Digital Modulation of Coherently-Coupled $2\times1$ Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser Arrays

We experimentally demonstrated enhanced digital modulation of coherently coupled vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser arrays. Mutually coherent behavior of 2 × 1 proton-implanted index-confined photonic crystal vertical-cavity phased laser arrays is characterized using a novel digital modulation scheme. Far-field interference fringe visibility is used to estimate the degree of coherence between two coherently coupled laser cavities, and a visibility map is created to visualize the dependence of laser array coherence on the injection current bias. The visibility map indicates that a dual-channel in-phase modulation scheme can preserve the laser array in mutual coherence while under digital modulation. Experimentally, the high-speed digital modulation signal up to 36 Gb/s is supplied to both laser elements simultaneously. The resulting eye diagram is shown to be improved under coherent-coupling conditions.