<500-fs soliton pulse in a passively mode-locked surface-emitting laser with 100-mW average power

Summary form only given. Pulsed semiconductor lasers do not generally use the broad gain bandwidth to full advantage in the generation of sub-picosecond pulses. Here we show a breakthrough to the femtosecond level for Quantum-Well (QWs) VCSEL systems with high output power. We show a simple technology method to obtain fast recovery QW absorbers in the picosecond scale with low non-saturable losses. Our all-epitaxial VECSEL gain structure design gives a broadband smooth gain and efficient diode pumping. It was grown by MOCVD on a GaAs substrate. The bottom stack is an AlAs/GaAs Bragg structure, designed at 1030 nm. The active region consists of six strained balanced InGaAs/GaAsP QWs.