Provided is a method of measuring a phase noise of a repetition rate of a femtosecond laser including generating a combined signal using a first wavelength element and a second wavelength element of an optical pulse train generated by the femtosecond laser, which is mode-locked, guiding the combined signal to a first path and a second path, allowing a signal of the second path to interfere with the signal of the first path, and outputting an interfering combined signal, dividing the interfering combined signal into a first interference signal and a second interference signal, converting the interference signals to radio frequency signals, and detecting a baseband signal including a frequency noise of the repetition rate from the radio frequency signals using a mixer.

The subject invention includes a semiconductor laser with the laser having a DBR mirror on a substrate, a quantum well on the DBR mirror, and an interior CGH with a back propagated output for emitting a large sized Gaussian and encircling high energy. The DBR mirror has a plurality of GaAs/AlGaAs layers, while the quantum well is composed of AlGaAs/InGaAs. The CGH is composed of AlGaAs.

An optical semiconductor comprises a semiconductor substrate and a semiconductor structure part including an optical waveguide layer that is formed on the semiconductor substrate. The semiconductor structure part includes a cladding layer connected to a first face that is the face on the side of the semiconductor substrate in the optical waveguide layer and to a second face that is the face on the opposite side of the semiconductor substrate, and a heater layer made of a semiconductor material to heat the optical waveguide layer from the side of the first face or/and from the side of the second face in the optical waveguide layer through the cladding layer.

An artificial saturable absorber uses additive pulse mode-locking to enable pulse operation of an on-chip laser operation. Four different artificial saturable absorbers are disclosed. The first includes an integrated coupler, two arms each containing some implementation of the end-reflector, and a phase bias element in one arm. The second includes an integrated directional coupler, two integrated waveguide arms, and another integrated coupler as an output. The third includes an integrated birefringent element, integrated birefringent-free waveguide, and integrated polarizer. And the fourth includes a multimode waveguide that allows for different modes to propagate in such a way that the difference in the spatial distribution of intensity causes a nonlinear phase difference between the modes. These are just some examples of an on-chip fully integrated artificial saturable absorber with instantaneous recovery time that allow for generation of sub-femtosecond optical pulses at high repetition rates using passive mode-locking.

A tunable laser that includes an array of parallel optical amplifiers is described. The laser may also include an intracavity NM coupler that couples power between a cavity mirror and the array of parallel optical amplifiers. Phase adjusters in optical paths between the NM coupler and the optical amplifiers can be used to adjust an amount of power output from M1 ports of the NM coupler. A tunable wavelength filter is incorporated in the laser cavity to select a lasing wavelength.

Provided is a method of measuring a phase noise of a repetition rate of a femtosecond laser including generating a combined signal using a first wavelength element and a second wavelength element of an optical pulse train generated by the femtosecond laser, which is mode-locked, guiding the combined signal to a first path and a second path, allowing a signal of the second path to interfere with the signal of the first path, and outputting an interfering combined signal, dividing the interfering combined signal into a first interference signal and a second interference signal, converting the interference signals to radio frequency signals, and detecting a baseband signal including a frequency noise of the repetition rate from the radio frequency signals using a mixer.

A multi-channel tunable laser includes: a frequency selective optical multiplexer comprising: a plurality of channel terminals for receiving/transmitting light; a plurality of channel waveguide blocks, each channel waveguide block comprising at least one reflectively terminated channel waveguide; and an optical coupling element optically coupling the plurality of channel terminals with the plurality of channel waveguide blocks, each of the channel waveguides of the plurality of channel waveguide blocks having a different length; a plurality of channel paths, each channel path coupled to a respective channel terminal of the plurality of channel terminals and comprising a gain element, a phase element and a reflective element; and a plurality of optical tuners, each one configured to tune the channel waveguides of a respective channel waveguide block of the plurality of channel waveguide blocks.

A laser system including a seed laser and an optical amplification subsystem, receiving an output of the seed laser and providing an amplified laser output, the optical amplification subsystem including a first plurality of amplifier assemblies, each of the first plurality of amplifier assemblies including a second plurality of optical amplifiers, and phase control circuitry including phase modulating functionality associated with each of the first plurality of amplifier assemblies.

A method for designing a phase modulation layer of a light emitting element as an iPMSEL including a light emitting portion and the phase modulation layer optically coupled to the light emitting portion includes a generation step for generating a design pattern of the phase modulation layer. The phase modulation layer includes a base layer and a plurality of different refractive index regions having different refractive indices from the base layer and distributed two-dimensionally in a plane perpendicular to a thickness direction of the phase modulation layer.

An optical grating comprising a refractive index with a periodic pattern that includes a base period ?.sub.0; a periodic sampling of the base period, with a first period ?.sub.1 and a first duty cycle p.sub.1, thereby defining a single-sampled grating (SSG); and a periodic sampling of the SSG, with a second period ?.sub.2 and a second duty cycle p.sub.2. The resulting dual-sampled grating (DSG) can have a reflection spectrum containing reflection peaks. If two DSGs having different reflection spectra share a common interface, a tunable optical filter can be produced, where electrical or heating means can cause a reflection peak of one spectrum to be shifted to coincide with a reflection peak of the other spectrum, thereby filtering the corresponding wavelength. By inserting between the two DSGs a gain medium and a phase-tuning medium, a laser source structure is realized. Either device can be produced by etching or stacking methods.