Low-noise four-wavelength simultaneous oscillation of a 1.3-μm external-cavity quantum-dot laser

An external-cavity laser with a quantum-dot (QD) gain medium is attractive because it combines the advantages of both QDs and the external-cavity configuration. Investigations of external-cavity QD lasers have revealed that these lasers demonstrate good performance with features such as a wide wavelength tuning range, stable lasing oscillation, and highspeed transmission. In this study, we employed an 800-GHz etalon filter inserted into an external cavity and obtained a four-channel oscillation spectrum that coincided with the local area network (LAN)-WDM grid. Each mode of the four channels oscillated stably at the single longitudinal mode defined by the external-cavity length. We sliced the four channels into a single channel using an inline band-pass filter. The filtered single channel has a high side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) of 43.9 dB and a low relative intensity noise (RIN) of -137.9 dB/Hz in the frequency range of 0.5–20 GHz. For comparison with a multi-quantum well (MQW) gain medium, we obtained the four-channel spectrum using the same setup. However, each channel was multi-mode, and the four-channel simultaneous oscillation could not be maintained for a few dozen minutes. Furthermore, when we sliced the four-channels into a single channel, the spectrum intensity became changing; therefore, we could not measure the RIN. These results show that both the stable single longitude modes and the low RIN spectrum of the filtered mode are inherent in the QD medium, indicating that the external-cavity comb laser with the QD gain medium is promising as a light source for WDM transmission. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.