Design and performance of externally modulated 1.5-μm lasertransmitter in the presence of chromatic dispersion

Key laser and modulator characteristics that impact the use of externally modulated lasers in the presence of chromatic dispersion, excluding effects due to fiber nonlinearities, are reviewed. After a brief consideration of transmission performance with directly modulated 1.5-μm DFB lasers which have limited application of up to 80 km at 2.5 Gb/s, the key design characteristics of externally modulated transmitters are discussed. Experimental results showing the effects of modulator chirp and laser linewidth at a 2.5-Gb/s transmission rate are presented. It is found that lasers with CW linewidth under 100 MHz have less than 2-dB dispersion penalty for 600 km of non-dispersion-shifted fiber. Lower dispersion penalties can be realized if the modulator chirp is tuned so as to narrow the transmitted pulses. Excellent modulator stability is demonstrated for 60 days of error- and degradation-free 2.5-Gb/s operation     

10Gb/s EML Module Based on Identical Epitaxial Layer Scheme

A 10Gb/s transmitter module containing an electroabsorption modulator monolithically integrated with a distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser is fabricated using the identical epitaxial layer scheme.Gain-coupling mechanism is employed to improve the single mode yield of the DFB laser,while inductively coupled plasma dry etching technique is utilized to reduce the modulator capacitance.The integrated device exhibits a threshold current as low as 12mA and an extinction ratio over 15dB at －2V bias.The small signal modulation bandwidth is measured to be over 10GHz.The transmission experiment at 10Gb/s indicates a power penalty less than 1dB at a bit-error-rate of 1e－12 after transmission through 35km single mode fiber.     

基于同一外延层结构的10Gb/s单片集成光发射模块

利用同一外延层集成工艺方法制作了10Gb/s电吸收调制器/分布反馈(DFB)半导体激光器单片集成光发射模块.在器件中引入增益耦合机制以提高单模成品率,并采用感应耦合等离子体干法刻蚀技术以降低调制器电容.集成器件阈值电流为12mA,在-2V偏置时的消光比为15dB,器件的小信号调制带宽超过10GHz.在10Gb/s调制速率下经过35km单模光纤传输后,误码率为10-12时的功率代价小于1dB.     

1.3 mu m semiconductor laser power amplifier

The performance of a 3.4-Gb/s system using a low-power 1.318- mu m distributed-feedback (DFB) laser transmitter and a traveling-wave semiconductor laser power amplifier is studied. The -14.5-dBm, input from a directly modulated DFB laser is boosted to +10.3 dBm, of which +4.8 dBm is coupled into the transmission fiber. The penalty, caused by amplifier noise and pattern effects due to gain saturation, is less than 0.5 dB.<>     

FSK heterodyne transmission experiments at 560 Mbit/s and 1 Gbit/s

Optical frequency-shift-keying (FSK) signals are obtained from directly modulated distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor lasers. Experimental studies of the direct frequency modulation (FM) characteristics of the DFB lasers show a nonuniform FM response due to the competing effects of thermal modulation of the laser active region and carrier density modulation. Equalization of the signal current to the laser is employed to produce a flat FM response from 30 kHz to 1 GHz. Optical FSK transmission and heterodyne detection experiments at 560-Mbit/s and 1-Gbit/s are conducted at a wavelength of 1497 nm. Receiver sensitivities of -39 dBm at 560 Mbit/s and -37 dBm at 1 Gbit/s are obtained. Transmission through 100 km of single-mode fiber at 1 Gbit/s is achieved with no degradation in receiver sensitivity.     

Uncooled 25 Gbit/s direct modulation of semi-insulating buried-heterostructure 1.3 μm AlGaInAs quantum-well DFB lasers

Uncooled 25 Gbit/s direct modulation of 1.3 mum DFB lasers is demonstrated. The 150 mum-long semi-insulating buried-heterostructure AIGalnAs quantum-well DFB lasers show clear eye-openings with dynamic extinction ratio of 5 dB up to 70degC. 13 km singlemode-fibre transmission experiments using the devices show low power penalty within 1.3 dB between 25 and 70degC. These characteristics are the first achievement by 1.3 mum directly modulated lasers.     

Error-free 250 km transmission in standard fibre using compact 10 Gbit/s chirp-managed directly modulated lasers (CML) at 1550 nm

10 Gbit/s transmission over 250 km of standard fibre at 1550 nm with 4.8 dB penalty using a transmitter comprising a directly modulated DFB laser, a multi-cavity filter and a standard receiver, is demonstrated.     

