Electrically-Pumped Continuous-Wave Quantum-Dot Distributed Feedback Laser Array on Silicon

Electrically-pumped lasers directly grown on silicon are key devices interfacing silicon microelectronics and photonics. We report here for the first time, an electrically pumped, room temperature, continuous-wave and single-mode distributed feedback (DFB) laser array fabricated in InAs/GaAs quantum-dot gain material epitaxially grown on silicon with a record wavelength covering range of 100 nm. The array is also coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) compatible, with an accurate channel spacing of 20$pm$0.2 nm. Individual devices have a threshold as low as 550 A cm-2 at room temperature and stable single mode operation with a side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) as high as 50 dB. For the first time, the performance of epitaxially grown silicon-based lasers is elevated to the point so close to practical applications, showing the great potential of this technology.