Advances in vertical-cavity and widely-tunable lasers using InP-based PIC technology

Summary form only given. This paper reviews some recent developments in two rather different laser examples based upon two somewhat different alloy systems lattice-matched to InP. The quaternary materials systems are chosen to provide more or less optimal device characteristics in both cases. The first example is a lattice-matched vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) that can be created to operate at any wavelength within the entire 1300-1600 nm range. The second example actually includes two versions of a photonic integrated circuit technology to generate widely-tunable sampled-grating lasers integrated with amplifiers (SOAs) and modulators.