Pulsed electrical operation of 1.5-μm vertical-cavitysurface-emitting lasers

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers operating in the 1.3- and 1.5-μm wavelength ranges are highly attractive for telecommunications applications. However, they are far less well-developed than devices operating at shorter wavelengths. Pulsed electrically-injected lasing at 1.5 μm, at temperatures up to 240 K, is demonstrated in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with one epitaxial and one dielectric reflector. This is an encouraging result in the development of practical sources for optical fiber communications systems     

Temperature dependence of lasing characteristics forlong-wavelength (1.3-μm) GaAs-based quantum-dot lasers

Data are presented on the temperature dependence of 1.3-μm wavelength quantum-dot (QD) lasers. A low-threshold current density of 90 A/cm² is achieved at room temperature using high reflectivity coatings. Despite the low-threshold current density, lasing at the higher temperatures is limited by nonradiative recombination with a rapid increase in threshold current occurring above ~225 K. Our results suggest that very low threshold current density (⩽20 A/cm ²) can be achieved at room temperature from 1.3-μm QD lasers, once nonradiative recombination is eliminated     

Threshold currents of 1.3-μm bulk, 1.55-μm bulk, and1.55-μm MQW DFB P-substrate partially inverted buried heterostructurelaser diodes

We investigate the threshold currents of 1.3-μm bulk, 1.55-μm bulk, and 1.55-μm multi-quantum-well (MQW) distributed feedback (DFB) P-substrate partially inverted buried heterostructure (BH) laser diodes experimentally and theoretically. In spite of the larger internal loss of the 1.55-μm bulk laser diodes, the threshold current of the 1.55-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diode is almost the same as that of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diode. The experimentally obtained average threshold current of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes is 17 mA and that of the 1.55 μm bulk DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes is 16 mA. The calculated threshold current of the 1.3-μm bulk DFB laser diode is 15.3 mA and that of the 1.55-μm bulk DFB laser diode is 18.3 mA, which nearly agree with the calculated values, respectively. We have fabricated two types of five-well 1.55-μm InGaAs-InGaAsP MQW DFB P-substrate partially inverted BH laser diodes. One has barriers whose bandgap energy corresponds to 1.3 μm, and the other has barriers of which bandgap energy corresponds to 1.15 μm. The calculated threshold current of the MQW DFB laser diode with the barriers (λ_g =1.3 μm) is 8.5 mA, which nearly agrees with the experimentally obtained value of 10 mA. However, the calculated threshold current of the MQW DFB laser diode with the barriers (λ_g=1.15 μm) is 7.9 mA which greatly disagrees with the experimentally obtained value of 19 mA, which suggests that the valence band discontinuity between the well and the barrier severely prevents the uniform distribution of the injected holes among five wells     

High-temperature single-mode operation of 1.3-μm strained MQWgain-coupled DFB lasers

Single-mode and high-power operation at temperatures up to 120°C has been achieved in 1.3-μm strained MQW gain-coupled DFB lasers. A stable lasing wavelength is maintained due to a large modal facet loss difference of the two Bragg modes, which is provided by the gain-coupling effect. A very low temperature dependence of the threshold current has been obtained by detuning the lasing wavelength to the long wavelength side of the material gain peak at room temperature, which effectively compensates the waveguide loss at higher temperatures. An infinite characteristic temperature T_o can be realized at certain ranges of temperature depending on the detuning value     

A 1.3/1.55-μm wavelength-division multiplexing optical moduleusing a planar lightwave circuit for full duplex operation

We developed a hybrid integrated optical module for 1.3/1.55-μm wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) full-duplex operation. The optical circuit was designed to suppress the optical and electrical crosstalk using a wavelength division multiplexing filter, and an optical crosstalk of -43 dB and an electrical crosstalk of -105 dB were achieved with a separation between the transmitter laser diode and the receiver photodiode of more than 9 mm. We used the optical circuit design to fabricate an optical module with a bare chip preamplifier in a package. This module exhibited a full duplex operation of 156 Mbit/s with a minimum sensitivity of -35.2 dBm at a bit error rate of 10^-10     

Submilliampere-threshold 1.5-μm strained-layer multiple quantumwell lasers

The effect of high-reflection facet coatings on strained-layer multiple-quantum-well lasers was studied and submilliampere-threshold lasers were made in the 1.5-μm wavelength region with a short cavity and high-reflection-coated facets. As a result of the compressive strain, the threshold current density is loss-limited instead of transparency-limited. By the use of the step-graded-index separate confinement heterostructure to reduce the waveguide loss, a threshold current density of 550 A/cm² was measured on 30-μm wide broad area lasers with 1-mm long cavity     

Independently addressable VCSEL arrays on 3-μm pitch

We present an exceedingly dense linear vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) array with independently addressable elements on a staggered 3-μm pitch. Our devices utilize an all-epitaxial structure and operate at a wavelength of 813 mm with threshold currents below 400 μA. The high-packing density is enabled by combining transparent contact technology with a planar laterally oxidized device architecture. The array exhibits low interelement thermal crosstalk and has electrical resistances of 3 MΩ between adjacent array elements     

