Picosecond visible light pulse generation using Q-switching in (GaIn)P laser diode

Picosecond light pulse generators are widely used in optical metrology, high-speed optoelectronics, spectroscopy etc. For the applications that do not need pulses of high energy (E<100 pJ) such generators based on laser diodes (LDs) are most suitable due to their well-known advantages. The simplest method of obtaining pulses of the order of 10 ps duration is Q-switching in LDs integrated with saturable absorbers. The devices of this type for near IR range are commercially produced by several firms. The present work is devoted to similar visible light emitters based on GaInP-AlGaInP DH LDs.