Optical injection locking and optical-fiber data transmission by directly modulated wavelength tunable laser transmitters

Abstract

Enhancement of the small- and large-signal modulation performance of wavelength tunable laser diode (TLD) transmitters under strong optical injection locking (OIL) is investigated numerically in back-to-back and optical-fiber transmission schemes. Our model is based on the spatiotemporal description of laser dynamics as due to the composite cavity design of TLDs, the usual rate equation formalism is not directly applicable. We demonstrate that TLD transmission strongly depends on wavelength tuning, which was investigated over a 21-nm range between 1529 and 1550 nm emission wavelengths. The best performance for both free-running (FR) and OIL TLDs is achieved at shorter wavelengths, 1529 nm for our device. Although in both cases this is due to larger differential material gain at shorter wavelengths, the underlying physics of the effect is completely different. For an FR TLD, it is the resonance oscillation frequency (ROF) that defines the best modulation speed, while for an OIL TLD, the achievable modulation speed depends on the cavity mode shift due to optical injection. Both the ROF and the cavity mode shift increase when the differential gain increases. However, the ROF is the device’s fixed parameter, while the cavity mode shift is defined by the OIL conditions, and thus, it can be optimized. The superior performance of the optical fiber digital data transmission with the OIL TLD is demonstrated at around 20-Gb/s modulation speed for standard fibers. This result is attributed to an enhanced modulation response and suppressed frequency chirping of the OIL TLD, and it is important for practical utilization of TLD transmitters.