Spatial feedback effects in narrow-stripe index-guided semiconductor lasers

Author

Marciante, John R. ; van Tartwijk, Guido H M ; Agrawal, Govind P.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Opt., Rochester Univ., NY, USA

Volume

33

Issue

3

fYear

1997

fDate

3/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

469

Lastpage

473

Abstract

We demonstrate experimentally that spatial effects of feedback are important in determining the operating characteristics of index-guided semiconductor lasers. It is in fact the inflexibility of the index-guided mode that makes the laser susceptible to small misalignments of the external cavity, which can induce power variations of nearly 40% of the solitary laser power with feedback levels of less than 2%.(-17 dB). With a simple model, we calculate the modification of the feedback wavefront as a function of the external cavity length and show that the power variations are induced through changes in the cavity loss brought on by the interference of the feedback field with the field reflected off the laser facet. By experimental comparison to a partly gain-guided laser, we conclude that these large-scale variations will be significantly reduced or absent in purely gain-guided lasers

Keywords

laser beams; laser cavity resonators; laser feedback; laser modes; optical losses; refractive index; semiconductor lasers; cavity loss; external cavity; external cavity length; feedback field interference; feedback levels; feedback wavefront; index-guided mode; index-guided semiconductor lasers; large-scale variations; misalignments; narrow-stripe index-guided semiconductor lasers; operating characteristics; power variations; purely gain-guided lasers; solitary laser power; spatial effects; spatial feedback effects; Fiber lasers; Laser beams; Laser feedback; Laser modes; Optical beams; Optical feedback; Optical waveguides; Power lasers; Semiconductor lasers; Waveguide lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.556017

Filename

556017