Broadband tunable integrated CMOS pulser with 80-ps minimum pulse width for gain-switched semiconductor lasers

4 years ago

Broadband tunable integrated CMOS pulser with 80-ps minimum pulse width for gain-switched semiconductor lasers

Yiqing Liu, Pengtao Li, Shengxi Diao, Xiaobo Hu, Takahiro Nakamura, Yanling Shi, Guoen Weng, Hidefumi Akiyama, Masahiro Yoshita, Shaoqiang Chen

High power pulsed lasers with tunable pulse widths are highly favored in many applications. When combined with power amplification, gain-switched semiconductor lasers driven by broadband tunable electric pulsers can meet such requirements. For this reason, we designed and produced a low-cost integrated CMOS pulse generator with a minimum pulse width of 80 ps and a wide tuning range of up to 270 ns using a 40-nm microelectronic process technique. We used this pulser to drive a 1.3-µm semiconductor laser diode directly, and thereafter investigated the gain-switching properties of the laser system. The optical pulses consist of a spike followed by a steady state region. Tuning the width of the electrical pulse down to approximately 1.5 ns produces optical pulses consisting only of the spike, which has a minimum pulse-width of 100 ps. Moreover, the duration of the steady state can be tuned continuously by tuning the electrical pulse width, with a peak power of approximately 5 mW. The output voltage of the electric pulser has a tuning range of 0.8–1.5 V that can be used to directly drive semiconductor laser diodes with wavelengths in the near-infrared spectrum, which are suitable for power amplification with rare-earth doped fiber amplifiers.

Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-07138-3

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07138-3