A program of research is proposed to understand the science and advance the technology of semiconductor modelocked lasers and to reduce the pulse width and increase the output power by more than one order of magnitude. The research comprises the study of static and dynamic dispersion in monolithic mode locked lasers as well as their minimization by the incorporation of quantum dot active regions in the devices to reduce or eliminate the dynamic dispersion and the use of static dispersive elements to compensate the natural static dispersion. The objective of the experimental and analytical studies will be to produce devices with minimal dispersion over a broad spectral bandwidth to achieve pulse widths as short as 100 fs, average powers as high as 20 mW and pulse repetition rates as high as 40 GHz.
The program will be carried by a woman graduate student and two undergraduate assistants who are recruited from the USC Merit research program. The PhD student will undertake all of the analytical and experimental work of the program including materials growth, device fabrication and testing as well as detailed modeling of the device physics. These students will insure that the interdisciplinary research and training that is carried out is received by a minority person and by people young enough are exposed early in their careers to the inherent interdisciplinary nature of device. Finally, the knowledge learned will be included in two courses on photonics that form the core of the photonics education program at USC.
