Distributed feedback lasers are key ingredients of high-speed, high-capacity integrated photonic chips. In this work, we extract the linewidth enhancement factor above threshold by measuring the transitional points in the optical-injection stability map from a quantum well distributed feedback laser with a temperature-controlled mismatch between the lasing and optical gain peaks. This unique measurement technique allows the simultaneous extraction of important parameters influencing the linewidth, particularly the photon lifetime. When the current is higher than twice threshold and 50 ℃, the linewidth enhancement factor is smaller than that at 10 ℃. This effect is attributed to the increasing differential gain at the lasing peak position, which is a result of the larger optical mismatch. We also measured the spectral linewidth at different temperatures, which then yields the spontaneous emission factor, nsp. Due to the low linewidth enhancement factor at high temperatures, a large photon lifetime, and a modest increase in nsp, the linewidth does not drastically increase with pump current and stays below 100 kHz at 50 ℃. Overall, the stability of the linewidth enhancement factor combined with the large optical mismatch brings a relative temperature insensitivity, which is of paramount importance for applications requiring high-temperature operation and improved coherent light.
This work investigates the effects of the confinement factor on the linewidth enhancement factor in hybrid silicon quantum dot comb lasers, which is a key parameter involved in frequency comb generation. Experiments are performed on two laser devices sharing the same gain material with slightly different cavity designs resulting in different confinement factors. The results highlight that a lower confinement factor leads to a smaller carrier-induced refractive index variation and a larger differential gain, together resulting in a smaller linewidth enhancement factor, which in turn translates into different sets of performance regarding the feedback applications. This paper brings novel insights on the fundamental aspects of quantum dot comb lasers and provides new guidelines of future on-chip light sources for integrated wavelength-division multiplexing applications.
On-chip integration of semiconductor lasers have shown a growing interest in recent years, especially for the development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs) which are of paramount importance for high-speed communication within and between data centers, and fast on-board data exchanges. For all these applications, a key challenge remains the stability of the laser sources integrated on a PIC in presence of external optical feedback with the view to avoid integrated bulky and costly optical isolation. In this study, the effects of external optical feedback are investigated in hybrid InAs/InP quantum dot comb lasers on silicon. The design of the cavity includes a semiconductor optical amplifier section, a saturable absorber and an on-chip external cavity incorporating a vertical coupler. We measured the resulting feedback properties with respect to the operation conditions (bias current and voltage) and to the length of the saturable absorber. We show that under most operating conditions, the laser remains stable against optical feedback, only few regimes of operation occur, which either improve or degrade the frequency comb and/or the radio-frequency beatnote power of the laser.
Quantum dot lasers directly grown on silicon are excellent candidates to achieve energy and cost-efficient optical transceivers thanks to their outstanding properties such as high temperature stability, low threshold lasing operation, and high feedback tolerance. In order to reach even better performance, p-type doping is used to eliminate gain saturation, gain broadening due to hole thermalization and to further reduce the linewidth enhancement factor. Optical transceivers with low relative intensity noise are also highly desired to carry broadband data with low bit-error rate. Indeed, the intensity noise stemming from intrinsic optical phase and frequency fluctuations caused by spontaneous emission and carrier noise degrades the signal-to-noise ratio and the bit-error rate hence setting a limit of a highspeed communication system. This paper constitutes a comprehensive study of the intensity noise properties of epitaxial quantum dot lasers on silicon. Results show minimal values between - 140 dB/Hz and - 150 dB/Hz for doping level between 0 and 20 holes/dot in the active region. In particular, the intensity noise is insensitive to temperature for p-doped QD laser. Modulation properties such as damping, carrier lifetime, and K-factor are also extracted from the noise characteristics and analyzed with respect to the doping level. We also provide numerical insights based on an excitonic model illustrating the effects of the Shockley-Read-Hall recombination on the intensity noise features. These new findings are meaningful for designing high speed and low noise quantum dot devices to be integrated in future photonic integrated circuits.
