Picosecond Dynamics of a Gain-Switched InGaAsP Laser

01 January 1987

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Optical pulses are observed, with subpicosecond resolution, from an InGaAsP laser driven with 17 ps wide electrical pulses. The temporal of these gain-switched pulse is analyzed to obtain the transient and steady-state injected carrier densities in the active layer for dc biases above and below threshold. Gain-switched pulses as short as 13 ps FWHM are presented, and experimental results are compared with computer simulations. The implications of our results to pulse code modulation at very high bit rates are also discussed.