Abstract

Semiconductor laser amplifiers have promising applications in all-optical switching because their near-resonant, ultrafast, third-order nonlinearities are orders of magnitude larger than those in optical fiber. Furthermore, these amplifiers can be biased so that the long-lived components of tire nonlinear response, due to population changes caused by stimulated transitions and two- photon absorption, disappear.¹ We present the first pump-probe measurements of the ultrafast index nonlinearities in diode laser amplifiers operating at 1.5μm and discuss the applicability of these devices to all-optical switching.

© 1993 Optical Society of America