Calculated performances of 1.3-μm vertical-cavitysurface-emitting lasers on InGaAs ternary substrates

1.3-μm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL's) on InGaAs ternary substrates are proposed and designed, It is shown that a deep potential well on the ternary substrate enlarges optical gain of a strained quantum well in the wavelength region of 1.3 μm. A higher reflectivity distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) is also obtained by the use of the ternary substrate because materials with a large refractive-index difference can be used for the DBR. Calculated threshold current density of 1.3-μm VCSEL's on the ternary substrates is much lower than those on the conventional InP substrates. The possibility of extremely low threshold current density below 200 A/cm ² and temperature-insensitive operation are described     

Low-threshold 1.3-μm InGaAsN:Sb-GaAs single-quantum-well lasersgrown by molecular beam epitaxy

1.3-μm InGaAsN:Sb-GaAs single-quantum-well laser diodes have been grown by a solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using Sb as a surfactant. A record low threshold of 1.02 kA/cm² and a slope efficiency of 0.12 W/A are obtained for broad-area laser diodes under pulsed operation at room temperature. A characteristic temperature of 64 K and a lasing wavelength temperature dependence of 0.38 nm/°C are reported     

1.5-μm InGaAs/InAlGaAs quantum-well microdisk lasers

Microdisk lasers with three InGaAs/InAlGaAs quantum wells were demonstrated for the first time. The selective etching method used to fabricate the laser structure is discussed. Lasers 20 μm in diameter lased with single mode at 1.5-μm wavelength when optically pumped by a pulsed argon-ion laser at 80 K     

1.3-μm CW lasing characteristics of self-assembled InGaAs-GaAsquantum dots

This paper presents the lasing properties and their temperature dependence for 1.3-μm semiconductor lasers involving self-assembled InGaAs-GaAs quantum dots as the active region. High-density 1.3-μm emission dots were successfully grown by the combination of low-rate growth and InGaAs-layer overgrowth using molecular beam epitaxy. 1.3-μm ground-level CW lasing occurring at a low threshold current of 5.4 mA at 25°C with a realistic cavity length of 300 μm and high-reflectivity coatings on both facets. The internal loss of the lasers was evaluated to be about 1.2 cm^-1 from the inclination of the plots between the external quantum efficiency and the cavity length. The ground-level modal gain per dot layer was evaluated to be 1.0 cm^-1, which closely agreed with the calculation taking into account the dot density, inhomogeneous broadening, and homogeneous broadening. The characteristic temperature of threshold currents T₀ was found to depend on cavity length and the number of dot layers in the active region of the lasers. A T₀ of 82 K was obtained near room temperature, and spontaneous emission intensity as a function of injection current indicated that the nonradiative channel degraded the temperature characteristics. A low-temperature study suggested that an infinite T₀ with a low threshold current (~1 mA) is available if the nonradiative recombination process is eliminated. The investigation in this paper asserted that the improvement in surface density and radiative efficiency of quantum dots is a key to the evolution of 1.3-μm quantum-dot lasers     

Slab-coupled 1.3-μm semiconductor laser with single-spatiallarge-diameter mode

A high brightness semiconductor diode laser structure, which utilizes a slab-coupled optical waveguide region to achieve several potentially important advances in performance, is proposed and experimentally demonstrated using a simple rib waveguide in an InGaAsP-InP quantum-well structure operating at 1.3-μm wavelength. These lasers operate in a large low-aspect-ratio lowest-order spatial mode, which can be butt coupled to a single-mode fiber with high coupling efficiency     

1.5 μm GaInAsP angled-facet flared-waveguide traveling-wavelaser amplifiers

A broadband laser amplifier requires extremely low facet reflectivity (<0.1%). Previously, a low effective facet reflectivity of 0.05% was realized by an angle-facet structure in the 1.3-μm wavelength band. Present work reports an improved structure for the 1.5-μm wavelength band by flaring the waveguide ends near the angled facets. With a conventional antireflection coating of ~1% reflectivity, the measured effective facet reflectivity is less than 0.01% and the resultant devices have a fiber-to-fiber gain of 15 dB centered at 1.49 μm     

Small-signal analysis of 1.3-μm microcavity light-emittingdiodes

The modulation speed of 1.3-μm microcavity light-emitting diodes (MCLEDs) has been measured using a small-signal modulation analysis. A speed of 260 MHz using a 25-μm diameter sample at current density of 10 kA/cm² has been achieved. The carrier confinement has been calculated for several carrier densities in order to investigate the origin of the speed limitation. By comparing the performance of the 1.3-μm MCLEDs with that of the 990-nm devices we conclude that the limiting factor on the speed seems to be a lack of carrier confinement in the quantum wells and not a cavity effect     

1.5 μm phase-shift-controlled distributed feedback wavelengthtunable optical filter

