10-W Peak-Power Picosecond Optical Pulse Generation from a Triple Section Blue-Violet Self-Pulsating Laser Diode

We fabricated a triple-section self-pulsating GaN-based laser diode (SP-LD) and investigated the dependence of self-pulsating characteristics on the saturable-absorber (SA) section length to generate optical pulses with a higher peak power and shorter duration. By shortening the SA section to 30 mu m and applying a reverse bias of -12 V to the SA section, the optical pulses were shortened to 15 ps and the optical peak power became as high as 10W with a pulse repetition frequency of 1 GHz under dc operation. This is the highest peak power so far reported in an SP-LD under dc operation. (C) 2010 The Japan Society of Applied Physics