The sensitivity of a hybrid distributed feedback semiconductor (DFB) laser heterogeneously integrated onto silicon (Si) is extensively characterized in the presence of external optical feedback at different bias and temperature conditions. The unique modal engineering approach of the device allows the light generated in the III-V material to be stored in the low-loss Si region to significantly enhance the quality (Q) factor of the cavity resonator. This design leads to an increased temperature tolerance of the laser without impacting the transmission efficiency even under the most severe feedback conditions. At a temperature of T = 35◦C, the laser continuous to unveil optimal performance and exhibits feedback insensitivity when externally modulated at 10 Gbps transmission over a 10 km fiber coil. The study presented here demonstrates the ability of a high-Q laser to achieve floor-free transmission at different operating conditions with a power penalty degradation no greater than 1.5 dB. The prolonged transition to the coherence collapse regime at a much higher reflection level evidenced by this device when compared to its III-V counterparts in addition to its ability to withstand perturbations associated with temperature variations and unintentional back-reflections delivers a step forward towards isolator-free applications. This work suggest that this type of semiconductor lasers can serve as a promising solution for the development of compact and reliable photonic integrated circuits (PICs).
This work reports on the optical feedback dynamics of InAs/GaAs QD lasers epitaxially grown on silicon operating in both the short and long delay regimes. Both undoped and p-doped QD lasers are considered. Whatever the external cavity length, no chaotic oscillations are observed on both samples as a result of the small α-factor observed in the silicon QD lasers. Despite that, experiments conducted in the short-cavity region raise period-one oscillation for the undoped QD laser. In addition, the transition from the short to long delay regimes can be finely covered by varying the external cavity length from 5 cm to 50 cm, and the boundaries associated to the appearance of the periodic oscillation are identified. In the short-cavity region, boundaries show some residual undulations resulting from interferences between internal and external cavity modes; whereas in the long-delay regime, the feedback ratio delimiting the boundaries keeps decreasing, until it progressively becomes rather in- dependent of the external cavity length. Overall, our results showed that the p-doped device clearly exhibits a much higher tolerance to the different external feedback conditions than the undoped one, seeing that its periodic oscillation boundaries are barely impossible to retrieve at the maximum feedback strength of -7 dB. These results show for the first time the p-modulation doping effect on the enhancement of feedback insensitivity in both short- and long-delay configurations, which is of paramount importance for the development of ultra-stable silicon transmitters for photonic technologies.
Direct epitaxial growth of III-V lasers on silicon provides the most economically favorable means of photonic integration but has traditionally been hindered by poor material quality. Relative to commercialized heterogeneous integration schemes, epitaxial growth reduces complexity and increases scalability by moving to 300 mm wafer diameters. The challenges associated with the crystalline mismatch between III-Vs and Si can be overcome through optimized buffer layers including thermal cyclic annealing and metamorphic layers, which we have utilized to achieve dislocation densities < 7×106 cm-2. By combining low defect densities with defect-tolerant quantum dot active regions, native substrate performance levels can be achieved. Narrow ridge devices with threshold current densities as low as ~130 A/cm2 have been demonstrated with virtually degradation free operation at 35°C over 11,000 h of continuous aging at twice the initial threshold current density (extrapolated time-to-failure >10,000,000 h). At 60°C, lasers with extrapolated time-to-failure >50,000 h have been demonstrated for >4,000 h of continuous aging. Lasers have also been investigated for their performance under optical feedback and showed no evidence of coherence collapse at back-reflection levels of 100% (minus 10% tap for measurement) due to the ultralow linewidth enhancement factor (αH < 0.2) and high damping of the optimized quantum dot active region.
A common way of extracting the chirp parameter (i.e., the α-factor) of semiconductor lasers is usually performed by extracting the net modal gain and the wavelength from the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) spectrum. Although this method is straightforward, it remains sensitive to the thermal effects hence leading to a clear underestimation of the α-factor. In this work, we investigate the chirp parameter of InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers epitaxially grown on silicon with a measurement technique evaluating the gain and wavelength changes of the suppressed side modes by optical injection locking. Given that the method is thermally insensitive, the presented results confirm our initial measurements conducted with the ASE i.e. the α-factor of the QD lasers directly grown on silicon is as low as 0.15 hence resulting from the low threading dislocation density and high material gain of the active region. These conclusions make such lasers very promising for future integrated photonics where narrow linewidth, feedback resistant and low-chirp on-chip transmitters are required.
The integration of optical functions on a microelectronic chip brings many innovative perspectives, along with the possibility to enhance the performances of photonic integrated circuits (PIC). Owing to the delta-like density of states, quantum dot lasers (QD) directly grown on silicon are very promising for achieving low-cost transmitters with high thermal stability and large insensitivity to optical reflections. This paper investigates the dynamical and nonlinear properties of silicon based QD lasers through the prism of the linewidth broadening factor (i.e. the so-called α-factor) and the optical feedback dynamics. Results demonstrate that InAs/GaAs p-doped QD lasers epitaxially grown on silicon exhibit very low α-factors, which directly transform into an ultra-large resistance against optical feedback. As opposed to what is observed in heterogeneously integrated quantum well (QW) lasers, no chaotic state occurs owing to the high level of QD size uniformity resulting in a near zero α-factor. Considering these results, this study suggests that QD lasers made with direct epitaxial growth is a powerful solution for integration into silicon CMOS technology, which requires both high thermal stability and feedback resistant lasers.
