Mode-locked semiconductor lasers are attractive sources for applications such as nonlinear frequency conversion, optical processing, and free-space optical communications due to their low cost and compactness. However, conventional narrow stripe mode-locked lasers are always associated with low output power and pulse energy, although various techniques have been proposed for increasing the output power. In contrast, the use of tapered amplifier provides the advantage of achieving much higher output power while maintaining good temporal and spatial characteristics.

Instead of a more commonly employed master-slave configuration where the laser light of the master laser is coupled into the tapered amplifier and gets amplified, we demonstrated a novel type of mode-locked external ring cavity semiconductor laser which employs the tapered amplifier as gain element for generation of high power ultrashort pulses. A schematic diagram of the external ring cavity mode-locked laser system is shown in below.

We were able to demonstrate, to our knowledge, the first hybrid mode-locked external ring cavity semiconductor laser using tapered amplifier. Hybrid mode-locking with RF modulation combined with MQW saturable absorber has produced stable mode locking with ultrashort pulse duration and high output power. The amplifier and saturable absorber can be tailored to any wavelength in the visible-near IR range.

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