"Single chip sources of high power, high repetition rate, ultrashort optical pulses"
Speaker: Prof Charles Ironside, University of Glasgow
Date: 27 July 2011
Time: 2pm
Venue: Building 46, room 2003
Abstract:
Many sources of ultrashort optical pulses are semiconductor diode laser pumped. However, it's not difficult to produced monolithically modelocked laser diodes (MMLDs)- just a multi-sectioned laser with a reversed biased section will passively modelock the laser and it will produce sub-picosecond pulses, at up to 2 terahertz repetition rates and up to 10W peak powers. For some applications, it may be possible that MMLDs replace the lasers that are traditionally pumped by laser diodes and thereby drastically reduce complexity.
In this talk we present the recent work of the optoelectronics group at the University of Glasgow who have explored the limits to this approach in terms of how short the pulses can be, what limits the magnitude and stability of the repetition rate and the average and peak output powers.
Biography:
Professor Charlie Ironside has been a member of the optoelectronics group at the University of Glasgow since 1984 and has worked on high speed optoelectronic devices and semiconductor lasers. He moved to Glasgow after post-doctoral work at the University of Oxford on high speed effects in semiconductors. While at Glasgow he has pioneered multiple colliding pulse modelocking of semiconductor lasers, the two photon semiconductor amplifier, resonant tunnelling diode optoelectronic integrated circuits and ultrafast all-optical switching in semiconductor waveguides. He also has interests in mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers and atomic spectroscopy in hollow core fibre both for sensing systems. His work has helped establish several start-up companies including Cascade Technologies, Intense and Compound Semiconductor Technologies.
For more details see:- http://userweb.elec.gla.ac.uk/i/ironside/