Ultrafast dynamics of semiconductor disk lasers

Summary form only given. Passively modelocked optically pumped semiconductor disk lasers (SDLs) [1] based on InGaAs quantum wells (QWs) such as vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs) or modelocked integrated surface-emitting lasers (MIXSELs) are an appealing ultrafast laser technology for applications that require compelling combinations of short femtosecond pulses and gigahertz pulse repetition rates. Recent development of pulse shortening strategies resulted in record-short 107-fs pulses from a VECSEL [2] and 253-fs pulses from a MIXSEL [3]. However, this progress in shorter pulse durations has come with the trade-off of significantly lower optical-to-optical pump efficiency even below 1% and only moderate average output power of around 100 mW so far.Here, we develop a rate equation model to investigate the carrier dynamics in the SDL gain and absorber QWs with the aim to better understand the underlying physical reasons for this trade-off. In contrast to ab initio approaches [4], our goal is to simplify the model and still obtain full agreement with our experimental results.