Analog, Digital And Short Pulse Modulation Of Ultrafast Gallium Aluminum Arsenide Semiconductor Lasers

Semiconductor lasers are potentially devices of great importance for optical transmission as well as short pulse generation for various sampling, characteration and dispersion measurements. Since semiconductor lasers are currently driven devices, it is relatively easy to modulate the optical output and to generate short pulses, on the order of 10 ps long, by directly modulating the injection current into the laser. This paper will present some recent developments in injection lasers which are capable of being analog or digitally modulated at rates up to 10 GHz, as well as generating short optical pulses at repetition rates from several hundred megahertz to tens of gigahertz.