Isolator-free 2.5-Gb/s 80-km transmission by directly modulatedλ/8 phase-shifted DFB-LDs under negative feedback effect ofmirror loss

It was verified for the first time that phase-shift value in directly modulated DFB laser diodes (LDs) affects their chirping characteristics and external optical feedback resistance due to the feedback effect of mirror loss (FEML). Theoretical and experimental results clarified that the negative FEML achieved in λ/8 phase-shifted DFB-LDs was able to improve the transmission performances and make the LDs more robust to external optical feedback. Isolator-free 80-km transmissions with a very low power penalty of less than 1-dB at bit error rate (BER)=10^-10 was demonstrated with 2.5-Gb/s directly modulated 1.55-μm λ/8 phase-shifted DFB-LDs     

Integrated four-wavelength DFB laser array with 10 Gb/s speed and 5nm continuous tuning range

A 1.5 μm, four-wavelength DFB (distributed feedback) laser array operating at a speed of 10 Gb/s and with a continuous tuning range of 5 nm for each laser has been demonstrated. An adjacent channel electrical crosstalk penalty of 0.6 dB was measured, and the thermal tuning limitation was identified. Each laser could be modulated at a speed of 10 Gb/s with moderate electrical crosstalk penalty (~0.6 dB) from the adjacent laser. The high-speed performance was not degraded by thermal tuning up to 3.2 nm     

A 2-Gbit/s optical FSK heterodyne transmission experiment using a 1520-nm DFB laser transmitter

Optical FSK transmission at 2 Gbit/s using a directly modulated DFB laser at 1520-nm wavelength is reported. A receiver sensitivity ofbar{P} = -36.7dBm (etabar{P} = -39.2dBm) at 10^-9BER was achieved for transmission over 101 km of single-mode fiber with no additional penalty attributable to the fiber. The effect of the nonlinear phase of the transmitter FM response, and the system performance for discriminator demodulation, including the impact of laser phase noise, is analyzed and compared with experimental results.     

2.4 Gbit/s repeaterless transmission over 306 kmnon-dispersion-shifted fibre using directly modulated DFB-LD anddispersion-compensating fibre

Based on system optimisation through theoretical model simulations, 2.4 Gbit/s repeaterless transmission over 306 km nondispersion-shifted fibre has been demonstrated with no power penalty, using a directly modulated DFB laser with a bulk active layer and dispersion-compensating fibres     

Measurement of mode partition in DFB lasers

Some DFB (distributed feedback) laser diodes have a satellite mode beside a main DFB mode even if FP modes are suppressed. In this paper, the mode partition noise is presented for several DFB lasers operating in multilongitudinal modes. The results show that under modulation at 140 Mbit/s, the mode partition coefficient k²of multimode DFB lasers is very small and at most 0.02 while that of FP lasers biased at the threshold level is 0.03 to 0.12. The numerical evaluation of the mode partition effect in two-mode DFB lasers suggests that a 20- dB suppression of the satellite mode power is enough to achieve a repeater spacing of over 100 km in the 280 Mbit/s fiber-optic transmission system with less than 0.1-dB power penalty.     

1.2 Gb/s closely-spaced FDMA-FSK direct-detection star network

For the frequency-division-multiple-access-frequency-shift-keying (FDMA-FSK) network, the FSK signal is converted to amplitude-shift-keyed (ASK) format by a tunable fiber Fabry-Perot (FFP) filter that acts simultaneously as a demodulator and demultiplexer. Frequency-tunable two-electrode distributed-feedback (DFB) laser transmitters produce distorted FSK spectra due to nonuniform FM response for modulation frequencies above ~200 Mb/s. The frequency-domain properties of the laser are related directly to the time-domain properties of the transmitted data stream. The critical dependence on the FFP passband width and center frequency location for undistorted signal recovery is shown. By optimizing these parameters, the data transmission rate can be increased while keeping the power penalty due to signal distortion below 1 dB     

Wide Temperature Range Operation of a 1.55-$mu$m 40-Gb/s Electroabsorption Modulator Integrated DFB Laser for Very Short-Reach Applications

We present the uncooled operation of a 1.55- mum 40-Gb/s InGaAlAs electroabsorption modulator (EAM) integrated distributed-feedback (DFB) laser within a temperature range of 95degC (-15degC to 80degC ). To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest temperature range reported so far for such a 40-Gb/s EAM integrated DFB laser. We designed the EAM to operate at high speed by reducing the electrical parasitics, and we achieved a 3-dB frequency bandwidth of over 39 GHz for an EAM length of less than 150 mum. We demonstrated a 2-km single-mode fiber (SMF) transmission at 40-Gb/s over a wide temperature range of -15degC to 80degC by adjusting only the bias voltage to the EAM while keeping the modulation voltage swing constant at 2.0 V when the temperature changed. We achieved a dynamic extinction ratio of over 8.2 dB and a 2-km SMF transmission with a power penalty of less than 2 dB over a wide temperature range.     

