Abstract
Recent advances in generation of picosecond optical pulses using semiconductor lasers are reviewed. Various methods of generation making use of active and passive modelocking, pulse and sinusoidal current pumping (direct modulation), self-pulsation, Q-switching, and short pulse optical pumping have been examined. At present it is possible to obtain pulsewidth of 1 ps, pulse rate from single shot to several gigahertz, and peak power of a few watts both in the infrared and visible wavelength regions.
One of the most important problems is to narrow the spectral width of the output pulses to transform limit. Several procedures related to this problem are discussed.