The optical feedback dynamics of two multimode InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers emitting exclusively on sole ground or excited lasing states is investigated under the short delay configuration. Although the two lasers are made from the same active medium, their responses to the external perturbation are found not much alike. By varying the feedback parameters, various periodic and chaotic oscillatory states are unveiled. The ground state laser is found to be much more resistant to optical feedback, benefitting from its strong relaxation oscillation damping. In contrast, the excited state laser can easily be driven into very complex dynamics. While the ground state laser is of importance for the development of isolator-free transmitters, the excited one is essential for applications taking advantages of chaos such as chaos lidar, chaos radar, and random number generation.
Quantum dot nanostructures are one of the best practical examples of emerging nanotechnologies hence offering superior properties as compared to their quantum well counterparts. InAs/GaAs quantum dots allow producing energy- and cost-efficient devices with outstanding temperature stability, lowest threshold current, ultrafast gain dynamics, and low amplified spontaneous emission. This paper reports on the recent achievements in ultrafast and nonlinear dynamics properties of InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers for radar systems, wireless communications and high-speed optical communications. Passive mode-locking is shown to exhibit a great potential for microwave, millimeter-wave and Terahertz signal generation with high repetition frequency tuning and jitter reduction. The optical feedback is also used to stabilize the pulse emission leading an integrated timing jitter as low as 90 fs without consuming additional power. Lastly, multimode optical feedback dynamics of InAs/GaAs QD lasers emitting on different lasing states is also studied. In particular, a chaos free operation is observed for the first time from the ground state lasing operation.
In this paper, we investigate the temperature dependence of spectral linewidth of InAs/InP quantum dot distributed feedback lasers. In comparison with their quantum well counterparts, results show that quantum dot lasers have spectral linewidths rather insensitive to the temperature with minimum values below 200 kHz in the range of 283K to 303K. The experimental results are also well confirmed by numerical simulations. Overall, this work shows that quantum dot lasers are excellent candidates for various applications such as coherent communication systems, high-resolution spectroscopy, high purity photonic microwave generation and on-chip atomic clocks.
Frequency conversion using highly non-degenerate four-wave mixing is reported in InAs/GaAs quantum-dot Fabry- Perot lasers. In order to compress the spontaneous emission noise, the laser is optically injection-locked. Under proper injection conditions, the beating between the injected light frequency and the cavity resonant frequency dominates the dynamic behavior and enhances a carrier modulation resonance at frequencies higher than the relaxation oscillation frequency. Conversion efficiencies as high as -12 dB associated to a large optical signal-to-noise ratio of 36 dB are reported. The conversion bandwidth is extended up to 2.1 THz for down-conversion (resp. 3.2 THz for up-conversion) with a quasi-symmetrical response between up- and down-converted signals.
In this work, the sensitivity to external optical feedback of two different InAs/GaAs QD Fabry-Perot (FP) lasers is investigated under long cavity regime. The first, which has a 1.5 mm-long cavity, emits on the GS while the second one, which is 1 mm long, radiates solely on the ES transition. The results indicate that for the same bias level, the ES laser presents a larger sensitivity to external feedback, the critical level being under 1% versus above 9% for the GS laser. In particular, the ES laser exhibits a route to chaos such that the first destabilization occurs for a lower feedback strength than for the GS laser.
Non-degenerate four-wave mixing effects are investigated in an injection-locked InAs/InP nanostructure Fabry-Perot laser. Locking a longitudinal mode at various wavelengths within the gain spectrum and using the locked mode as the pump for the wave mixing shows different levels of asymmetry between up- and down-conversion. Experiments reveal that the normalized conversion efficiency is less asymmetric when the pump is locked at wavelengths below that of the gain peak. The values of nonlinear conversion efficiencies are maintained above -60 dB for pump-probe frequency detunings up to 3.5 THz. The role of the linewidth enhancement factor on the asymmetry is discussed and the value of the nonlinear susceptibility is compared to similar InAs/InP nanostructure semiconductor optical amplifiers. From an end-user viewpoint, data transmission experiments have also confirmed the possibility to propagate up-converted signals over 100 km at a 5 Gb/s bit rate under an OOK modulation format.
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