Laser research on an InP-based generic integration platform

Abstract

In Europe a number of technology platforms for generic integration are being created for photonic integrated circuits (PICs); in Silicon, in passive dielectrics, and in Indium Phosphide. Such platforms are on the brink of commercialization, they offer a range of calibrated building blocks from which application specific PICs can be built and allow simplified, reduced cost access to a standardised technology, but presently only InP based platforms allow the integration of optical gain blocks; the essential feature of a semiconductor laser. The wavelength is constrained by the platform, usually Cband, but in the near future we expect other wavelengths in the 1.3µm-2.0µm range will be addressed.A frozen platform technology may not seem an ideal starting point for novel laser research but for what may be appear to be lost in epitaxial and process flexibility, much more is gained through a new-found ability to build up complex circuits quickly to deliver new and interesting laser based functionality. Building blocks such as reflectors (a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) or a multimode interference reflector (MIR)), an amplifier section, and passive waveguides, can be built up by designers into integrated semiconductor lasers of a wide variety of types. This ready integration of novel sources with other circuit functionality can address a wide range of applications in telecoms, datacoms, and fibre based sensing systems.In this paper we describe a number of recent developments on generic InP-based platforms ranging from the fabrication of simple Fabry-Perot lasers, through tuneable DBR lasers, multi-wavelength comb lasers, picosecond pulse lasers and ring lasers.