Generation and Detection of Short Optical Pulses

Barrow, David Antony (1995) Generation and Detection of Short Optical Pulses. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Two-photon induced conductivity is observed in a reverse biased p-i-n GaAs/AlGaAs optical waveguide. When this waveguide was used as a the non-linear detection element of an autocorrelator, an autocorrelation trace of a passively Q-switched semiconductor laser at 1.3 mum and a passively Q-switched two-section semiconductor laser at 980 nm was successfully obtained. Self-pulsation is observed in a two-section strained GaAs/InGaAs quantum well laser with an observed pulse width of 25 ps, at frequencies up to 11 GHz. Self-pulsating frequencies up to 18 GHz have been observed in GaAs/AlGaAs QW two-section lasers. A non-monotonic relationship is seen between absorption in the saturable absorber and the applied reverse bias, in QW two-section lasers. Optoelectronic mixing of very high-frequency amplitude-modulated signals using a semiconductor laser simultaneously as a local oscillator and mixer is proposed. Experimental verification using a two section GaAs/InGaAs quantum well laser is presented. A monolithically integrated extended cavity modelocked laser fabricated by impurity free vacancy disordering of the quantum well structure is proposed. An extended cavity length of 2.25 mm is proposed giving a total cavity length of 2.5 mm, corresponding to a modelocked frequency of 17 GHz.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Additional Information: Adviser: John Marsh
• Keywords: Optics, Electrical engineering
• Date of Award: 1995
• Depositing User: Enlighten Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:1995-74752
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 27 Sep 2019 16:38
• Last Modified: 27 Sep 2019 16:38
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/74752