Potentially low-cost widely tunable laser consisting of a semiconductor optical amplifier connected directly to a silica waveguide grating router

We present a widely tunable laser consisting of a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) glued directly to a silica waveguide grating router, that can be packaged without submicrometer alignments, air gaps, or SOA vertical spotsize conversion. However, issues regarding thermooptic power consumption and modal stability remain to be solved.