High power and widely tunable Si hybrid external-cavity laser for power efficient Si photonics WDM links

Opt Express. 2014 Apr 7;22(7):7678-85. doi: 10.1364/OE.22.007678.

Abstract

A highly efficient silicon (Si) hybrid external cavity laser with a wavelength tunable ring reflector is fabricated on a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible Si-on-insulator (SOI) platform and experimental results with high output power are demonstrated. A III-V semiconductor gain chip is edge-coupled into a SOI cavity chip through a SiN(x) spot size converter and Si grating couplers are incorporated to enable wafer-scale characterization. The laser output power reaches 20 mW and the highest wall-plug efficiency of 7.8% is measured at 17.3 mW in un-cooled condition. The laser wavelength tuning ranges are 8 nm for the single ring reflector cavity and 35 nm for the vernier ring reflector cavity, respectively. The Si hybrid laser is a promising light source for energy-efficient Si CMOS photonic links.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.