Tunable In-series Laser Array With Duplex Distributed Feedback Sections

Abstract

The tunable laser based on distributed feedback (DFB) laser array has a good single-longitudinal-mode property, high wavelength stability, narrow spectrum linewidth, and feasibility for monolithic integration. The tunable in-series DFB laser array (TIDLA) was proposed to avoid the large extra power loss by the optical combiner. But in the TIDLA, a large laser count will cause a large chip length, which brings about low utilization ratio of material, poor mechanical strength, and large power consumption. In this paper, we demonstrated a 4-channel TIDLA with duplex DFB sections. The total chip length was greatly shortened owing the duplexing of DFB sections. A long linearly chirped Bragg grating is implemented in the laser cavity to reduce the grating interference among different lasers. Multiple π phase shifts and two reflector sections are introduced to improve the mode stability. The designed channel spacing is 100 GHz, and the reconstruction-equivalent-chirp technique is used to provide high precision control of the grating phase. Noted that a variation of 0.1 nm in grating period will cause that of 0.65 nm in wavelength. Output power of above 4 mW, SMSR of above 42 dB, and small wavelength deviation of within 0.15 nm was obtained. Besides, fast channel switches of less than 1 <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">μ</i> s are obtained by laser on/off switching. The proposed TIDLA might be applied in the NG-PON2 network where the dense wavelength division multiplexing technique and fast channel switching are required.