Feedback engineering of semiconductor lasers: towards the generalized distributed feedback laser

Research Project, 2011 – 2013

This project will investigate entirely novel designs of the feedback (*mirror*) structures in longitudinal- and vertical-cavity semiconductor lasers. Since the optical feedback strongly influences the creation of light, this feedback engineering should be a powerful tool to precisely achieve the desired laser properties, e.g. ultralow bandwidth or simultaneous two-color lasing at exactly prescribed wavelengths. We recently demonstrated that efficient design of a perturbed ridge waveguide laser is possible, even under strong modification of the feedback. However, the design is only able to find solutions of Fabry-Perot type, which is still a most serious limitation of the solution space. In the project we will develop a design method for a generalized distributed feedback laser that can fulfill multiple desired criteria. We will also continue the processing development to realize such structures as well as epitaxially grown feedback structures for vertical-cavity lasers. We believe that the feedback structure presents a large number of additional degrees of freedom in the laser design that so far have been largely neglected. The project involves a mix of theoretical and experimental expertise in semiconductor laser science and unconventional structures for light control that should be favorable to gain access to this freedom. This may enable semiconductor lasers with highly special prescribed properties with little additional complexity in their fabrication.

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Publications

Realization of spectrally engineered semiconductor Fabry-Perot lasers with narrow geometrical tolerances

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