Chirp and linewidth enhancement factor of 1.55 /spl mu/m VCSEL with buried tunnel junction

Chirp characteristics of a 1.55 /spl mu/m vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) employing a buried tunnel junction are reported for the first time. From the measurements the linewidth enhancement factor /spl alpha//sub H/ is derived and presented.     

Linewidth of InP-based 1.55 /spl mu/m VCSELs with buried tunnel junction

Spectral linewidth measurements of 1.55 /spl mu/m InGaAlAs/InP vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) employing a buried tunnel junction are reported. A narrow linewidth around 28 MHz was obtained at a power level of 0.5 mW using the self-heterodyne method, and an estimation for the linewidth enhancement factor is given.     

2.5-mW single-mode operation of 1.55-/spl mu/m buried tunnel junction VCSELs

We present 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength buried tunnel junction InGaAlAs-InP vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers with low threshold current and high efficiency. An improved mirror design is accomplished with high-reflective low-loss epitaxial InGaAlAs-InAlAs and hybrid dielectric CaF/sub 2/-ZnS-Au layer stacks, respectively. Lasers with aperture diameters of only around 5 /spl mu/m exhibit continuous-wave single-mode output powers at room temperature well beyond 2 mW. Threshold voltages and series resistances as low as 0.9 V and 30-40 /spl Omega/ have been measured. The spectral behavior shows excellent performance over the relevant current and temperature range.     

1.55-/spl mu/m optically pumped wafer-fused tunable VCSELs with 32-nm tuning range

We demonstrate widely tunable InAlGaAs-InP-AlGaAs-GaAs optically pumped vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers operating in the 1.55-/spl mu/m waveband. The tuning range of 32 nm is achieved by applying a low tuning voltage of 4 V. Maximum single-mode output power of 2 mW with less than 1.5-dB power variation over the whole tuning range and side-mode suppression ratio in excess of 30 dB have been obtained.     

Compact 1.55 /spl mu/m room-temperature optically pumped VCSEL using photonic crystal mirror

Reported is the first realisation of a novel vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), in which one of the Bragg mirrors is entirely replaced by a single-layer photonic crystal mirror (PCM). The presence of the PCM considerably enhances the vertical compactness of the device. Room-temperature singlemode laser emission has been obtained at 1.55 mum by optical pumping (pulsed regime), with a threshold power around 15 mW     

Enhancement of dynamic range in 1.55-/spl mu/m VCSELs using injection locking

Injection locking is demonstrated to improve the analog performance of long wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. The third-harmonic dynamic range was improved by /spl sim/20 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 2/3/ to be /spl sim/94 dB/spl middot/Hz/sup 2/3/, and the modulation bandwidth was increased two fold. The locking conditions are studied and show that the improvement is present over a wide range of injection power and wavelength detuning.     

1.31-1.55-/spl mu/m phased-array demultiplexer on InP

The first demultiplexers on InP at 1.31-1.55 /spl mu/m based on low-order waveguide arrays have been fabricated and characterized. We show the calculated and measured spectral responses of two devices with 6 and 10 waveguides in the grating. The on-chip loss of the devices is 4.5 dB and the crosstalks are down to -25 dB. Thanks to their large bandwidth, the devices are polarization insensitive and no strong influence of the temperature is seen.     

50-GHz optically injection-locked 1.55-/spl mu/m VCSELs

High-speed directly modulated diode lasers are important for optical communications and optical interconnects. In this work, we demonstrate greatly enhanced resonance frequency for vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, from 7 to 50 GHz, under ultrahigh injection-locking conditions. In addition, a 20-dB gain is achieved for small signal modulation below resonance frequency.     

Continuously tunable 1.55-/spl mu/m VCSEL implemented by precisely curved dielectric top DBR involving tailored stress

We present an optically pumped and continuously tunable 1.55-/spl mu/m vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The device shows 26-nm spectral tuning range, 400-/spl mu/W maximum output power, and 57-dBm side-mode suppression ratio. The VCSEL is implemented using a two-chip concept. The movable top mirror membrane is precisely designed to obtain a tailored air-gap length (L'=16 /spl mu/m) and a radius of curvature (ROC=4.5mm) in order to efficiently support the fundamental optical mode of the plane-concave resonator. It consists of a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) with periodic, differently stressed silicon nitride and silicon dioxide multilayers implemented by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The lower InP-based part, comprising the InP-InGaAsP bottom DBR and the active region, is grown monolithically using metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy.     

1.55-/spl mu/m DFB lasers utilizing an automatically buried absorptive InAsP layer having a high single-mode yield

We describe 1.55-/spl mu/m distributed feedback laser diodes (DFB LDs) having a single-mode (SM) yield as high as 80% and 93% for as-cleaved and antireflection/high reflection (AR/HR=3%/95%) coated devices, respectively. The high SM yield was achieved by introducing an automatically buried InAsP layer between a concave of InP corrugations and an overgrown layer. The use of the automatically buried InAsP layer implemented by a single step growth makes the device fabrication process much easier than that of conventional loss-coupled DFB LDs. Fabricated DFB LDs with AR/HR-coated facets showed a low threshold current of 8 mA (34 mA) and a high slope efficiency of 0.32 mW/mA (0.22 mW/mA) at 25/spl deg/C (85/spl deg/C). A sidemode suppression ratio better than 40 dB was obtained for the temperature range between -20/spl deg/C and 85/spl deg/C and the injection current range between 20 and 100 mA.     

1.55-/spl mu/m AlGaInAs-InP laterally coupled distributed feedback laser

A novel 1.55-/spl mu/m AlGaInAs-InP laterally coupled (LC) distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser is presented. Longitudinal feedback and lateral optical confinement are realized simultaneously by incorporating deep gratings etched with inductively coupled plasma technique. Stable single-mode operation with a sidemode suppression ratio over 45 dB has been demonstrated for the fabricated LC-DFB laser.     

