Monolithically integrated widely tunable laser source operating at 2 μm

• DOI: 10.1364/optica.3.001412
• Publication Date: 2016-11-17T21:40:18Z
• Authors: S. Latkowski; A. Hänsel; P. J. van Veldhoven; D. D’Agostino; H. Rabbani-Haghighi; B. Docter; N. Bhattacharya; P. J. A. Thijs; H. P. M. M. Ambro...; M. K. Smit; K. A. Williams; E. A. J. M. Bente
• Keywords: Lasers, tunable; Semiconductor lasers; Lasers; 0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering; Laser sensors; tunable; 02 engineering and technology; 7. Clean energy; Spectroscopy; Photonic integrated circuits

We present a widely tunable extended cavity ring laser operating at 2 μm that is monolithically integrated on an indium phosphide substrate. The photonic integrated circuit is designed and fabricated within a multiproject wafer run using a generic integration technology platform. The laser features an intracavity tuning mechanism based on nested asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometers with voltage controlled electro-refractive modulators. The laser operates in a single-mode regime and is tunable over the recorded wavelength range of 31 nm, spanning from 2011 to 2042 nm. Its capability for high-resolution scanning is demonstrated in a single-line spectroscopy experiment using a carbon dioxide reference cell.