Fully Integrated Tunable III-V/Si Laser With On-Chip SOA
Ranjeet Kumar, Guan-Lin Su, Duanni Huang, Chee Yoong Soon, Miatsu Okitsu, J. L. Davis, Thomas Pham, Hari Mahalingam, Mahtab Hakami, Kalyan Sikder, Chenyang Wu, William D. O’Brien, Adam Bowles, David Gold, Huijie Du, Richard Jones, Haisheng Rong
Abstract
Silicon-photonics based high volume manufacturable lasers are playing an increasingly important role in optical communication and sensing due to their low-cost, high performance, and seamless integration with other silicon photonics components. Here we demonstrate a silicon-photonics based widely tunable laser with integrated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and wavelength reference on a high-volume, 300-mm III-V/Si integration platform. The laser shows a tuning range > 50 nm with side-mode suppression ratio > 55 dB, Lorentzian linewidth < 30 kHz, and relative intensity noise (RIN) < −150 dB/Hz across the entire tuning range. We also demonstrate an active control of the laser. When locked to an external wavelength reference, the laser shows a frequency error < 1 GHz against changes to the chip temperature. Amplified by an SOA, the on-chip optical power exceeds 17 dBm. Such tunable lasers can be integrated with other silicon-based photonic components including high-speed modulators and detectors for a variety of applications, ranging from optical communication to sensing.