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Quantum-Dot-Based Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers for O-Band Optical Communication pp 35–73Cite as

Samples and Characterization

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Abstract

The chapter focuses first on the realization of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), particularly the realization of p-n junctions, the guiding of current and light as well as the suppression of the cavity. Subsequently, the series of samples used for experiments throughout the thesis is presented and compared with commercially available devices. Finally, various static and dynamic properties of the samples series are presented and discussed, e.g. the dependence of gain and gain bandwidth as well as the characteristics of gain and phase dynamics of quantum-dot SOAs focused on the intra-dot and dot-reservoir coupling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Parts of this chapter have been previously published in [2–16]. 2: Fiol 2009; 3: Bimberg 2009a; 4: Bimberg 2009c; 5: Meuer 2011a; 6: Meuer 2011b; 7: Meuer 2011c; 8: Schmeckebier 2011; 9: Schmeckebier 2012; 10: Kaptan 2014a; 11: Kaptan 2014b; 12: Schmeckebier 2014a; 13: Rohm 2015a; 14: Zeghuzi 2015a; 15: Zeghuzi 2015b; 16: Schmeckebier 2015a.

  2. 2.

    Following Sect. 2.2.5, the chip noise figure is 7.3 dB, taking into account the 4.5 dB coupling losses. Further 3 dB can be attributed to the total inversion. Hence, a noise figure in the order of 4.3 dB can be assigned to the waveguide and the structure.

  3. 3.

    In comparison to the deeply-edged QD SOA No. 1, a noise figure in the order of 1.9 dB can be assigned to the waveguide and structure of the shallow edged QD SOA No. 2.

  4. 4.

    Taking into account the O-band SMF loss of 0.35 dB/km discussed in Chap. 1.

  5. 5.

    The design of this device is similar to QD SOA No. 3–5: Do 1111, shallow etched 4 µm ridge waveguide, 8\(^\circ \) tilted, AR-coated facets.

  6. 6.

    The stronger gain reduction observed for the 5 mm long device is caused by the onset of lasing on the ES ASE emission probably to a reflection from the setup. In contrast, the large-signal experiments in the subsequent chapters are all performed with the identical device without the onset of ES lasing.

  7. 7.

    This means: Wafer Do 1111, shallow etched 4 µm ridge waveguide, 8\(^\circ \) tilted, AR-coated facets.

  8. 8.

    A QD mode-locked laser (MLL) with a cavity length of 1.012 ± 0.012 mm processed out of a comparable wafer like the sectioned QD SOA exhibits a pulse repetition rate of 39.85 ± 0.06 GHz [48, 49]. Hence, the repetition rate for a comparable 7 mm long laser would be 5.76 ± 0.06 GHz.

  9. 9.

    A 40 GBd differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) modulated input signal is detected with an optical modulation analyzer (OMA). The DPSK modulation schema as well as the coherent detection are introduced in Chap. 4. A detailed setup description is given in Sect. 6.2.

  10. 10.

    The design of this device is similar to QD SOA No. 6 (page 50): Do 1202, shallow etched 4 µm ridge waveguide, 8\(^\circ \) tilted, AR-coated facets.

  11. 11.

    The 90:10 % gain recovery time is the time required to recover from 90 to 10 % of the difference between original gain and peak gain change.

  12. 12.

    Details on the meaning of both values, please consider [75].

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  1. Institute of Solid State Physics, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Holger Schmeckebier

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Schmeckebier, H. (2017). Samples and Characterization. In: Quantum-Dot-Based Semiconductor Optical Amplifiers for O-Band Optical Communication. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44275-4_3

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