Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications

A special issue of Photonics (ISSN 2304-6732).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2022) | Viewed by 12182

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Chongqing key Laboratory of Micro&Nano Structure Optoelectronics, Chongqing 400715, China
2. School of Physical Science and Technology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
Interests: semiconductor lasers; vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers; nonlinear dynamics; microwave photonics; optical communication; optical chaos; chaotic secure communication; random number generation; photonic neural networks; neuromorphic computing

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Integrated Service Networks, Xidian University, Xi'an, China
Interests: optical chaos; nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers; microwave photonics

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Intelligent Manufacturing, Wuyi University, Jiangmen, China
Interests: high-speed optical information processing; high-speed optical communication; chaotic radar ranging

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, Soochow University, Suzhou, China
Interests: laser dynamics; neuromorphic computing; chaos-based applications; and microwave photonics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Electronics and Information, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, China
Interests: photonics; especially semiconductor laser devices and laser dynamics; aiming at photonic computing and optical sensing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute your work to this Special Issue. In the past few years, researchers have witnessed the improvement of semiconductor lasers in power, spatial brightness, spectral brightness, and wavelength ranges from UV to mid-IR. They have also been exploring the dynamics of semiconductor lasers and revealing the underlying mechanisms. These advances have led to better performance and reduced costs, as well as having opened the door for new and direct laser-based applications, including optical communications, random number generation, radar/lidar, sensor, microwave photonics, neuromorphic computing, etc.

This Special Issue aims to collect both theoretical and experimental research publications, which will cover the current status, prospects, and challenges of the field in the designing and manufacturing of semiconductor lasers, as well as using semiconductor lasers for cutting-edge technologies.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Lasers based on novel semiconductor materials.
  • Laser modeling and experimental characterization of dynamics.
  • Laser networks and their synchronization properties.
  • Quantum cascade lasers, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, nanolasers, etc.
  • Optical communications and information encryption.
  • Lidar/radar/sensor, including imaging and ranging.
  • Microwave photonics.
  • Neuromorphic computing.
  • Random number generation and secure key distribution.
  • Spiking dynamics and its applications.
  • Other related applications of semiconductor lasers.

I/We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Tao Deng
Prof. Dr. Shuiying Xiang
Prof. Dr. Dong-Zhou Zhong
Prof. Dr. Nianqiang Li
Dr. Tao Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices can be found here.

Published Papers (5 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

11 pages, 2898 KiB  
Communication
High-Power Supersymmetric Semiconductor Laser with a Narrow Linewidth
by Yuanbo Xu, Ting Fu, Jian Fan, Wenzhen Liu, Hongwei Qu, Mingjin Wang and Wanhua Zheng
Photonics 2023, 10(3), 238; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics10030238 - 22 Feb 2023
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2711
Abstract
We have designed and fabricated a kind of supersymmetric slotted Fabry–Perot semiconductor laser near 1550 nm to achieve a single-mode, high-power, and narrow-linewidth operation. The structure of the laser is composed of an electrically pumped broad ridge waveguide in the middle to provide [...] Read more.
We have designed and fabricated a kind of supersymmetric slotted Fabry–Perot semiconductor laser near 1550 nm to achieve a single-mode, high-power, and narrow-linewidth operation. The structure of the laser is composed of an electrically pumped broad ridge waveguide in the middle to provide optical gain, a group of periodic slots etched near the front facet to suppress the extra longitudinal modes and achieve a narrow linewidth, and a pair of passive superpartner waveguides located on both sides to filter out the high-order lateral modes in the broad waveguide. The device measured under the temperature of 25 °C shows an output power of 113 mW, a single-lobe lateral far-field distribution with the full width at half maximum of 7.8°, a peak wavelength of 1559.7 nm with the side-mode suppression ratio of 48.5 dB, and an intrinsic linewidth of 230 kHz at the bias current of 800 mA. The device is a promising candidate for cost-effective light sources for coherent communication systems and LiDARs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 3024 KiB  
Article
Key Space Enhanced Correlated Random Bit Generation Based on Synchronized Electro-Optic Self-Feedback Loops with Mach–Zehnder Modulators
by Chuyun Huang, Xulin Gao, Sile Wu, Wenfu Gu, Biao Su, Yuncai Wang, Yuwen Qin and Zhensen Gao
Photonics 2022, 9(12), 952; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9120952 - 9 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1624
Abstract
With the widespread application of big data, the amount of data transmitted through optical networks has been increasing dramatically. Correlated random bit generation (CRBG) is one of the key technologies in secure communication systems to ensure security performance and transmission efficiency. We propose [...] Read more.
With the widespread application of big data, the amount of data transmitted through optical networks has been increasing dramatically. Correlated random bit generation (CRBG) is one of the key technologies in secure communication systems to ensure security performance and transmission efficiency. We propose and demonstrate a CRBG scheme based on a Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) electro-optic feedback loop to improve the security and speed of communication systems. In this scheme, common-signal-induced synchronization is accomplished to generate wideband complex physical entropy sources, and a private hardware module is employed to perform post-processing and nonlinear transformation of the synchronized signal. The simulation results show that the effective bandwidth of the output chaotic signal is significantly increased to 27.76 GHz, and high-quality synchronization with a correlation coefficient of over 0.98 is reached. A high-rate CRBG of up to 5.3 Gb/s is successfully achieved between two synchronized wideband physical entropy sources, and the hardware key space is enhanced to ∼242, which greatly improves the privacy of physical entropy sources. The proposed scheme provides a promising approach for high-speed private CRBG, which is expected to be used in high-speed secure key distribution and optical communication systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

