Design of mode-locked integrated grating compound cavity laser with tapered semiconductor amplifier

Summary form only given. The growing bandwidth demand of broadband distributive and interactive services can be met by combining wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) and optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) to provide an even larger transmission capacity. The multichannel grating cavity (MGC) laser has the potential to generate multiwavelength picosecond pulses for such WDM/OTDM transmission systems. Furthermore, the MGC laser can also be used to perform novel network functions, including space-switching and multiplexing. Integrated devices are attractive because of reduced costs, compact size, low insertion loss and improved mechanical stability. We perform numerical simulations of the integrated MGC laser by combining a set of interconnectable bidirectional models comprising the master stripe, slave stripe and the transmission grating. All simulations are done for a single channel only. The numerical model we used is based on the time-domain transmission-line laser model, which includes electrical parasitics. The model is based on propagation of optical waves, in contrast to optical intensity used in the rate equations. All the important physical processes of the laser is considered, including self-phase modulation, reflections, spontaneous emission noise, the filtering effect of the dispersive element, gain saturation and wavelength dependence of gain.