A 1.5-μm phase-shift-controlled distributed feedback wavelength tunable optical filter is studied. This wavelength tunable optical filter controls the transmissivity (gain) and the transmission wavelength independently by current injection. During wavelength tuning, the submode suppression ratio is large and a wavelength tuning range as wide as 120 GHz (9.5 Å) with 24.5-dB constant gain is achieved. An 18-channel wavelength selection with less than -10 dB crosstalk is expected with this filter. The effect of the light input, whose wavelength is in the sidelobe, on the transmission spectrum shape is shown     

1.3-μm n-type modulation-doped AlGaInAs/AlGaInAsstrain-compensated multiple-quantum-well laser diodes

In this paper, we report the fabrication and characterization of 1.3-μm AlGaInAs/AlGaInAs laser diodes (LDs) with an n-type modulation-doped strain-compensated multiple-quantum-well (MD-SC-MQW) active region and a linearly graded index separate confinement heterostructure. The barrier in the MD-SC-MQW active region contains the 28 Å Si-doped modulation-doped region and two 29 Å surrounding undoped regions that serve to prevent the overflow of Si doping atoms into the wells. We investigate the threshold current density, infinite current density, differential quantum efficiency, internal quantum efficiency, internal optical loss, threshold gain (for the cavity length of 300 μm), and transparency current density as a function of doping concentration in the n-type AlGaInAs barrier for the 1.3-μm MD-SC-MQW LDs. The theoretical and experimental results show that the optimum doping concentration of doped barriers is 5×10 ¹⁸ cm^-3. With this optimum condition, the 3.5-μm ridge-striped LDs without facet coating will exhibit a lower threshold current and a higher differential quantum efficiency of 18 mA and 52.3% under the CW operation as compared to those of 22 mA and 43% for the undoped active region, respectively. In addition, a high characteristic temperature of 70 K, a low slope efficiency drop of -1.3 dB between 20 and 70°C, and a wavelength swing of 0.4 nm/°C for the LDs operated at 60 mA and 8 mW can be obtained in the LDs with doped barriers     

Aging-induced wavelength shifts in 1.5-μm DFB lasers

We report measured wavelength shifts of over one hundred 1.5-μm DFB lasers aged under three different conditions far a period corresponding to the system's lifetime (~25 years). The results show that the lasers aged at lower temperature (thus higher optical power) have wider spread of wavelength shifts than the lasers aged at higher temperature. No correlation was observed between the wavelength shifts and the aging rates or the aging-induced changes in the threshold currents. The aging-induced wavelength shifts were relatively small (±1 Å) for most lasers. However, about 10% of the lasers exhibit larger wavelength shifts of up to about ±4 Å     

Aging analysis of nMOS of a 1.3-μm partially depleted SIMOX SOItechnology comparison with a 1.3-μm bulk technology

Hot carrier degradation of nMOS of a 1.3-μm partially depleted rad-hard SOI CMOS technology is analyzed in detail. The relative importances of the maximum electric field, the localization of the trapped charges, and the LDD structure are pointed out through two-dimensional simulations and systematic comparisons with a 1.3-μm CMOS bulk technology. It is shown that the higher degradation rate of the SOI technology logically results from the contradictory constraints between rad-hardness (low-temperature process) and hot carrier resistance requirements. An annealing scheme comparable to the bulk one would lead to similar degradations     

Study on the dominant mechanisms for the temperature sensitivity ofthreshold current in 1.3-μm InP-based strained-layer quantum-welllasers

We study the basic physical mechanisms determining the temperature dependence of the threshold current (I_th) of InP-based strained-layer (SL) quantum-well (QW) lasers emitting at a wavelength of 1.3 μm. We show that I_th exhibits a different temperature dependence above and below a critical temperature T_c. It is indicated that T_c is the maximum temperature below which the threshold gain exhibits a linear relationship with temperature. We demonstrate that below T_c the Auger recombination current dominates the temperature dependence of I_th. On the other hand, above T_c a significant increase in both the internal loss and radiative recombination current in the separate-confinement-heterostructure region, which is mainly due to electrostatic band-profile deformation, is found to play a major role in determining the temperature sensitivity of I_th. On the basis of the comparison between the theoretical analysis and the experimental results, we conclude that the temperature dependence of the threshold current in 1.3-μm InP-based SL-QW lasers is dominated by different mechanisms above and below T_c     

1.4-μm-band gain characteristics of a Tm-Ho-doped ZBLYAN fiberamplifier pumped in the 0.8-μm band

The gain characteristics of a 1.4-μm-band thulium-holmium-doped ZBLYAN fiber amplifier are described. Signal gain is obtained over the whole 1.4-μm band for a pump power level of 73.5 mW. A maximum signal gain of 18 dB is achieved at a signal wavelength of 6.46 μm for a pump power of 150 mW at 0.79 μm. The noise figure is 5.6 dB in the signal wavelength region from 1.45-1.50 μm. From a comparison of the gain characteristics of thulium-holmium-doped ZBLYAN fibers and thulium-doped ZBLYAN fibers, it is proved that holmium ions play an effective role in increasing the gain and widening the gain spectrum