Twin-Mirror Membrane Distributed-Reflector Lasers Using 20-Mu M-Long Active Region On Si Substrates

We demonstrate 20-mu m-long twin-mirror membrane distributed-reflector (DR) lasers for chip-to-chip optical interconnects. The lasers employ distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) at both ends of a 20-mu m-long lambda/4-phase shifted distributed feedback (DFB) section. We achieve single-mode lasing in a lambda/4-phase shifted DFB mode at room temperature with a threshold current of 0.39 mA. The lasing wavelength remains stable while the injected current is varied, and it is determined by the lambda/4 phase-shifted DFB. The modulation current efficiency is 11.4 GHz/mA(1/2), which is measured by using relative intensity noise spectra. We also demonstrate the direct modulation of the DR lasers at a bit rate of 25.8 Gbit/s with an energy cost of 163 fJ/bit. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement