Microscopic charge carrier dynamics within non-normal incidence VECSEL cavities

Abstract

Mode-locked vertical external-cavity surface emitting lasers are promising compact sources for high-power, ultrafast pulses with excellent beam quality and the flexibility offered by an external cavity. Typical models of these lasers use macroscopic or quasistatic approaches based on rate or delay differential equations. Although these approaches have shown widespread success, they often require numerous experimentally tuned parameters and cannot capture the ultrafast nonequilibrium dynamics present as the field interacts with the quantum well. The Maxwell Semiconductor Bloch Equations has reduced parametrization and captures the carrier dynamics by coupling together a numerical wave propagator to a first principles of quantum mechanical description of the induced microscopic polarization within the active semiconductor quantum well. We expand on this model utilizing a reference frame transform to model modelocking within VECSEL cavities with non-normally incident semiconductor heterostructures. Specifically, we demonstrate the effect of increased pumping on the fundamental and harmonic modelocking behaviors of V-cavity VECSELs as well as transverse kinetic hole burning during colliding pulse operation as seen in modelocked ring cavities. © 2021 SPIE. © 2021 SPIE. All rights reserved.