Circularly Polarized External Cavity Laser Hybrid Integrated With a Polyimide Quarter-Wave Plate on Planar Lightwave Circuit

Author

Kim, Ryun Kyung ; Song, Jeong Hwan ; Oh, Yunkyung ; Jang, Dong-Hoon ; Kim, Jong Ryeol ; Lee, Kyung Shik

Author_Institution

Sungkyunkwan Univ., Suwon

Volume

19

Issue

14

fYear

2007

fDate

7/15/2007 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1048

Lastpage

1050

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a circularly polarized external cavity laser (ECL) hybrid integrated on a planar lightwave circuit (PLC). The ECL is composed of a spot-size converter integrated laser diode, a UV-written grating, and a polyimide quarter-wave plate on the PLC using hybrid-integration technology. The polyimide quarter-wave plate of an 8.8-mum thickness was inserted in a trench with a 20-mum width and a 300-mum depth on the PLC platform, and fixed with a UV-curable adhesive. The ECL hybrid integrated with the polyimide wave plate becomes highly circular-polarized with a degree of circular polarization of 0.992. This circularly polarized ECL operated with a sidemode suppression ratio of >50 dB at ~1550 nm.

Keywords

diffraction gratings; laser cavity resonators; laser modes; light polarisation; optical planar waveguides; optical polymers; optical retarders; semiconductor lasers; UV-curable adhesive; UV-written grating; circularly polarized external cavity laser; depth 300 mum; hybrid-integration technology; laser diode; planar lightwave circuit; polyimide quarter-wave plate; size 20 mum; size 8.8 mum; Circuits; Diode lasers; High speed optical techniques; Optical fiber communication; Optical interferometry; Optical polarization; Optical retarders; Polyimides; Programmable control; Wavelength division multiplexing; Circularly polarized laser; external cavity laser (ECL); planar lightwave circuit (PLC); polyimide quarter-wave plate;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2007.899454

Filename

4252139