3.2 Wetting Layer Tailored by Epitaxial Stress Most epitaxial films wet the substrates to var-ying degrees in heteroepitaxy.In the paradigm systems of the QD epitaxial growth,In As/GaAs(001)and Ge/Si(001),the critical wetting layer(WL)for
A mode-locked external-cavity laser emitting at 1.17-μm wavelength using an InAs/GaAs quantum-dot gain medium and a discrete semiconductor saturable absorber mirror is demonstrated. By changing the external-cavity length, repetition rates of 854, 912, and 969 MHz are achieved respectively. The narrowest -3-dB radio-frequency linewidth obtained is 38 kHz, indicating that the laser is under stable mode-locking operation.
A broadband tunable grating-coupled external cavity laser is realized by employing a self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum-dot （QD） superluminescent diode （SLD） as the gain device. The SLD device is processed with a bent-waveguide structure and facet antireflection （AR） coating. Tuning bandwidths of 106 nm and 117 nm are achieved under a-A and 3.5-A injection currents, respectively. The large tuning range originates essentially from the broad gain spectrum of self-assembled QDs. The bent waveguide structure combined with the facet AR coating plays a role in suppressing the inner-cavity lasing under a large injection current.
With a chirped InAs/GaAs SML-QD （quantum dot） structure serving as the active region, the superluminescent diodes emitting at wavelength of around 970nm are fabricated. By using an active multimode interferometer configuration, these devices exhibit high continue-wave output powers from the narrow ridge waveguides. At continue-wave injection current of 800mA, an output power of 18.5mW, and the single Gaussian-like emission spectrum centered at 972nm with a full width at half maximum of 18nm are obtained.
A broadband external cavity tunable laser is realized by using a broad-emitting spectral InAs/GaAs quantum dot （QD） gain device. A tuning range of 69 nm with a central wavelength of 1056 nm, is achieved at a bias of 1.25 kA/cm^2only by utilizing the light emission from the ground state of QDs. This large tunable range only covers the QD ground-state emission and is related to the inhomogeneous size distribution of QDs. No excited state contributes to the tuning bandwidth. The application of the QD gain device to the external cavity tunable laser shows its immense potential in broadening the tuning bandwidth. By the external cavity feedback, the threshold current densitycan be reduced remarkably compared with the free-running QD gain device.
This paper reports the fabrication of J-shaped bent-waveguide superluminescent diodes utilizing an InAl- GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dot active region. The emission spectrum of the device is centred at 884 nm with a full width at half maximum of 37 nm and an output power of 18 mW. By incorporating an Al composition into the quan- tum dot active region, short-wavelength superluminescent diode devices can be obtained. An intersection was found for the light power-injection current curves measured from the straight-waveguide facet and the bent-waveguide facet, respectively. The result is attributed to the conjunct effects of the gain and the additional loss of the bent waveguide. A numerical simulation is performed to verify the qualitative explanation. It is shown that bent waveguide loss is an important factor that affects the output power of J-shaped superluminescent diode devices.
