Investigation of self-injection locking threshold on a quantum dot comb laser

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrate the establishment of a self-injection locking threshold in a quantum dot (QD) comb laser with a Fabry-Perot cavity and an external feedback loop. This process involves controlling injection power and polarization to inject a controlled fraction of lasing power back into the QD laser source. The study is focused on the single line self-injection locking effects. The self-injection locking process was characterized by a self-injection locking threshold power (PSIL) and a locked power (Plocked). The self-injection locking process begins from the threshold power PSIL and followed by a magnified enhancement till it reaches the locked power (Plocked). Once in the locked region, the enhancement effect starts to stabilize and is only weakly influenced by injection power. The established threshold provides a distinctive condition for the measurements of the modified optical properties of the coupled cavity system. Additionally, the locked single lines tested at different currents indicated a very broad spectral coverage which are much larger than the original bandwidth of free running QD laser.