Recent Advances on InAs/InP Quantum Dash Based Semiconductor Lasers and Optical Amplifiers Operating at 1.55 $\mu$m

Abstract

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> This paper summarizes recent advances on InAs/InP quantum dash (QD) materials for lasers and amplifiers, and QD device performance with particular interest in optical communication. We investigate both InAs/InP dashes in a barrier and dashes in a well (DWELL) heterostructures operating at 1.5 <formula formulatype="inline"><tex> $\mu$</tex></formula>m. These two types of QDs can provide high gain and low losses. Continuous-wave (CW) room-temperature lasing operation on ground state of cavity length as short as 200 <formula formulatype="inline"><tex> $\mu$</tex></formula>m has been achieved, demonstrating the high modal gain of the active core. A threshold current density as low as 110 A/cm<formula formulatype="inline"><tex>$^{2}$</tex></formula> per QD layer has been obtained for infinite-length DWELL laser. An optimized DWELL structure allows achieving of a <formula formulatype="inline"><tex> $T_{0}$</tex></formula> larger than 100 K for broad-area (BA) lasers, and of 80 K for single-transverse-mode lasers in the temperature range between 25<formula formulatype="inline"><tex>$^{\circ}$</tex></formula>C and 85 <formula formulatype="inline"><tex>$^{\circ}$</tex></formula>C. Buried ridge stripe (BRS)-type single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) lasers are also demonstrated for the first time, exhibiting a side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) as high as 45 dB. Such DFB lasers allow the first floor-free 10-Gb/s direct modulation for back-to-back and transmission over 16-km standard optical fiber. In addition, novel results are given on gain, noise, and four-wave mixing of QD-based semiconductor optical amplifiers. Furthermore, we demonstrate that QD Fabry–Perot (FP) lasers, owing to the small confinement factor and the three-dimensional (3-D) quantification of electronic energy levels, exhibit a beating linewidth as narrow as 15 kHz. Such an extremely narrow linewidth, compared to their QW or bulk counterparts, leads to the excellent phase noise and time-jitter characteristics when QD lasers are actively mode-locked. These advances constitute a new step toward the application of QD lasers and amplifiers to the field of optical fiber communications. </para>