Nanotechnology is a driver for novel opto-electronic devices and systems. Nanosemiconductors like quantum dots allow controlled variation of fundamental electronic and optical properties by changing the size and shape of the nanostructures. This applies directly to self-organized quantum dots which find a versatile use in many kinds of photonic devices. Wavelength tunability, decreased laser threshold, scalability of gain by stacking quantum dot layers, low linewidth enhancement factor and temperature stability are consequences of three-dimensional carrier confinement in semiconductor quantum dots. Directly modulated lasers using quantum dots offer further advantages like strongly damped relaxation oscillations yielding low patterning effects in digital data transmission. Quantum dot mode-locked lasers feature a broad gain spectrum leading to ultra-short pulses with sub-ps width and a low alpha factor for low-chirp. Thereby, optical comb generators for the future 100G Ethernet are feasible. Semiconductor optical amplifiers based on quantum dots show advantages as compared to classical ones: broad bandwidth due to the inhomogeneous quantum dot size distribution, ultrafast gain recovery for high-speed amplification and small patterning in optical data transmission. We present our most recent results on temperature stable 10 Gb/s, 23°-70°C direct modulation of lasers, ultrafast 80 GHz and short 710 fs optical pulse combs with mode-locked lasers and semiconductor optical amplifiers showing ultrafast amplification of these optical combs as well as error-free 40 Gb/s data modulation, all based on a quantum dot gain medium.

Date Published: 6 July 2006
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 6350, Workshop on Optical Components for Broadband Communication, 63500M (6 July 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.692912

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6350:
Workshop on Optical Components for Broadband Communication
Pierre-Yves Fonjallaz; Thomas P. Pearsall, Editor(s)