A self-optimizing approach to intra-cavity spectral shaping of external cavity mode-locked semiconductor lasers using edge-emitting multi-section diodes is presented. An evolutionary algorithm generates spectrally resolved phase- and amplitude masks that lead to the utilization of a large part of the net gain spectrum for mode-locked operation. Using these masks as a spectral amplitude and phase filter, a bandwidth of the optical intensity spectrum of 3.7 THz is achieved and Fourier-limited pulses of 216 fs duration are generated after further external compression.
We present a femtosecond laser diode system that is capable of autonomously adjusting itself to compensate for the external dispersion in an arbitrary application. The laser system contains a spatial light modulator inside the cavity which is controlled by an evolutionary algorithm in order to allow for phase and amplitude shaping of the laser emission. The cavity-internal dispersion control is shown to be much more efficient than an external control with a pulse shaper.
We investigate passively mode-locked diode lasers with external cavity for ultrashort pulse generation. Our strategy to achieve ultrashort pulses is to generate strongly chirped pulses with a maximized bandwidth and to compress them externally. By managing intracavity dispersion with an evolutionary algorithm, we obtain pulse widths as short as 278 fs following this approach. We analyze the bandwidth of the optimized pulses in comparison to the available net gain bandwidth of the diode laser device to derive further strategies for achieving shorter pulses.Index Terms-Mode-locked laser, semiconductor lasers, ultrafast pulse generation.
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