High Power Widely Tunable Semiconductor Laser for Radar Backplane Reconfigurable WDM Interconnects - Subtopic: BMDO/ 02-211B (Optical Devices)

"Fast, widely-tunable frequency-agile lasers have the potential of delivering dramatic improvements in capacity, capability, robustness, compactness, and cost in fiber optic communications and sensing systems, for both military and commercial applications.The SGDBR (Sampled Grating Bragg Reflector) laser is a leading candidate device technology among widely tunable lasers. The primary challenge facing this type of lasers is output power; namely, achieving high (>20 mW) power while still preserving a widetuning range and high spectral purity. Powers of the order of 10 mW have been obtained through the monolithic integration of Tunable Laser and Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA). However, the maximum amplifier gain is limited by power saturationeffects and furthermore, extremely stringent requirements are placed on the facet coating to reduce the effects of spurious facet reflections.Further increases in power and efficiency for 40 mW and beyond require a novel device structure, which is the subject of this proposal: the SGDBR laser monolithically integrated with a coupled power oscillator (SGDBR-CPO). The specific objectives of thisPhase I program are: developing static and dynamic models of the device; exploring design trade-offs governing power, tuning range and spectral purity; developing an approach to test and control of the device. The full implementation of this project will result in widely tunable transmitters (tunable o