Narrow-Linewidth Tunable Lasers With Retro-Reflective External Cavity

Author

Wang, Ning ; Feng, Ming ; Feng, Zhiqing ; Lam, Man Ying ; Gao, Lei ; Chen, Bo ; Liu, A.Q. ; Tsang, Yuen Hong ; Zhang, Xuming

Author_Institution

Dept. of Appl. Phys., Hong Kong Polytech. Univ., Kowloon, China

Volume

24

Issue

18

fYear

2012

Firstpage

1591

Lastpage

1593

Abstract

This letter presents the development of a fiber-pigtailed narrow-linewidth tunable laser that utilizes a retro-reflective optical system to construct the external cavity. For wavelength selection, a fixed etalon is employed to provide the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) grid with the 50-GHz spacing and a lead zirconate titanate-actuated tunable filter to select one ITU mode to resonate. The laser device measures a linewidth of 7 kHz, an output power of 14 dBm, a sidemode suppression ratio (SMSR) 55 dB, a tuning range 40 nm, and a response speed ~2 ms. The superior performance well demonstrates the advantages of external cavity construction for the narrow-linewidth tunable lasers and may find applications in the emerging digital coherent communications.

Keywords

distributed Bragg reflectors; distributed feedback lasers; laser cavity resonators; laser tuning; lead compounds; optical communication equipment; optical filters; semiconductor lasers; International Telecommunication Union; PZT; digital coherent communication; fiber pigtailed narrow linewidth tunable laser; retroreflective external cavity; tunable filter; Cavity resonators; Laser tuning; Measurement by laser beam; Optical fibers; Optical filters; Optical reflection; Digital coherent communications; external cavity tunable laser; laser tuning; narrow linewidth;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2012.2210200

Filename

6253231