Output Optical Power Enhancement of Push-Pull Modulated DFB Laser With Asymmetric Structure

Conventional push-pull modulated (PPM) distributed feedback (DFB) lasers exploit structures with symmetry, which wastes a significant amount of the optical power output from the rear facet. To improve the power efficiency, PPM DFB lasers with asymmetrically coated facets can be considered. However, the resulted imbalanced push-pull modulation causes a dip in device small-signal intensity modulation response near the carrier-photon resonance (CPR) frequency, which distorts the waveform and even cuts off the bandwidth. This work proposes an asymmetric section length design in conjunction with the asymmetric facet coating to offset the aforementioned effect on device intensity modulation response. With a delayed push-pull modulation (DPPM) scheme further incorporated, our simulation result shows that the PPM DFB laser with optimized asymmetric structure can enhance the power efficiency and maintain a smooth modulation bandwidth up to around 50 GHz.

Automated summary

This study proposes an optimized asymmetric structure for PPM DFB lasers, which offsets the waveform distortion and bandwidth cutoff caused by imbalanced push-pull modulation through asymmetric facet coating and asymmetric section length design. Simulation results show that this optimized structure can improve power efficiency and maintain a smooth modulation bandwidth.