Light-emitting device having injection-lockable semiconductor ring laser monolithically integrated with master laser
AssigneeStc.Unm
InventorsMarek A. Osinski, Omar K. Qassim, Nathan J. Withers, Gennady A. Smolyakov
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Abstract
A semiconductor ring laser (SRL) section is monolithically integrated with a DFB or DBR master laser section on a semiconductor substrate of a light-emitting device to provide an injection locking mode of operation that can result in low-cost ultrafast (over 100 GHz) functional chip that will be easy to use in practice.
Claims33
A semiconductor light-emitting device comprising a semiconductor ring laser monolithically integrated on a common substrate with a single-frequency semiconductor master laser having a frequency-selective element, wherein the light output from the semiconductor master laser is used to injection-lock the semiconductor ring laser to the same frequency by delivering light through a monolithically integrated waveguide carrying light from the said master laser to the ring laser.
A method of injection locking a directly modulated semiconductor ring laser, the method comprising:
- providing a semiconductor light-emitting device comprising a semiconductor ring laser monolithically integrated on a common substrate with a single-frequency semiconductor master laser having a frequency-selective element, wherein the light output from the semiconductor master laser is used to injection-lock the semiconductor ring laser to the same frequency by delivering light through a monolithically integrated waveguide carrying light from the master laser to the ring laser;
- supplying a direct current bias to the master laser such that the master laser output has a power level sufficient to increase the density of photons inside the semiconductor ring laser;
- supplying a direct current bias and a modulated electrical input signal to the semiconductor ring laser for emission of light modulated in response to the input signal;
- and
- selectively tuning the direct bias currents to the master laser and ring laser in order to establish an injection locking mode of operation of the ring laser.
A semiconductor light-emitting device comprising at least two cascaded semiconductor ring lasers monolithically integrated on a common substrate with a single-frequency semiconductor master laser having a frequency-selective element, wherein the light output from the semiconductor master laser is used to injection-lock the first semiconductor ring laser to the same frequency by delivering light through a monolithically integrated waveguide carrying light from the master laser to the first ring laser, with the light output from the first ring laser carried by another monolithically integrated waveguide to the second ring laser, and so on, and all the semiconductor ring lasers are independently addressable by both direct injection current and modulated current signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.