Progress in Y laser technology: Towards application specific designs

The interferometric Y laser has been shown to be a multifunctional device with frequency, space and time processing capabilities, suitable for numerous photonic switching and optical communication applications. Its characteristic feature is the broadband wavelength tunability across the whole spectrum of the semiconductor gain profile. The authors report on recent advances in Y laser technology leading to strong improvements of device properties, and first modifications and optimizations of the original structures making the components ready for system implementation. Various device geometry optimizations are under progress for different system requirements and applications. These structural and technological modifications together with some first experimentally obtained device characteristics are described