Furukawa Electric Review No.46High Power AlGaInAs/InP Widely Wavelength Tunable Laser

Norihiro Iwai, Masaki Wakaba, Kazuaki Kiyota, Tatsuro Kurobe, Go Kobayashi, Tatsuya Kimoto, Eisaku Kaji, Masako Kobayakawa, Toshikazu Mukaihara, Noriyuki Yokouchi, Akihiko Kasukawa

Recently, a power consumption reduction is required for optical components used in optical communications. For a light signal source module that uses temperature control components for a precision control of wavelength, semi-cooled performance is useful for the purpose of low power consumption, because the semi-cooled performance raises the operation temperature range of the laser chips higher than ever before. In this case, since the laser chip is required to show superior performances at high temperature, using AlGaInAs-based materials, which are suitable for the performances at high temperature, in an active layer of the signal light source is a promising technology for the reduction of power consumption. On the other hand, a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is a key technology to achieve both a size reduction and a low power consumption in the development of the next-generation of the optical communication systems. Here with the aim of realizing a high-performance photonic integrated circuit, we are reporting our development of a 1550 nm AlGaInAs buried-heterostructure laser and also the fabrication of a 1550 nm wavelength tunable laser, as the first for an AlGaInAs/InP-based laser, which is integrated with a 12 channel-DFB (Distributed feedback) laser array and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA).