HIGH PEAK POWER PICOSECOND PULSE GENERATION FROM ALGAAS EXTERNAL CAVITY MODE-LOCKED SEMICONDUCTOR-LASER AND TRAVELING-WAVE AMPLIFIER

Thin active region single stripe aluminum gallium arsenide traveling-wave amplifiers have been used to generate and amplify 15 ps optical pulses to nearly 50 mW average powers and to peak powers in excess of 3 W. No appreciable temporal pulse distortion is observed after amplification. These peak power levels should prove to be sufficient to induce nonlinear optical effects in fibers.