Abstract
We review the temporal dynamics of the laser output spectrum and polarization state of 1.55 μm wavelength single-mode (SM) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) induced by external optical beam injection. Injection of an external continuous-wave laser beam to a gain-switched SM VCSEL near the resonance wavelength corresponding to its main polarization-mode output was critical for improvement of its laser pulse generation characteristics, such as pulse timing-jitter reduction, linewidth narrowing, pulse amplitude enhancement, and pulse width shortening. Pulse injection of pulse width shorter than the cavity photon lifetime into the SM VCSEL in the orthogonal polarization direction with respect to its main polarization mode caused temporal delay of the polarization recovery after polarization switching (PS), and its delay was found to be the minimum at an optimized bias current. Polarization-mode bistability was observed even in the laser output of an SM VCSEL of a standard circularly cylindrical shape and used for all-optical flip-flop operations with set and reset injection pulses of very low pulse energy of order of the 3.5~4.5 fJ.
Highlights
Dynamical laser output of the vertical-cavity surfaceemitting lasers (VCSELs) under injection of an external laser beam has been investigated widely for potential application to pulse timing-jitter reduction, polarization switching, alloptical flip-flop operation, and long-distance fiber transmissions [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]
Influence of an external laser beam injection to the SM VCSELs on their laser output characteristics has been studied experimentally, and some of them were explained by numerical simulation
Continuous-wave laser beam injection to a gain-switched SM VCSEL near the resonance wavelength corresponding to the main polarization mode lasing reduced the pulse timing jitter, narrowed the linewidth, enhanced the pulse amplitude, and shortened the pulse width
Summary
Dynamical laser output of the vertical-cavity surfaceemitting lasers (VCSELs) under injection of an external laser beam has been investigated widely for potential application to pulse timing-jitter reduction, polarization switching, alloptical flip-flop operation, and long-distance fiber transmissions [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]. The PS and induced bistability mechanism of the VCSEL output under a laser beam injection of orthogonal polarization to the VCSEL’s main polarization mode were used for demonstration of all-optical flip-flop operation and optical buffer memory application [10,11,12,13]. We introduce how the PS dynamics can be used for high-speed all-optical flip-flop application
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