INTERNAL Q-SWITCHING IN SEMICONDUCTOR-LASERS - HIGH-INTENSITY PULSES OF THE PICOSECOND RANGE AND THE SPECTRAL PECULIARITIES

Optical pulses of similar to 100 ps duration, and similar to 10(2) W p ower were obtained from the industrial single heterostructure lasers w ith a standard pulse generation power of similar to 10 W in the intern al Q-switching mode. Temporal and spectral analyses allow three compon ents to be distinguished in the laser optical pulses: ordinary delayed pulses of large duration at energies considerably lower than the ener gy gap, short optical pulses caused by the gain-switching effect at hi gher energies, and short optical pulses at the end of the current puls e (Q-switching mode) at the highest energies. A model is proposed invo lving band tail states as a saturable absorber causing large delays.