Tunable V-Cavity Lasers Integrated With a Cyclic Echelle Grating for Distributed Routing Networks

We demonstrate a monolithic InP-based photonic integrated circuit (PIC) consisting of four tunable V-cavity lasers (VCLs), a cyclic echelle diffraction grating router (EDGR) and four semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). Quantum-well intermixing (QWI) technique is used to produce three different bandgap energies on the chip. Single VCL with 30 nm tuning range at 1.3 μm wavelength band and up to 40 dB side-modesuppression ratio (SMSR) is experimentally demonstrated. The chip has a 4.5 nm channel spacing and 18 nm free-spectral range (FSR). Measured spectrum of all the 16 input-output combinations show cyclic response.