Monolithic Integration of a Waveguide Optical Isolator With a Distributed Feedback Laser Diode in the 1.5- μm Wavelength Range

We present first monolithic integration of a waveguide optical isolator with a distributed feedback laser diode (DFB LD) in the 1.5-mum wavelength range. The integrated devices are composed of 0.25-mm-long index-coupled DFB LDs and 0.75-mm-long semiconductor active waveguide optical isolators. The semiconductor active waveguide optical isolators are based on the nonreciprocal loss in the semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) waveguides with ferromagnetic metals (Fe). The fabrication process consists of two steps of metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy to grow the DFB LD/SOA layer structures, one dry-etching process for the waveguide stripe formation, and three steps of electron-beam evaporation for the electrodes and ferromagnetic metals deposition. They showed single-mode emission at 1543.8nm and 4-dB optical isolation under a magnetic field of 0.1 T.