Harmonically Mode-Locked Hybrid Silicon Laser With Intra-Cavity Filter to Suppress Supermode Noise

Author

SRINIVASAN, SUDARSHAN ; Arrighi, Alois ; Heck, Martijn J. R. ; Hutchinson, John ; Norberg, Erik ; Fish, Gregory ; Bowers, John E.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Volume

20

Issue

4

fYear

2014

fDate

July-Aug. 2014

Firstpage

8

Lastpage

15

Abstract

We present results from two hybrid silicon mode-locked lasers, each with a 2 GHz cavity and one with an intra-cavity ring resonator filter. We compare the performance of the two lasers with respect to the harmonic mode-locking behavior at 20 GHz, i.e., the tenth harmonic. The filter based laser design passively mode-locked at 20 GHz with an electrical spur mode suppression >45 dB. Furthermore, an optical supermode suppression of 55 dB and an RF linewidth of 52 kHz was also observed. Hybrid mode-locking the laser without the filter required 10 dBm input microwave power for 25 dB (electrical) spur mode suppression as opposed to the design with the filter showing >45 dB suppression at 0 dBm input power.

Keywords

elemental semiconductors; laser cavity resonators; laser mode locking; laser noise; optical filters; resonator filters; semiconductor lasers; silicon; electrical spur mode suppression; frequency 2 GHz; frequency 20 GHz; harmonically mode locked hybrid silicon laser; intracavity filter; intracavity ring resonator filter; optical supermode suppression; supermode noise suppression; Cavity resonators; Harmonic analysis; Laser mode locking; Optical pulses; Power harmonic filters; Radio frequency; Ring lasers; Optoelectronic devices; mode-locked lasers; semiconductor lasers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1077-260X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2291624

Filename

6670695