Volume 71, Issue 12 pp. 100-107
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Compression of picosecond optical pulses from a strongly RF modulated InGaAsP DBR diode laser using a gires-tournois interferometer

Nai Zhang

Nai Zhang

Member

Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 980

Nai Zhang received a B.S. in Physics from Shanghai (China) Teachers University in 1982, and his M.S. from Tohoku University in 1985, where he is presently in the doctoral program. He is involved in research on generation and control of short pulses from semiconductor lasers.

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Asao Terukina

Asao Terukina

Nonmember

Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 980

Asao Terukina received his B.S. in 1984 in Engineering Electronics and Information from Okinawa University. In 1987 he received an M.S. degree from Tohoku University, and joined IBM Co. of Japan. He is currently involved in research on computer applications in the design of VLSI.

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Hiromasa Ito

Hiromasa Ito

Member

Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 980

Hiromasa Ito received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics Engineering from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, in 1966, 1969, and 1972, respectively. In 1972, he joined the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, where he is an Associate Professor. He has been involved in research on laser physics, nonlinear optics and materials, semiconductor lasers, and integrated optics. From 1975 to 1976 he was with the Ginzton Laboratory, Stanford University, involved in research on parametric oscillators. He was awarded the Yonezawa Prize in 1971.

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Humio Inaba

Humio Inaba

Member

Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan 980

Humio Inaba received the B.S. degree in Geophysics and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, in 1951 and 1962, respectively. After spending several years as a Special Graduate Research Fellow of the Department of Astrophysics, Tohoku University, he joined the Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, in 1957, where since 1965 he has been a Professor of Electronics Engineering and Applied Physics. His research interests currently include laser physics and technology, nonlinear optics, optical bistability, phase conjugation, ultrashort optical pulse generation from semi-conductor diode lasers, integrated optics including optical logic functions, laser and optical remote sensing, detection and processing of extremely weak light signals for biomedical measurements, and applications of lasers and optical electronics to biotechnology and medicine. He is also serving concurrently as Director of Biophoton Project in the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) program organized by the Research Development Corporation of Japan (JRDC) since 1986. He has received several prizes and awards: Inada, Okabe, Matsunaga, Yamaji, Shimadzu, etc. He is an IEEE Fellow and OSA Fellow.

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First published: 1988
Citations: 2

Abstract

In ultrashort optical pulse generation by gain switching of semiconductor lasers, the chirping phenomenon that is the shift in the oscillation wavelength based on refractive-index changes due to carrier fluctuations, is well known. Using this chirping phenomenon, it is possible to have direct pulse compression in conjunction with a dispersive device. However, since the output power of semiconductor lasers is usually smaller than that of other types of lasers, efficient optical compression systems are indispensable. In this paper, use of the dispersion of Gires-Tournois (GT) interferometer is proposed and its dispersion characteristics are investigated. Then, using the GT interferometer, 6.5 ps optical pulses are obtained by the compression of the chirped 30 ps optical pulsed from a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) InGaAsP laser at 1.3 μm band by application of a strong RF modulation. The corresponding compression ratio is 4.6 with the peak power of 200 mW. Therefore, the usefulness of GT interferometer as the compressing device is confirmed.

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