10 pages, 5326 KiB  
Article
Determining System Parameters and Target Movement Directions in a Laser Self-Mixing Interferometry Sensor
by Bin Liu, Yuxi Ruan and Yanguang Yu
Photonics 2022, 9(9), 612; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9090612 - 29 Aug 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1833
Abstract
Self-mixing interferometry (SMI) is a promising sensing technology. As well as its compact structure, self-alignment and low implementation cost, it has an important advantage that conventional two-beam interferometry does not have, i.e., SMI signal fringe evolves into asymmetrical shape with increasing optical feedback [...] Read more.
Self-mixing interferometry (SMI) is a promising sensing technology. As well as its compact structure, self-alignment and low implementation cost, it has an important advantage that conventional two-beam interferometry does not have, i.e., SMI signal fringe evolves into asymmetrical shape with increasing optical feedback level, which leads to discrimination of target movement directions for unambiguous displacement measurement possible by a single-channel interferometric signal. It is usually achieved by using SMI signals in moderate feedback regime, where the signals exhibit hysteresis and discontinuity. However, in some applications, e.g., in biomedical sensing where the target has a low reflectivity, it is hard for the SMI system to operate in a moderate feedback regime. In this work, we present comprehensive analyses on SMI signal waveforms for determining system parameters and movement directions by a single-channel weak feedback SMI signal. We first investigated the influence of two system parameters, i.e., linewidth enhancement factor and optical feedback factor, on the symmetry of SMI signals. Based on the analyses on signal waveform, we then proposed a method of estimating the system parameters and displacement directions. The method was finally verified by experiments. The results are helpful for developing sensing applications based on weak feedback SMI systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

11 pages, 2517 KiB  
Communication
Simulation of an AlGaInAs/InP Electro-Absorption Modulator Monolithically Integrated with Sidewall Grating Distributed Feedback Laser by Quantum Well Intermixing
by Xiao Sun, Weiqing Cheng, Yiming Sun, Shengwei Ye, Ali Al-Moathin, Yongguang Huang, Ruikang Zhang, Song Liang, Bocang Qiu, Jichuan Xiong, Xuefeng Liu, John H. Marsh and Lianping Hou
Photonics 2022, 9(8), 564; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9080564 - 11 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3055
Abstract
A novel AlGaInAs/InP electro-absorption modulated laser (EML) with a simple fabrication process is proposed, in which the electro-absorption modulator (EAM) has a 10 nm blueshift induced by quantum well intermixing (QWI) and is monolithically integrated with a sidewall grating distributed-feedback (DFB) laser working [...] Read more.
A novel AlGaInAs/InP electro-absorption modulated laser (EML) with a simple fabrication process is proposed, in which the electro-absorption modulator (EAM) has a 10 nm blueshift induced by quantum well intermixing (QWI) and is monolithically integrated with a sidewall grating distributed-feedback (DFB) laser working at 1.55 μm wavelength. The extent of the QWI process is characterized by a diffusion length. The quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) is simulated in terms of extinction ratio (ER) and chirp for bias electric fields from 0 kV/cm to 200 kV/cm and for different amounts of intermixing. The results indicate that for a 150 µm-long EAM with a 10 nm blueshift induced by QWI, an ER of 40 dB is obtained at 2.5 V reverse bias with no penalty in chirp compared to an as-grown quantum well (QW) and the insertion loss at 0 V bias is 0.11 dB for 1.55 µm operation wavelength. The simulated –3 dB bandwidth of the electrical to optical power response is 22 GHz. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

12 pages, 3104 KiB  
Article
Numerical Demonstration of the Transmission of Low Frequency Fluctuation Dynamics Generated by a Semiconductor Laser with Optical Feedback
by Xinyu Dou, Shimeng Qiu and Wanqing Wu
Photonics 2022, 9(7), 483; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9070483 - 11 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1930
Abstract
In this paper, the transmission mechanism of the spike information embedded in the low frequency fluctuation (LFF) dynamic in a cascaded laser system is numerically demonstrated. In the cascaded laser system, the LFF waveform is first generated by a drive laser with optical [...] Read more.
In this paper, the transmission mechanism of the spike information embedded in the low frequency fluctuation (LFF) dynamic in a cascaded laser system is numerically demonstrated. In the cascaded laser system, the LFF waveform is first generated by a drive laser with optical feedback and is then injected into a response laser. The range of crucial system parameters that can make the response laser generate the LFF dynamic is studied, and the effect of parameter mismatch on the transmission of LFF dynamics is explored through a method of symbolic time-series analysis and the index, such as the spike rate and the cross-correlation coefficient. The results show that the mismatch of the pump current has a more significant influence on the transmission of LFF waveforms than that of the internal physical parameter of the laser, such as the linewidth enhancement factor. Moreover, increasing the injection strength can enhance the robustness of LFF transmission. As spikes of the LFF dynamic generated by lasers with optical feedback is similar to the spike of neurons, the results of this paper can help understanding the information transporting and processing inside the photonic neurons. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Semiconductor Lasers: Science and Applications)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop