Spot size converter integrated semiconductor optical amplifier

Spot size converter (SSC)-SOA consists of a slightly tensile bulk 0.2 /spl mu/m thick InGaAsP (/spl lambda/=1.55 /spl mu/m) active layer and 0.1 /spl mu/m thick InGaAsP (/spl lambda/=1.3 /spl mu/m) waveguides, which were grown by selective area growth (SAG) using MOCVD to implement SSC. The total device length is 1500 /spl mu/m. The thickness enhancement factor was greater than 3 by using SiO/sub 2/ mask. The SAG method with lateral tapering technique provided a typical beam divergences of 8/spl deg//spl times/15/spl deg/. To reduce facet reflectivity, window regions of 20 /spl mu/m length were introduced and the waveguides were tilted by 7/spl deg/. Both facets were antireflection coated to minimize the reflection from the cleaved facet. The gain measurement was done by coupling lensed fibers to both sides. To obtain the higher coupling efficiency in SOA module, taper lensed fiber with AR coating were used. Larger than 22 dB of the fiber to fiber gain was obtained for -20 dBm input power and 150 mA at 1540 nm.