High powers and subpicosecond pulses from an external-cavity surface-emitting InGaAs/InP multiple quantum well laser

We demonstrate that surface-emitting lasers operating in an external cavity can produce high average powers, high peak powers, and ultrashort pulses. By optical pumping of InGaAs/InP multiple quantum well samples in an external cavity, we generated 190 mW both in continuous and mode-locked operation at 1.5 μm. Synchronous pumping at 100 MHz yielded 7.7 ps pulses with 15 mW average power. These were shortened to 1. 1 ps pulses with 64 W peak power by chirp compensation using diffraction gratings, and to 710 fs by negative group-velocity dispersion in an optical fiber.