Fabrication of an InP/GaInAsP based integrated gain-coupled DFB laser/M-Z phase modulator for 10Gb/sec fiber optic transmission
- Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)
The monolithic integration of lasers and modulators is an attractive approach for the manufacture of compact, low-chirp light sources with low packaging costs for high bit rate (10Gb/s) long haul fiber optic transmission systems. In this presentation the authors describe the fabrication of an InGaAsP/InP-based Mach/Zehnder phase modulator with a gain-coupled DFB laser which achieves 10Gb/s transmission at 1.55 {micro}m over 100km of non-dispersion shifted fiber. The use of an interferometric modulator provides greater freedom for the control of chirp when compared to modulation by electroabsorption. A strained layer multi quantum well gain-coupled DFB laser was employed for the cw-source because of its potential for very high yield of devices which laser in a single mode and for its greater immunity to external reflection. The integration of a phase modulator with a laser requires the deposition of InGaAsP-based quantum wells with different thicknesses over different, but adjacent areas of the InP substrate. Previous efforts of this kind employed Selective Area Epitaxy. Although SAE is an elegant method of locally varying thicknesses of epitaxial films it does not allow the independent growth of different numbers of quantum wells. Therefore, it reduces the designer`s flexibility in choosing the optimum parameters for wells and barriers as well as confinement layers (thickness, number, composition, doping) independently for both the laser and the modulator. For exactly that reason the authors have decided to pursue the butt-coupled approach and deposit the layer sequences for laser and modulator in 2 separate growth runs.
- OSTI ID:
- 536188
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960498--; ISBN 0-7803-3283-0
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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