Deriving of single intensive picosecond optical pulses from a high-power gain-switched laser diode by spectral filtering

Vainshtein, Sergey N.; Simin, Grigory; Kostamovaara, J.

doi:10.1063/1.368692

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Thus the development of a laser diode transmitter emitting optical pulses around 1 ns in duration with as high a peak power as possible (at least several tens of W) is a timely and challenging task, with the main problem lying in highcurrent nanosecond drivers. It is worth noting in addition that a reduction in optical pulse duration to well below 1 ns is also possible when the pumping current pulse of the laser diode becomes comparable with the lasing delay, and/or various transient gain-and Q-switching picosecond modes [10][11][12][13][14] can be realized. (SPADs also permit sub-ns, ~200ps, gating.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Miniature High-Power Nanosecond Laser Diode Transmitters Using the Simplest Possible Avalanche Drivers

Vainshtein

Zemlyakov

Егоркин

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

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The-state-of-the-art in long-distance near-infrared optical radars is the use of laser-diodebased miniature pulsed transmitters producing optical pulses of 3-10 ns in duration and peak power typically below 40W. The duration of the transmitted optical pulses becomes a bottleneck in the task of improving the radar ranging precision, particularly due to the progress made in developing single photon avalanche detectors (SPADs). The speed of miniature highcurrent drivers is limited by the speed of the semiconductor switch, either a gallium nitride (GaN) field-effect transistor, the most popular alternative nowadays, or a silicon avalanche bipolar junction transistor (ABJT), which was traditional in the past. Recent progress in the physical understanding of peculiar 3-D transients promises further enhancement in speed and efficiency of properly modified ABJTs, but that is not the only factor limiting the transmitter speed. We show here that a low-inductance miniature transmitter assembly containing only a specially developed capacitor, a more advanced transistor chip than that used in commercial ABJTs and a laser diode has allowed peak power from 40 to 180 W to be reached in optical pulses of 1-2 ns in duration without afterpulsing relaxation oscillations. This finding is of interest for compact low-cost, long-distance decimetreprecision lidars, particularly for automotive applications.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Miniature High-Power Nanosecond Laser Diode Transmitters Using the Simplest Possible Avalanche Drivers

Vainshtein

Zemlyakov

Егоркин

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Power Electron.

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“…Thus development of a laser diode transmitter emitting optical pulses around 1 ns in duration with as high as possible (at least several dozen W) peak power is the challenging task for long-ranging high-precision radars, and the main problem consists in high-current nanosecond drivers. It is additionally worth noting that a reduction in optical pulse duration well below 1 ns is possible when pumping current pulse of the laser diode becomes comparable with lasing delay, and various gain-and Q-switching picosecond modes [9,10,11] can be in principle realized, and even submicron precision of the distance measurement was demonstrated for the distance of 700 m using femtosecond laser [12]. Those modes are used in laboratory practice or for low-power laser transmitters, but they are not very reliable when broad laser diode chips with intrinsic structure inhomogeneity make the stability and reproducibility of the laser transmitter problematic in serial production quantities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanosecond Miniature Transmitters for Pulsed Optical Radars

Filimonov

Zemlyakov

Егоркин

et al. 2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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The-state-of-the-art in long-distance near-infrared optical radars is utilization the laser-diode-based miniature pulsed transmitters producing optical pulses of 3-10 ns in duration and peak power typically below 40W. The bandwidth of the receiving channel nowadays exceeds 300MHz, and thus the duration of the optical pulses exceeding 3 ns is a bottleneck in the task of high practical importance, namely increase in the radar ranging precision. Nowadays the speed of the high-current drivers is limited by the speed of a semiconductor switch that is typically field-effect transistor or an avalanche switch. The last one provides faster switching, and development of new avalanche switches is very challenging and important task, but this is not the only factor limiting the transmitter speed. Here we show that not only the switch, but also parasitic inductance in the miniature assembly and type of the capacitor play very important role in solving the problem of long-distance decimeterprecision radar.

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“…Their pulse energy is typically only a few tens of picojoules and, consequently, the pulses need to be amplified by several orders of magnitude to reach energy levels available nowadays from mode-locked lasers. When the SLDs are operated at higher power levels, the pulses typically become longer [5,6], and relaxation oscillations can manifest themselves in long pedestals following the main pulse [7,8]. Usually, the output pulses are chirped due to the transient gain dynamics [9][10][11][12], and the chirp is generally nonlinear.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-fidelity all-fiber amplification of a gain-switched laser diode

Abrardi¹,

Gusowski²,

Feurer³

2014

Appl. Opt.

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We demonstrate a multistage erbium fiber amplifier seeded by a gain-switched laser diode operating at a wavelength of 1550 nm and a repetition rate of 1 MHz. The pulse energy is 0.5 μJ, and the pulse duration is 40 ps, resulting in a peak power of 11.4 kW. The three-stage all-fiber amplifier system is designed to avoid any spectral distortions induced by gain saturation or nonlinear effects and high levels of amplified spontaneous emission. The output pulses are close to transform limited with a Gaussian pulse envelope.

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Deriving of single intensive picosecond optical pulses from a high-power gain-switched laser diode by spectral filtering

Cited by 13 publications

References 10 publications

Miniature High-Power Nanosecond Laser Diode Transmitters Using the Simplest Possible Avalanche Drivers

Miniature High-Power Nanosecond Laser Diode Transmitters Using the Simplest Possible Avalanche Drivers

Nanosecond Miniature Transmitters for Pulsed Optical Radars

High-fidelity all-fiber amplification of a gain-switched laser diode

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