Low-chirp and high-power 1.55-/spl mu/m strained-quantum-well complex-coupled DFB laser

High-power, low-chirp, and low-threshold current characteristics of 1.55 /spl mu/m complex-coupled compressively strained InGaAsP quantum-well DFB laser with a loss grating are presented. Kink-free light-current characteristics with single-mode power over 40 mW are demonstrated for uncoated devices. A relatively low threshold current of 10 mA and a high slope efficiency of 0.23 W/A have been obtained even with the loss grating employed. Stable single-mode emission was demonstrated with a side mode suppression ratio up to 54 dB, a low chirp of less than 0.3 nm under 1 Gb/s pseudorandom digital modulation and a spectral linewidth of 8 MHz.     

28 GHz optical injection-locked 1.55 /spl mu/m VCSELs

A record resonance frequency of 28 GHz and an intrinsic laser 3 dB bandwidth of 34 GHz is reported for a directly modulated injection-locked 1.55 /spl mu/m VCSEL. The small-signal modulation response is experimentally investigated using polarisation-maintaining components.     

30-GHz bandwidth 1.55-/spl mu/m strain-compensated InGaAlAs-InGaAsP MQW laser

High-speed 1.55 /spl mu/m laser diodes with a 3-dB modulation bandwidths of 30 GHz were fabricated by using short-cavity mushroom structures with undoped, strain-compensated InGaAlAs-InGaAsP twenty-quantum-well active regions. The bandwidths were achieved at low bias current of 100 mA. The laser exhibited a high differential gain of 1.54/spl times/10/sup -15/ cm/sup 2/ and a small K factor of 0.135 ns. These results were achieved by using an In/sub 0.386/Ga/sub 0.465/AlAs barrier with 0.83% tensile strain to reduce the thermal emission time of holes from wells and hence the hole transport time.     

AM and RIN of a tunable optically pumped 1.6-/spl mu/m VCSEL

This letter presents for the first time the dynamic characteristics of a tunable optically pumped 1.6-/spl mu/m vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) based on micromechanic wavelength tuning. The study includes analysis of the small-signal amplitude modulation response, the relative intensity noise, and the influence of different pump lasers on the VCSEL noise. From the measurements, characteristic semiconductor parameters have been derived and are presented.     

All-active tapered 1.55-/spl mu/m InGaAsP BH-DFB laser with continuously chirped grating

We demonstrate the first realization of all-active tapered index coupled 1.55-/spl mu/m InGaAsP buried-heterostructure distributed feedback lasers involving chirped gratings. The variation of the effective refractive index along the tapered active stripe is compensated using an optimized continuously chirped grating. The grating has been formed using a novel direct-write electron-beam lithography technique. Lasers with an antireflection/cleaved cavity show stable single-mode operation and high optical output power up to 60 mW. The yield of lasers with a sidemode suppression ration > 40 dB is more than 70%. The -3-dB farfield angles (full-width at half-maximum) amount to 14/spl deg/ and 20/spl deg/ in lateral and vertical direction, respectively.     

A surface-normal coupled-quantum-well modulator at 1.55 /spl mu/m

We demonstrate a surface-normal coupled-quantum-well InGaAs-InAlAs electroabsorption modulator that provides optical modulation with a contrast ratio in excess of 1.5 at only 6 V. The device operates at 1.55 /spl mu/m and is based on a novel strain-balanced layer structure. The operating voltage is about two times lower than that of a conventional square quantum-well modulator that achieves a comparable contrast ratio.     

Room-temperature continuous-wave 1.55 /spl mu/m GaInNAsSb laser on GaAs

The first low-threshold 1.55 /spl mu/m lasers grown on GaAs are reported. Lasing at 1.55 /spl mu/m was observed from a 20/spl times/2400 /spl mu/m as-cleaved device with a room-temperature continuous-wave threshold current density of 579 A/cm/sup 2/, external efficiency of 41%, and 130 mW peak output power. The pulsed threshold current density was 550 A/cm/sup 2/ with >600 mW peak output power.     

Low-threshold operation of 1.34-/spl mu/m GaInNAs VCSEL grown by MOVPE

Low-threshold operation was demonstrated for a 1.34-/spl mu/m vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with GaInNAs quantum wells (QWs) grown by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy. Optimizing the growth conditions and QW structure of the GaInNAs active layers resulted in edge-emitting lasers that oscillated with low threshold current densities of 0.87 kA/cm/sup 2/ at 1.34 /spl mu/m and 1.1 kA/cm/sup 2/ at 1.38 /spl mu/m, respectively. The VCSEL had a low threshold current of 2.8 mA and a lasing wavelength of 1.342 /spl mu/m at room temperature and operated up to 60/spl deg/C.     

Analytical modeling of a high-performance near-ballistic uni-traveling-carrier photodiode at a 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength

In this letter, we developed an analytical equivalent circuit model, which includes the resistance-capacitance-delay time and carrier transport time, to investigate the distinct dynamic performance of the near-ballistic uni-traveling-carrier photodiode (NBUTC-PD). This device, in which the structure of the collector of the UTC-PD is modified, can achieve excellent performance at a 1.55-/spl mu/m wavelength. According to the measured frequency responses of the scattering (S) parameters of NBUTC-PD and detailed device-modeling, the observed significant reduction of the device capacitance and the enhancement of the net optical-to-electrical bandwidth under high-power operation can be attributed to the unique near-ballistic-transport property of the photogenerated electron, which has never been observed in the traditional high-speed high-power photodiode.