Compression of picosecond optical pulses from a strongly RF modulated InGaAsP DBR diode laser using a gires‐tournois interferometer

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Abstract
In ultrashort optical pulse generation by gain switching of semiconductor lasers, the chirping phenomenon that is the shift in the oscillation wavelength based on refractive‐index changes due to carrier fluctuations, is well known. Using this chirping phenomenon, it is possible to have direct pulse compression in conjunction with a dispersive device. However, since the output power of semiconductor lasers is usually smaller than that of other types of lasers, efficient optical compression systems are indispensable. In this paper, use of the dispersion of Gires‐Tournois (GT) interferometer is proposed and its dispersion characteristics are investigated. Then, using the GT interferometer, 6.5 ps optical pulses are obtained by the compression of the chirped 30 ps optical pulsed from a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) InGaAsP laser at 1.3 μm band by application of a strong RF modulation. The corresponding compression ratio is 4.6 with the peak power of 200 mW. Therefore, the usefulness of GT interferometer as the compressing device is confirmed.