Semiconductor lasers with fast broadband tuning in 750–1100 nm spectral range

A series of tunable lasers of the 750-1100 nm spectral range is developed based on the novel broadband semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) and acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs) in an external fiber ring cavity. Mode-hop free tuning ranges of up to 100 nm and tuning speeds of up to 10⁵ nm/s are demonstrated. Instantaneous linewidths in the range of 0.05-0.15 nm, side-mode suppression of more than 50 dB and polarization extinction ratio of more than 18 dB are observed. Output optical power of 1-3 mW in single-mode fiber can be further amplified up to 30 mW utilizing external amplification based on the same SOAs.