We experimentally demonstrate mode-locking between the transverse modes of a laser. A vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with evenly-spaced transverse modes is shown to emit a train of 2.1+/-0.1 ps pulses with an 11 ps repetition rate and a timing jitter of 235+/-30 fs. Transverse mode-locking in microcavity lasers has potential to improve the compactness, stability, integrability, repetition rate tunability, and efficiency of ultrafast optical communication sources. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics. References: 14
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