Abstract

Low loss coupling and passive alignment of lasers to single mode fibers are key technologies for opto-electronic packaging. Single-mode fiber coupling of semiconductor lasers usually results in a significant insertion loss of several dB. This excess loss stems from the undesirable waveguide properties of laser diodes. A new design for 980 nm laser featuring low divergence (15°) and low ellipticity (1.5) is presented and shown to result in less than 1 dB coupling loss into a cleaved fiber. The active alignment cost of the singlemode fiber to the laser laser has a important impact on the the cost of photonic packages. We also report on a low-cost packaging technique based on passive alignment of a laser array to a Silica-on-Silicon waveguide array, with 36% coupling efficiency.

© 1996 Optical Society of America