Optical and RF stability transfer in a monolithic coupled-cavity colliding pulse mode-locked quantum dot laser

Abstract

We report a novel quantum dot based laser design where a stable high-Q master laser is used to injection lock a passively mode-locked monolithic colliding pulse slave laser. Coupling between the crossed orthogonal laser cavities is achieved through a common monolithically integrated saturable absorber, which results in the locking and hence reduction of the timing jitter as well as the long-term frequency drift of the slave laser. A stable 30 GHz optical pulse train is generated with more than 10 dB reduction in the RF noise level at 20 MHz offset and close to 3 times reduction in the 10 dB average optical linewidth of the slave laser.