Monolithically integrated widely tunable laser source operating at 2 mu m

We present a widely tunable extended cavity ring laser operating at 2 mu m that is monolithically integrated on an indium phosphide substrate. The photonic integrated circuit is designed and fabricated within a multiproject wafer run using a generic integration technology platform. The laser features an intracavity tuning mechanism based on nested asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometers with voltage controlled electro-refractive modulators. The laser operates in a single-mode regime and is tunable over the recorded wavelength range of 31 nm, spanning from 2011 to 2042 nm. Its capability for high-resolution scanning is demonstrated in a single-line spectroscopy experiment using a carbon dioxide reference cell. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America