we report on QCL between 3 μm and 16 μm and present new developments. An overview of the most interesting applications usi...

Slope efficiency (SE) is an important performance metric for lasers. In conventional semiconductor lasers, SE can be optimized by careful designs of the facet (or the modulation for DFB lasers) dimension and surface. However, photonic wire lasers intrinsically suffer low SE due to their deep sub-wavelength emitting facets. Inspired by microwave engineering techniques, we show a novel method to ...

The use of semiconductor diode lasers as pump sources for solid-state lasers was demonstrated as early as 1964.1 In the past few years the dramatic increase in output power of diode lasers 2 has made pumping of solid-state lasers practical. Recently it was shown that diode-laser-pumped Nd:YAG lasers offer advantages over lamp-pumped lasers, including high efficiency3 and good frequency stabilit...

The use of the postprocessing method consisting of bitwise Exclusive-OR and least significant bits extraction to generate random bit sequences typically requires two distinct chaotic outputs. While the two signals are, in general, generated using two separated devices, e.g. two Fabry-Perot lasers, a single semiconductor ring laser can be used as an alternative due to its circular symmetry which...

Generation of short optical pulses in semiconductor lasers is of practical interest for an increasing number of applications. It is also of fundamental interest because of its tight relation with the field of semiconductor laser dynamics. After an introductory review, we compare the performances of gain-switching, Q-switching and mode-locking techniques. The comparison is illustrated by experim...