Abstract

The next generation of undersea lightwave systems is likely to take advantage of the nonlinear properties of the transmission fiber by employing optical solitons [1,2]. A critical component will be the transmitter which generates the solitons and encodes the data. Previously, we have reported a monolithic extended-cavity laser, which actively mode-locked, generates solitons [3], An extended-cavity laser integrated with a modulator exhibited multi-peaked pulses due to internal reflections and a corresponding time bandwidth product of 0.8, which would prohibit soliton applications [4], Here, we report the first monolithic semiconductor transmitter which has applications in soliton systems. An extended-cavity laser section generates 8-ps solitons by active mode-locking and data is encoded by means of the integrated modulator at a bit rate of 4.9 Gbit/s. The optical pulses exhibit a time-bandwidth product of 0.30 and the extinction ratio of the monolithically integrated electro-absorption modulator is 20 dB.

© 1993 Optical Society of America