SC167 Fundamentals of Semiconductor Lasers: Edge-Emitters to Micro Cavity Devices

Tuesday, May 18, 2010
8:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Kent Choquette¹, Weng Chow²; ¹Univ. of Illinois, USA, ²Sandia Natl. Labs, USA
Level: Beginner (no background or minimal training is necessary to understand course material)


Course Description

This course will provide an overview of semiconductor lasers. We start from fundamental laser principles, discuss examples of laser structures, and include example laser applications. This entry-level course will examine the basic principles of lasers and the physics of semiconductor gain. Examples of edge emitting lasers, microcavity lasers such as VCSELs and photonic crystal emitters, and their emerging applications will be discussed. The physics underlying the laser active regions, including many-body effects and examples of application of the theory will be presented. These examples involve laser systems ranging from VCSELs to wide-bandgap and quantum-dot lasers. Contempory topics such as high speed modulation and quantum dot active regions will also be introduced.


Benefits and Learning Objectives

This course should enable you to:

  • Describe the necessary components of a laser.
  • Describe the stimulated emission process.
  • Describe the spectral dependence of semiconductor optical gain
  • Compare analysis approaches for laser gain spectra.
  • Summarize the properties of edge emitting lasers.
  • List the advantages of various types of microcavity lasers.
  • Compare the properties of microcavity versus conventional lasers.
  • List example applications of edge-emitting lasers and VCSELs

Intended Audience

This course is directed toward students, researchers and system developers who are interested in an introduction to laser physics, the device technologies including state-of-the-art of performance, as well as the present and emerging applications.


Biography

Kent D. Choquette is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Illinois. His photonic device research group is involved with the design, fabrication and applications of microcavity light sources and nano-fabrication. He is a Fellow of IEEE, OSA and SPIE.

Weng Chow is a distinguished member of technical staff at Sandia National Labs and is engaged in research of semiconductor laser theory. He co-authored the books Semiconductor-Laser Physics and Semiconductor-Laser Fundamentals: Physics of Gain Materials. He is an OSA Fellow, a recipient of the U.S. DOE Material Sciences Award and the Alexander von Humboldt Scientist Award.