Widely Tunable Narrow-Linewidth Monolithically Integrated External-Cavity Semiconductor Lasers

Author

Komljenovic, Tin ; Srinivasan, Sudharsanan ; Norberg, Erik ; Davenport, Michael ; Fish, Gregory ; Bowers, John E.

Author_Institution

Univ. of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Volume

21

Issue

6

fYear

2015

fDate

Nov.-Dec. 2015

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

9

Abstract

We theoretically analyze, design, and measure the performance of a semiconductor laser with a monolithically integrated external cavity. A ~4 cm long on-chip cavity is made possible by a low-loss silicon waveguide platform. We show tuning in excess of 54 nm in the O-band as well as significant reduction in laser linewidth due to controlled feedback from the external cavity. The measured linewidth in full tuning range is below 100 kHz and the best results are around 50 kHz. Approaches to further improve the performance of such laser architectures are described.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; integrated optoelectronics; laser cavity resonators; laser feedback; laser tuning; optical losses; semiconductor lasers; silicon; waveguide lasers; O-band; Si; laser architectures; low-loss silicon waveguide platform; on-chip cavity; tunable narrow-linewidth monolithically integrated external-cavity semiconductor lasers; Cavity resonators; Laser feedback; Laser modes; Laser theory; Laser tuning; Measurement by laser beam; Cavity resonators; Laser tuning; Photonic integrated circuits; Semiconductor lasers; cavity resonators; laser tuning; photonic integrated circuits;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSTQE.2015.2422752

Filename

7084629