Abstract
This course describes the state-of-the-art of tunable lasers, tunable laser technologies and control of tunable lasers. It also includes a brief introduction to the basics of semiconductor lasers, as well as background on DFB lasers, in particular how a grating works as a wavelength selective element in DFB and DBR lasers. Tuning mechanisms and tuning properties will be described, and the operation of modified structures with extended tuning range will be explained, including sampled gratings and super structure gratings. The properties of codirectional couplers and the use of these in tunable lasers will be discussed. Devices such as external cavity lasers, wavelength selectable lasers, and tunable VCSELs, will also be described. Throughout the course numerous examples of laser structures from the recent technical literature will be presented. Practical issues such as characterization, operation, and control of tunable lasers, as well as switching speed and reliability, will be included.

Educational Course Subject Areas
Circuits & Devices ,  Lasers & Optics

Keywords
antireflection (AR) ,  acousto-optical tunable filter (AOTF) ,  distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) ,  distributed feedback (DFB) ,  dense WDM (DWDM) ,  electroabsorption modulator (EAM) ,  external cavity laser (ECL) ,  forward error correction (FEC) ,  Fabry-Perot (FP) ,  full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) ,  International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ,  micro electro-mechanical structure (MEMS) ,  multi mode interference (MMI) ,  quantum confined Stark effect (QCSE) ,  sampled grating (SG) ,  sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SGDBR) ,  side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) ,  semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) ,  superstructure grating (SSG) ,  vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) ,  wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)