Mode locking of external-cavity semiconductor lasers with saturable Bragg reflectors

We demonstrate the mode locking of external-cavity semiconductor lasers by using a saturable Bragg reflector as an external reflector. Output pulses of 1.9 ps were generated from the semiconductor lasers without dispersion compensation. By coupling the output to a standard single-mode filter with a length of 35 m to compensate for the linear chirp, me have achieved mode-locked pulse durations as short as 880 fs. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America {[}S0740-3224(99)01107-8].