Characterization of wavelength-tunable quantum dot external cavity laser for 1.3-μm-waveband coherent light sources

A sandwiched sub-nano separator (SSNS) growth technique of producing high-density, high-quality InAs/InGaAs quantum dot (QD) structures on GaAs substrates is proposed. The SSNS technique achieved a density of 8:2×10 ¹⁰/cm ² by suppressing giant dot formation. The QD structures fabricated by the SSNS technique were used to form a ridge-type waveguide QD optical gain chip for O-band optical gain. With this chip, we successfully demonstrated the generation of a wavelength-tunable fine-tooth optical frequency comb in the O-band from a QD optical frequency comb laser (QD-CML), and synchronized short-optical-pulse generation (∼14 ps) with gigahertz-order repetition from a hybrid mode-locked QD-CML. We also successfully demonstrated a wavelength tunable QD-ECL with a wide wavelength tuning range (1265-1320 nm) and a narrow linewidth (210 kHz) in the O-band. It is expected that these QD coherent light sources will become attractive photonic devices for many scientific applications in the 1.0-1.3 μm waveband.