Semiconductor Optics Group - Scientific work (overview)

Our scientific work is centered around the semiconductor laser (or "diode laser", "laser diode"). This type of laser offers the widest range of practical applications in every-day-life tasks, such as CD-players, laser printers, laser pointers or bar code readers. On the other hand, sc-lasers are well established in highly sophisticated technologies, such as optical high-speed data transmission or optical spectroscopy. The reasons for this widely spread use of sc-lasers are manyfold: cheap mass production using well known epitaxial growth methods, small spatial dimensions, simple operating schemes, high reliabilty, and a high modulation bandwidth.

Our aim in the semiconductor optics group is to explore a wide range of aspects and properties of sc-laser systems, using the most recent technologies and measurement techniques. Pure research on physics' basics (e.g. quantum noise, nonlinear dynamics) is performed in parallel with more application-headed work (e.g. short puls generation, optical properties of sc-waveguides). We pursue this wide-spread research in close cooperation with numerous institutions, universities, and companies, such as University of Marburg, DLR, Politecnico di Torino, Universitat de les Illes Balears (Palma de Mallorca), Deutsche Telekom, Stiftung Volkswagenwerk, SEL-Alcatel, Osram Opto Semiconductors…

In detail, our fields of research are the following:

Semiconductor Lasers, Semiconductor Waveguides

  • emission dynamics of sc-lasers:
    • sc-lasers subject to external feedback
    • broad area lasers
    • chaos control
    • chaos synchronization
    • coupled lasers
  • quantum noise properties and amplitude squeezed light:
    • edge-emitting sc-lasers
    • external cavity lasers
    • VCSELs
    • LEDs
    • coupled sc-devices
  • emission properties of VCSELs:
    • transverse mode formation
    • spatial interaction of carriers and optical field
    • temperature effects
    • guiding mechanisms
    • polarization dynamics
  • quantum information
    • preparation of entangled states with sc-devices
  • optical spectroscopy on sc-lasers and sc-waveguides
  • sc-lasers subject to phaseconjugate feedback
  • optical short pulse generation with sc-lasers
  • multisection sc-lasers
  • dynamical injection locking of sc-lasers
  • nonlinear optical properties of semiconductor waveguides