Spatio-temporal characteristics of filamentation in broad-area semiconductor lasers

Author

Marciante, John R. ; Agrawal, Govind P.

Author_Institution

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

Volume

33

Issue

7

fYear

1997

fDate

7/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1174

Lastpage

1179

Abstract

Using the time dependent rate equations appropriate for semiconductor lasers, we perform a linear stability analysis to derive an analytic expression for the filament gain as a function of the filament spacing, oscillation frequency, linewidth-enhancement factor, pumping level, and nonlinear refractive index. The spatio-temporal characteristics of filamentation are obtained for a given set of operating parameters by maximizing the filament gain. Our theory predicts that there is a critical value of the linewidth-enhancement factor below which broad-area lasers remain stable even at high pumping levels. Moreover, under certain conditions, the self-defocusing Kerr-type nonlinearity can be used to suppress filamentation even when the linewidth-enhancement factor exceeds this critical value

Keywords

laser stability; laser theory; optical Kerr effect; optical pumping; refractive index; semiconductor device models; semiconductor lasers; analytic expression; broad-area laser stability; broad-area semiconductor lasers; critical value; filament gain; filament spacing; filamentation; high pumping levels; linear stability analysis; linewidth-enhancement factor; nonlinear refractive index; operating parameters; oscillation frequency; pumping level; self-defocusing Kerr-type nonlinearity; spatio-temporal characteristics; time dependent rate equations; Frequency; Laser excitation; Laser stability; Nonlinear equations; Performance analysis; Performance gain; Pump lasers; Refractive index; Semiconductor lasers; Stability analysis;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.594881

Filename

594881