Monolithic integration of a widely tunable laser diode with a high speed electro absorption modulator

We are manufacturing widely tunable laser diodes with an integrated high-speed electro-absorption modulator for metro and all-optical switching applications. The monolithic integration of the device combines the functions of high power laser light generation (>10 mW), wavelength tuning over the entire C-band (>100 channels on 50 GHz grid), and high speed signal modulation (>2.5 Gbit/s). The laser section of the chip contains two sampled grating DBRs with a gain and a phase section between them. Wavelength tuning is achieved by current injection into the waveguide layers of the DBRs. Since electronics tuning and not thermal or mechanical tuning is employed wavelength tuning can be easily performed on a short time scale of less than 10 ms which is required for various applications. Even 40 ns tuning speed is feasible with the appropriate driver electronics. Transmission experiments show less than 1 dB power penalty over 200 km of standard single mode fiber for all channels.