Advances in silicon-based, integrated tunable semiconductor lasers

Tunable semiconductor lasers for telecommunications applications

Introduction Tunable lasers are becoming important elements in optical networks to reduce costs. They could be used particularly for systems monitoring : a reference signal is transmitted and detected on each wavelength, thus informing on transmission quality. Or inventory costs could be drastically reduced by using tunable lasers as sparing sources or even as standard sources, to avoid the obl...

Advances in high brightness semiconductor lasers

We review recent advances in high power semiconductor lasers including increased spectral brightness, increased spatial brightness, and reduced cost architectures at wavelengths from the near infrared to the eye-safe regime. Data are presented which demonstrate both edge emitter devices and high power surface emitting 2-dimensional arrays with internal gratings to narrow and stabilize the spect...

Broadband semiconductor optical amplifiers and tunable semiconductor lasers

Nonidentical multiple quantum wells (MQWs) had been widely used for broadening the emission or gain bandwidth of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). However, the carrier distribution among the MQWs is not uniform, leading to nonuniform gain contributed from different QWs. Thus using nonidentical MQWs for broadband purpose is not intuitively straightforward. Several factors need to be caref...

Advances in self-assembled semiconductor quantum dot lasers

In the past 20 years the semiconductor laser has become a key device in optical electronics because of its pure output spectrum and high quantum efficiency. As the capabilities of laser diodes have grown, so has the range of applications contemplated for them. A great success in semiconductor lasers has been brought by the ability to artificially structure new materials on an atomic scale by us...

Advances in Measurements of Physical Parameters of Semiconductor Lasers