Four channel integrated DFB laser array with tunable wavelengthspacing and 40-Gb/s signal transmission capacity

A four-channel distributed-feedback (DFB) laser array integrated with four heating filaments has been fabricated for high-density wavelength-division-multiplexing systems. The DFB lasers have a threshold current of 4 mA at room temperature. By changing the power in the heater, the wavelength of each laser can be continuously tuned by as much as 5 nm. Therefore, a tunable wavelength spacing anywhere from 1 nm to 2 nm can be achieved. Each laser can operate at 10 Gb/s. However, the bias current has to be increased to avoid the degradation of the eye pattern as the wavelength is thermally tuned over 2 nm. An electric crosstalk of 0.6 dB is measured when two adjacent lasers are modulated at 10 Gb/s simultaneously     

Simultaneous compensation of laser chirp, Kerr effect, anddispersion in 10-Gb/s long-haul transmission systems

The effects of chirp and fiber nonlinearity in a directly modulated 10-Gb/s intensity-modulated direct-detection (IM-DD) fiber transmission system are investigated by simulation, and a simple and flexible technique for compensating these effects is discussed. Self-phase-modulation (SPM) in optical fiber can be equalized by an anomalous dispersion fiber, whereas pulse broadening caused by laser transient chirp can be compensated by normal dispersion. Using these characteristics, laser transient chirp, SPM, and fiber dispersion can be simultaneously compensated by equalizing fibers inserted within certain intervals. Optimum compensation is always realizable for such fixed equalizing fibers, since the magnitude of SPM can be controlled by changing the optical power in the fiber. Simulation suggests that this technique enables 10-Gb/s, 100-km fiber transmission by direct modulation     

Dynamic and CW linewidth measurements of buried heterostructuredistributed feedback lasers

Measurements of frequency chirp as a function of modulation current, data rate, and bias level for the etched-mesa buried heterostructure distributed feedback (EMBH-DFB) laser are presented. The results show that the chirp increases with increasing modulation current and is significantly larger if the laser off-state is below threshold than if it is above-threshold. The 20-dB down chirp widths are in the range of 4 to 6 Å for 40 mA of modulation current at 5 Gb//s under above threshold bias. Using the EMBH-DFB laser, a system experiment over 22-km fiber at 16 Gb/s has been carried out which shows less than 0.5 dB dispersion power penalty. The continuous-wave (CW) linewidths of the asymmetric facet-coated DFB lasers are in the range of 10 to 40 MHz at 6 mW of output power. This wide range arises principally from a variation of the phase of the grating at the high-reflectivity coated facet     

低波长漂移的电吸收调制DFB激光器

采用端面有效反射率法,从理论上计算了单片集成电吸收调制DFB激光器（Electroabsorption Modulated DFB Laser,EML）的腔面反射率、耦合强度（κL）对其波长漂移的影响.同时在实验中通过改变腔面的反射率来验证计算结果.理论与实验的结果表明：为提高EML的模式稳定性,必须减小调制器一端的反射率,同时增加DFB激光器的κL.最终我们采用选择区域生长（Selective Area Growth,SAG）的方法,制作了低光反馈出光面的单脊条形EML,在2.5Gb/s的非归零(NRZ)码调制下,经过280km的标准光纤传输后,没有发现色散代价.     

Highly sensitive 565 Mb/s DPSK heterodyne transmission experiment using direct current modulation of a DFB laser transmitter

A comparison between external phase modulation and phase modulation obtained through direct current modulation of a multiquantum-well distributed feedback (DFB) transmitter is reported for a sensitive 565 Mb/s differential-phase-shift-keying (DPSK) heterodyne transmission experiment. A limited sensitivity penalty for direct phase modulation is expected from the driving current pulse shape, the transmitter FM response and the receiver characteristics. The experimentally observed 0.5 dB penalty is in agreement with theory and highlights the potential of direct DPSK modulation as compared to both standard DPSK and continuous-phase frequency shift keying (CPFSK) schemes.<>     

Analysis of laser phase noise to intensity noise conversion bychromatic dispersion in intensity modulation and direct detectionoptical-fiber transmission

Laser phase noise conversion to intensity noise due to fiber chromatic dispersion is analyzed by deriving the noise power spectral density. Theory predicts that the phase-modulation-amplitude-modulation conversion noise is a principal limiting factor of the gigabit-per-second nonregenerative transmission using an external modulator when the linewidth of the laser transmitter is above several tens of megahertz and the total chromatic dispersion of fibers exceeds several thousand picoseconds per nanometer. This fact is confirmed by the 2.4-Gb/s transmission experiments using multiple inline Er-doped fiber amplifiers. The system penalty due to this noise in the intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD) optical transmission using an external modulator is evaluated