Project

In this project we are interested in an special type of semiconductor laser, the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). This laser is an example of microlaser (with micrometric dimensions). Nowadays VCSELs are used as emitters in local area networks, in optical interconnections, optical mice, sensors... We are interested in a better understanding of the characteristics of the light emitted by those devices, not only  in their solitary operation, but also when they are subject to optical injection or optical feedback.

The objective of this project is to study, both from a theoretical and an experimental points of view, advanced semiconductor lasers emitting around 1550 nm and their applications in laser ranging systems. Different ranging techniques making use of VCSELs subject to optical feedback, like self-mixing interferometry or chaotic LIDAR will be investigated.

Experiments are done in the Optical Communications Lab of the Instituto de Física de Cantabria. We study how changes of the polarization emitted by the VCSEL when it is subject to optical reflections from an external target can be utilized to measure distances, displacements and velocities of this target.

In a previous project (ALAS project) we studied VCSELs subject to optical injection to get several functionalities of all-optical signal processing: optical memories, inversion and regeneration of the signal. High-speed all-optical signal processing is of great interest for future applications in computing or in optical communication systems

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