Tunable laser using microring resonator

• US 6,940,878 B2
• Filed: 05/14/2002
• Issued: 09/06/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 05/14/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Lambda Crossing Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Lambda Crossing Ltd.
• Inventors: Margalit, Moti, Orenstein, Meir
• Primary Examiner(s): Harvey, Minsun Oh
• Assistant Examiner(s): Jackson, Cornelius H
• Application Number:
  US10/145,589
• Publication Number:
  US 20030219045A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,211 Days
• Field of Search: 372/20, 372/92, 372/94, 372/97
• US Class Current: 372/20
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 5/06255 Controlling the frequency of the radiation
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 5/1032 Coupling to elements comprising an optical axis that is not aligned with the optical axis of the active region
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 5/1071 Ring-lasers
• CPC Class Codes: H01S 5/12 the resonator having a periodic structure, e.g. in distributed feedback [DFB] lasers comprising a photonic bandgap structure H01S5/11; surface-emitting lasers H01S5/18

Abstract

A tunable semiconductor laser device is presented. The device comprises a laser structure formed by at least two waveguides and an active region located within at least a segment of one of the waveguides; and comprises a tunable spectral filter optically coupled to the laser structure. The tunable spectral filter includes at least two filtering elements, at least one of them being a microring cavity.

Claims

1. An integrated tunable semiconductor laser device, wherein a laser cavity of the device is formed as a waveguide structure comprising:

at least two spaced-apart waveguides with an active gain region located within at least a segment of one of said at least two waveguides, and a phase element located within a said segment of one of said at least two waveguides and operative to match the overall phase of the laser cavity; and

a tunable spectral filter including at least two filtering elements, at least one of said filtering elements including a closed loop waveguide constituted as a microring cavity accommodated between said two spaced-apart waveguides for coupling light in between said two spaced-apart waveguides and operable as a tunable spectral sequence filtering element.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein said two space-apart waveguides are optically coupled to each other by an arc segment to return filtered light back to the active region.

3. The device according to claim 1, wherein the filtering elements are configured to enable affecting a small difference between free spectral ranges (FSRs) of said filtering elements, thereby tuning the device by Vernier effect.

4. The device according to claim 3, wherein the filtering elements have different dimensions thereby creating said small difference between their FSRs.

5. The device according to claim 3, wherein the filtering elements are made of different materials thereby creating said small difference between their FSRs.

6. The device according to claim 1, wherein the microring cavity filtering element is configured to filter a first frequency comb, and another of said at least two filtering elements is configured to filter a second frequency comb with a spectral spacing different from that of the first frequency comb.

7. The device according to claim 6, operable to perform frequency tuning using the Vernier effect.

8. The device according to claim 6, wherein the other filtering element is an additional microring cavity structure.

9. The device according to claim 6, wherein the other filtering element is a Fabry Perot microcavity.

10. The device according to claim 6, herein the other filtering element includes sampled grating or superstructure gratings.

11. The device according to claim 1, wherein the microring cavity filtering element is configured to filter a frequency comb, and another of said at least two filtering elements is configured for bandpass filtering by selecting a specific frequency from the filtered frequency comb.

12. The device according to claim 11, wherein dimensions of said microring cavity provide for generating the frequency comb with a spacing between filtered frequency components substantially equal to that required for output of the laser device.

13. The device according to claim 12, wherein said bandpass filtering element is tunable.

14. The device according to claim 13, wherein said bandpass filtering element is a grating assisted coupler.

15. The device according to claim 13, wherein said bandpass filtering element is an additional microring cavity, the two microring cavities being accommodated in a cascaded manner between two linear segments of the two spaced-apart waveguides, respectively.

16. The device according to claim 13, wherein said bandpass filtering element is an additional microring cavity, the two microring cavities being accommodated between the two spaced-apart waveguides so as to be optically coupled thereto and to each other.

17. The device according to claim 16, wherein said additional microring cavity has smaller dimensions than said microring cavity.

18. The device according to claim 16, wherein the two microring cavities and the active region containing waveguide are located in the same layer of the integrated device being thus horizontally coupled to the active region containing waveguide.

19. The device according to claim 16, wherein the microring cavities are horizontally coupled to the waveguide containing said active region through segments of said waveguide outside the active region.

20. The device according to claim 16, wherein the microring cavities and the active region containing waveguide are located in different layers of the integrated device and are directly vertically coupled to the active region waveguide.

21. The device according to claim 16, wherein the microring cavities and the active region containing waveguide are located in different layers of the integrated device and are vertically coupled to the waveguide containing the active region through segments of said waveguide outside said active region.

22. The device according to claim 16, comprising an additional coupler element for optically coupling the microring cavities to the waveguide containing said active region.

23. The device according to claim 22, wherein said additional coupler element has a bandpass filtering function.

24. The device according to claim 16, wherein the microring cavities are coupled to the waveguide segments outside the active region, and said segments are vertically coupled to the waveguide containing said active region through segments of said waveguide outside the active region.

25. The device according to claim 24, comprising an additional coupler element for optically coupling the microring cavities to the waveguide containing said active region.

26. The device according to claim 25, wherein said additional coupler element has a bandpass filtering function.

27. A method of fabricating an integrated tunable semiconductor laser device, the method comprising forming a laser cavity as a waveguide structure including two spaced-apart waveguides with an active region being located within at least a segment of one of the waveguides and with a phase element being located in a segment of one of said at least two waveguides to match the overall phase of the laser cavity, and configuring a tunable spectral filter from at least two microring cavities accommodated between the two spaced-apart waveguides and being optically coupled to said at least two waveguides and to each other, to thereby provide for coupling light in between the two spaced-apart waveguides and enable tuning of the device by tuning the microring cavities relatively to each other to apply a Vernier effect.

28. An integrated tunable semiconductor laser device having a laser cavity comprising at least two waveguides with an active gain region being located within at least a segment of one of said at least two waveguides;

a phase element located in a region of one of said at least two waveguides and operating to match the overall phase of the laser cavity; and

a tunable spectral sequence filter including at least two closed loop waveguides presenting microring cavities that are accommodated between said two spaced-apart waveguides coupling light propagation therebetween while effecting tunable spectral sequence filtering, the device being tunable by tuning the microring cavities relatively to each other to thereby apply a Vernier effect.