Optically-Pumped Vertical-External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers

Professor Yanrong Song

Beijing University of Technology, China

3:30 pm Friday, 2 October 2009, EN101 (Ground Floor, EN Building), Hawthorn.

Optically- pumped vertical- external- cavity surface- emitting lasers (VECSELs or known as Semiconductor disk lasers) hold the advantages both of the traditional surface-emitting lasers and the diode-pumped solid-state disk lasers. Instead of the top distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) in the vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VESELs), VECSELs use an adjustable external mirror as an output coupler, so a circular, near-diffraction-limited beam can be produced. In addition to the circular TEM00 mode and the high power output, VECSELs also allow intracavity frequency doubling and mode-locking operation. Another advantage is that when we adjust the composition of the wafer, we could obtain the laser wavelength which meets our special needs.

Here, we introduce the structure of the VECSEL, including the whole setup of the experiment and the design of the wafer. Theoretical models are given about the edge-emitting photoluminescence (PL) spectrum, the surface-emitting PL spectrum and the output characteristic. At the same time, we demonstrate our experimental results, such as frequency doubling and mode-locking output.

As a novel kind of laser resources, it can be used in light-clock, communication, display, biochemistry analysis and medicine.

Back to 2009 programme