Recent progress in the integration of MGY-based tunable lasers and Mach-Zehnder modulators

We have demonstrated a MZ modulator monolithically integrated with a widely tunable MG-Y laser and SOA that delivers over +4.5 dBm of average fiber-coupled modulated power, a dynamic ER exceeding 12 dB, and less than 1.5 dB dispersion penalty at 10 Gb/s for link dispersion in the range of -800 to +800 ps/nm, under the constraint of operation with a constant RF amplitude and fixed receiver settings. Transmission performance for zero-chirp operation is in good agreement with a MATLAB-based link model. The integrated chip enables inexpensive packaging within a hermetic module that features record compactness (12.7 x 15.24 mm). The module performance and footprint are highly suitable for the deployment of flexible wavelength provisioning within dispersion-managed long-haul transmission systems.