Wavelength dependent optical switching based on side-mode
injection-locked single-mode Fabry-Pérot laser diode
Jian Wei Wu*
a, b, c
, Bikash Nakarmi
b
, Xu Ping Zhang
d
, and Yong Hyub Won
b
a
College of Physics, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, P.R. China
b
Department of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Daejeon 305-714, Rep. of Korea
c
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of
Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, P.R. China
d
Institute of Optical Communication Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, P.R. China
ABSTRACT
A wavelength dependent all-optical switching induced by side-mode injection locking behavior is experimentally
demonstrated in single-mode Fabry-Pérot laser diode (SMFP-LD). The injection locking phenomenon is also observed
while the peak wavelength at the injection beam is slightly shorter than that of the adjacent lasing mode, i.e. negative
wavelength detuning, in which the obtained spectrum width is obviously extended compared to the case of positive
wavelength detuning. As the wavelength detuning varies from ~0.35 nm to ~-0.2 nm with 3.5 dBm injection power, the
on/off ratio of optical switching at dominated mode is remarkably decayed from ~50 dB to ~20 dB.
Keywords: Single-mode Fabry-Pérot laser diode, injection locking, optical switching.
1. INTRODUCTION
Multi-mode Fabry-pérot laser diode (MMFP-LD) in which two mirrors are separated by an active region has attracted
much attention because of its rich nonlinear, low consumption, and simple configuration [1]. In reality, the common
MMFP-LD can offer many lasing modes to be simultaneously amplified in the laser chip so that multi-longitudinal
modes are generated at the end of the laser, and the outcome side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) in the output spectrum
is only several dB that seriously limits some application in optical signal process [2]. Therefore, many technologies have
been already presented to increase the SMSR in the lasing spectrum of FP-LD. In recent report, a single-mode
Fabry-Pérot laser diode (SMFP-LD) that is fabricated by the MMFP-LD associating with an external cavity formed by
the fiber facet was demonstrated by our research group [3].
Compared to the conventional MMFP-LD, SMFP-LD
proposed has some advantages such as wide tunable range, high side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) and self-locking
phenomenon, which has been already applied in logic gate operation [4], flip-flop [5] and wavelength conversion [6]
using its injection locking behavior and bistable hysteresis. Of course, the injection locking process caused by the
external injection beam is the basic characteristic of FP-LD, which is applied in many optical functions [7-11], where
power of injection beam is increased owing to the stimulation emission with the result that the corresponding refractive
*E-mail:jwwu@kaist.ac.kr (Jian Wei Wu), Tel. 86-23-65363430
2013 International Conference on Optical Instruments and Technology: Optical Sensors and Applications,
edited by Brian Culshaw, Xuping Zhang, Anbo Wang, Xiaoyi Bao, Xudong Fan, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9044,
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9044 90440A-1