Uncooled 2.5 Gb/s operation of 1.3 mum GaInNAs DQW lasers over a wide temperature range.

Ridge waveguide 1.3 mum GaInNAs lasers were fabricated from high quality double quantum well material grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Short cavity (250 mum) lasers have low threshold currents and small temperature dependencies of threshold current and slope efficiency, with a characteristic temperature of the threshold current as high as 200 K. The temperature stability allows for uncooled 2.5 Gb/s operation up to temperatures as high as 110 degrees C with a constant modulation voltage and only the bias current adjusted for constant average output power. Under these conditions, an extinction ratio larger than 6 dB and a spectral rms-width smaller than 2 nm are obtained.

Mode locking a 1550 nm semiconductor disk laser by using a GaInNAs saturable absorber.

Passive mode locking of an optically pumped, InP-based, 1550 nm semiconductor disk laser by using a GaInNAs saturable absorber mirror is demonstrated. To reduce material heating and enable high-power operation, a 50 microm thick diamond heat spreader is bonded to the surface of the gain chip. The laser operates at a repetition frequency of 2.97 GHz and emits near-transform-limited 3.2 ps pulses with an average output power of 120 mW.