Electroabsorption modulated laser for long transmission spans

Abstract

Strain-compensated AlGaInAs quantum-well electroabsorption modulated lasers (EMLs) transmit at 10 Gbits/s on uncompensated transmission spans of >75 km of standard fiber and >225 km of MetroCor fiber. Details of the design, fabrication, and testing are presented. A complex-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) grating is used to enable high output power. The epitaxy and chip structure are described. The paper studies what is needed to accomplish long-span transmission in terms of minimum physical requirements for laser mode control, facet reflection, index grating strength, laser-modulator matching, laser-modulator electrical isolation, modulator extinction ratio, modulator capacitance, linewidth enhancement factor, etc. The interaction of the modulator with the laser is analyzed and a requirement for this structure is computed for the electrical isolation resistance between modulator and laser contacts. Stability of the laser source is discussed and a method is derived for determining the grating's gain-coupling coefficient at operating power. Chirp due to the modulator is analyzed. Nonzero chirp of the modulator is shown to have beneficial impact on the quality of the signal after transmission. The effect of a bias-dependent alpha parameter is analyzed. Because bit-error rate is a strong function of mean alpha parameter and not a strong function of the range of alpha during nonreturn-to-zero modulation, we determine that tuning the chirp of the EML modulator to suit different fiber types (MetroCor, SMF-28, etc.) is practical. Specific tradeoffs are also required. Experimental results verify the analysis.