Lingjuan Zhao

Improved optical heterodyne methods for measuring frequency responses of photodetectors

An improved optical self-heterodyne method utilizing a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) tunable laser and an optical fiber ring interferometer is presented in this paper. The interference efficiency can be increased by 7 dB compared with the scheme using the conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The unsteady process that the beating frequency experiences in each tuning period is investigated. According to the measurement results, the wavelength and optical power of the tunable laser will be steady when the square-wave frequency is lower than 300 kHz. It has been shown that when a square-wave voltage is applied to the phase section of the tunable laser, the laser linewidths vary in a wide range, and are much larger than that under dc voltage tuning. The errors caused by the variations in the linewidth of the beat signal and optical power can be eliminated using the proposed calibration procedures, and the measurement accuracy can, therefore, be significantly improved. Experiments show that the frequency responses obtained using our method agree well with the data provided by the manufacturer, and the improved optical self-heterodyne method is as accurate as the intensity noise technique.

A Selective-Area Metal Bonding InGaAsP–Si Laser

A 1.55-μ m hybrid InGaAsP-Si laser was fabricated by the selective-area metal bonding method. Two Si blocking stripes, each with an excess-metals accommodated space, were used to separate the optical coupling area and the metal bonding areas. In such a structure, the air gap between the InGaAsP structure and Si waveguide has been reduced to be negligible. The laser operates with a threshold current density of 1.7 kA/cm2 and a slope efficiency of 0.05 W/A under pulsed-wave operation. Room-temperature continuous lasing with a maximum output power of 0.45 mW is realized.

The Fabrication of Eight-Channel DFB Laser Array Using Sampled Gratings

An eight-channel monolithically integrated complex-coupled distributed-feedback laser array based on sampled gratings has been designed and fabricated. Selective lasing at different wavelengths is obtained. The frequency separation between each adjacent channel is about 200 GHz. The typical threshold current is between 30 and 40 mA. The optical output power of each channel is about 10 mW at an injection current of 100 mA. The continuous tuning of emission wavelength with injected currents is also demonstrated.

High-Temperature Continuous-Wave Single-Mode Operation of 1.3-

In this letter, we have demonstrated continuous-wave single-mode operation of 1.3-mum InAs-GaAs quantum-dot (QD) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with p-type modulation-doped QD active region from 20degC to 60degC. The highest output power of 0.435 mW and lowest threshold current of 1.2 mA under single-mode operation are achieved. The temperature-dependent output characteristics of QD-VCSELs are investigated. Single-mode operation with a sidemode suppression ratio of 34 dB is observed at room temperature. The critical size of oxide aperture for single-mode operation is discussed.

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We report all optical clock recovery based on a monolithic integrated four-section amplified feedback semiconductor laser (AFL), with the different sections integrated based on the quantum well intermixing (QWI) technique. The beat frequency of an AFL is continuously tunable in the range of 19.8-26.3 GHz with an extinction ratio above 8 dB, and the 3-dB linewidth is close to 3 MHz. All- optical clock recovery for 20 Gb/s was demonstrated experimentally using the AFL, with a time jitter of 123.9 fs. Degraded signal clock recovery was also successfully demonstrated using both the dispersion and polarization mode dispersion (PMD) degraded signals separately.

m p-Doped InAs–GaAs Quantum-Dot VCSELs

A directly-modulated distributed-feedback laser module has been achieved with a ridge-waveguide laser chip in our laboratory. It is packaged in butterfly housing with a K connector, and the bandwidth of the laser module is up to 24 GHz with in-band flatness of ±3 dB. It shows a high linearity with input 1-dB compression point of higher than 23 dBm and third-order intercept of 32.2 dBm at 24 GHz. Meanwhile, the packaged DFB laser module gives rather low relative intensity noise of less than -150 dB/Hz when the bias current is 75 mA and it can show a great performance in analog optical communication systems.

All-Optical Clock Recovery for 20 Gb/s Using an Amplified Feedback DFB Laser

A solitary monolithic integrated semiconductor laser (MISL) chip with a size of 780 micrometer is designed and fabricated for broadband chaos generation. Such a MISL chip consists of a DFB section, a phase section and an amplification section. Test results indicate that under suitable operation conditions, this laser chip can be driven into broadband chaos. The generated chaos covers an RF frequency range, limited by our measurement device, of 26.5GHz, and possesses significant dimension and complexity. Moreover, the routes into and out of chaos are also characterized through extracting variety dynamical states of temporal waveforms, phase portraits, RF spectra and statistical indicators.

24-GHz Directly Modulated DFB Laser Modules for Analog Applications

The dynamics of monolithically integrated amplified feedback lasers (AFL) is investigated through numerical simulation and experimental verification. The period-doubling route to chaos and high-frequency microwave generation are demonstrated through simulation. Then, we design and fabricate monolithically integrated AFLs. Mappings of dynamic states and oscillation frequency in the parameter space of phase section current IP and amplifier section current IA are depicted. For relative small IA, the period doubling evolution to chaos is presented with the increase of IP. For the relative large IA, a high-frequency mode-beating (M-B) pulsation can be observed under suitable value of IP. The oscillation frequency of period-one is about 10 GHz and the frequency of M-B pulsation is over 40 GHz for the device with a total length of 780 μm.

Direct generation of broadband chaos by a monolithic integrated semiconductor laser chip

Electrical and optical coupling in an electroabsorption (EA) modulator integrated with a distributed feedback (DFB) laser have been investigated. The integrated device is treated as a three-port optoelectronic device with two electrical ports and one optical output port. The scattering parameters of this three-port device have been measured in the designed experiment. The measured results indicate that there exists the electrical coupling between the DFB laser and EA modulator of the integrated light source whenever the current applied to the laser section is below or above the threshold current, and the optical coupling will have stronger influence on the frequency responses than the electrical coupling when the bias current is above the threshold. A small-signal equivalent circuit model for the integrated device is established considering both the electrical and internal optical coupling. Experiments show that the equivalent circuit model is reasonable and the determined element values are correct. Based on the measurement and modeling, the influences of the electrical and optical coupling on the high-frequency responses are investigated and the effective measure to eliminate the additional modulation in the DFB laser are discussed.

Monolithically Integrated Amplified Feedback Lasers for High-Quality Microwave and Broadband Chaos Generation

We present an InP-based distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser transmitter which has a wide wavelength tuning range and a high chip output power for wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON) applications. By butt-jointing InGaAsP with 1.45μm emission wavelength as the material of the grating section, the laser wavelength can be tuned for over 13nm by the DBR current. Accompanied by varying the chip temperature, the tuning range can be further enlarged to 16 nm. With the help of the integrated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA), the largest chip output power is over 30mW. The electroabsorption modulator (EAM) is integrated into the device by the selective-area growth (SAG) technique. The 3dB small signal modulation bandwidth of the EAM is over 13 GHz. The device has both a simple tuning scheme and a simple fabrication procedure, making it suitable for low cost massive production which is desirable for WDM-PON uses.