ROCKY MOUNTAIN SECTION OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
                              &
           IEEE LASERS AND ELECTROOPTICS SOCIETY


                        March Meeting

Date:  Thursday, 16 Mar. 2000
Time:  7:00 PM refreshments, 7:30 PM talk
Place: National Institute of Standards and Technology
       325 Broadway, Boulder, CO
       Room 1107


Title: Semiconductor lasers for WDM systems

       Jens Buus
       Gayton Photonics Ltd.



Abstract:

This lecture is designed to bring attendees up to date on the 
state of the art of optical sources for WDM systems, with 
emphasis on tunable lasers. The lecture will start with the 
description of gratings, used as wavelength selective element 
in DFB and DBR lasers. The characteristics of these lasers 
will be discussed. Tuning mechanisms and tuning properties 
will be described, and the operation of modified structures 
with extended tuning range will be explained, including 
sampled gratings and super structure gratings. The properties 
of co-directional couplers and the use of these in tunable 
lasers will be discussed.

Devices such as tunable external cavity lasers, tunable 
VCSELs, multi wavelength lasers, and non-semiconductor lasers 
will be described. Throughout the lecture numerous examples 
of laser structures from the recent technical literature will 
be presented. Practical aspects such as characterisation, 
operation and control of tunable lasers will be included.


Biography:

Jens Buus was born in 1952 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is an 
electrical engineer (MSc in electrophysics), graduated from 
the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), August 1976. In 
addition he holds Lic. techn. (PhD) and Dr. techn. (DSc) 
degrees from this University. From 1979 to 1983 he was a post 
doctoral fellow at Electromagnetics Institute, DTU, and from 
1983 to 1992 he was employed by GEC-Marconi Materials 
Technology (formerly Plessey Research Caswell), holding a 
position as Senior Chief Physicist from January 1988 to 
December 1992. Since January 1993 he has been a self employed 
consultant (Gayton Photonics Ltd), in 1996 he was appointed 
visiting professor at Aston University. He has worked as 
project manager in the European RACE programme and is 
currently project manager for two projects under ACTS and one 
under the new IST programme.

Dr Buus has served on a number of conference committees and 
given invited talks, tutorials and short courses at several 
conferences. He has authored or co-authored about 60 papers, 
about 60 conference papers and 2 books. He is a Fellow of the 
IEEE, and a member of the Optical Society of America, the 
Institute of Electrical Engineers and of the Danish Physical 
Society. His research has included numerous contributions to 
the understanding of the properties of semiconductor lasers 
and optical waveguides, as well as contributions to work on 
gratings, integrated optics and coherent optical 
communication.