[17p-B403-1~17] 3.5 Laser system and materials

▲ [17p-B403-16] Gain-switching operation of a semiconductor laser having a long photon lifetime

〇(M1)Hejie Yan^1,2, JuiHung Hung², Kazuo Sato², Hirohito Yamada^1,2, Hiroyuki Yokoyama^1,2 (1.School of Eng., Tohoku Univ., 2.NICHe, Tohoku Univ.)

Keywords:gain-switching laser diode, photon lifetime, external cavity

We have generated sub-ns optical pulses by using external cavity laser diode geometry. This technology is expected to be useful in multiphoton bioimaging and laser processing applications. From the rate-equation calculation, to obtain gain-switched (GS) optical pulses of sub-ns pulse width or longer, the simplest and most effective way is to increase the photon lifetime. Through tuning the external cavity length, we have successfully extended the photon life and, thus extended the GS pulse width to sub-ns range (e.g. 740 ps). Therefore, by controlling the photon lifetime, it is expected to generate optical pulses with a pulse width of several ps to sub-ns (or more) from GS-LDs.