Generating short pulses = mode-locking Locking the phases of the laser modes yields an ultrashort pulse.

A generic ultrashort-pulse laser A generic ultrafast laser has a broadband gain medium, a pulse-shortening device, and two or more mirrors:

An MLLD (Mode-locked Laser Diodes) is a promising device as a light source for alloptical processing systems because it has excellent features of a semiconductor laser and mode-locking technique. There are two types of MLLD differentiated by the modulation methods. Active mode locking for electrical modulation. Passive mode locking for optical modulation. In an active MLLD, the mode-locking process is forcibly induced by external modulation and an output pulse train is synchronized with the external signal. Passive MLLD needs no external modulation source for pulse generation and the characteristics do not suffer from electrical limitation, whereas the repetition frequency is not synchronized with external electrical signals. In order to solve the above problem during practical use, hybrid mode locking and optical synchronous mode locking have been developed.

From the point of view of cavity configuration, MLLDs can be categorized into two types, namely external cavity and monolithic types. An external-cavity MLLD has the advantages that usable functions such as a wavelength tuning and repetition frequency tuning can be added by inserting optical components into the cavity. A monolithic MLLD, in contrast, has the advantage of a smaller size and mechanical stability as compared with an external cavity MLLD.

Active Mode Locking

Active mode locking arises from the electrical modulation of gain or loss in a laser cavity at a frequency near the round-trip frequency.

Schematic cross-section and driving method of an active MLLD

In this case, a laser diode is integrated with an electroabsorption (EA) modulator in the cavity. Another feature of active mode locking is that it modulates directly to a part of the gain section without an EA modulator. The round-trip frequency fr of a laser diode is given in the following expression: where c is the velocity of light in a vacuum, ng is the refractive index for the group velocity in the cavity, and L is the cavity length. When a RF electric field at the frequency of fM near fr is applied to the electro-absorption layer, the absorption coefficient is described by: where 0 is a constant, and M is the modulation coefficient, and fM is the modulation frequency. The repetition frequency is equal to fM, and close to the round-trip frequency. According to Hauss theory [38], the output pulse shape of active mode locking becomes a Gaussian waveform, and the pulse width is given by

where g is the gain of the peak, fL is the bandwidth of the gain, and the dispersion of the resonator is disregarded. It is an important relationship that the pulse width is inversely proportional to the fourth root of the modulation index M.

Passive Mode Locking

Device structure for monolithic type of passive MLLD In the case of passive mode locking, a saturable absorber (SA) is substituted for the EA modulator of an active MLLD. A multiple quantum well (MQW) structure of same material as the gain section is ordinarily used as an SA.When currents are injected into a gain section and an SA is reverse biased, passive mode locking occurs. Note that the pulse generation can only be obtained by DC bias without high-speed electronics. Generally, an SA is placed at a resonator edge where a light pulse arrives once in every round-trip. In contrast, a configuration where an SA is located at the center of a laser cavity is called a colliding pulse mode-locked laser diode (CPM-LD). The CPM can reduce the absorption saturation energy equivalently by coherent interaction between incoming optical pulses from both sides of the gain section at the SA. The mode-locked frequency fML for passive mode locking is N times round-trip frequency (where N is an integer). It is called fundamental mode locking when N =1 and Nth order harmonic mode locking when N =2. Above figure illustrates a case where an SA is placed in the resonator edge and N =1, and a case where CPM configuration usually becomes N =2. In addition, higher order harmonic mode locking can be performed by putting an SA at a suitable position utilizing a CPM effect. According to Hauss theory, the pulse shape of passive mode locking becomes a sech2 waveform, and the pulse width is given by:

where Ep is the pulse energy, EA is the absorption saturation energy, EL is the gain saturation energy, q(i) is the saturable absorption normalized by the cavity loss before

passage of the pulse, g(i) is gain normalized by the cavity loss before passage of the pulse, and fc is the gain bandwidth. The pulse width is narrower, as the pulse energy is larger, the saturation energy is smaller, and nonlinear absorption is larger. This means that passive mode-locking characteristics depend on gain and absorption modulation depth and on the intracavity pulse energy.

This is the necessary condition for the absorption saturation energy to be smaller than the gain saturation energy.

Hybrid Mode Locking:

Schematic cross-section and driving method of a hybrid MLLD RF signal when a frequency around the round-trip frequency of the passive MLLD is applied to the SA.