Monolithic integration of electroabsorption modulator and DFB laser for 10-Gb/s transmission

A strained InGaAsP-InP multiple-quantum-well DFB laser monolithically integrated with electroabsorption modulator by ultra-low-pressure (22mbar) selective-area-growth is presented. The integrated chip exhibits superior characteristics, such as low threshold current of 19mA, single-mode operation around 1550nm range with side-mode suppression ratio over 40dB, and larger than 16dB extinction ratio when coupled into a single-mode fiber. More than 10GHz modulation bandwidth is also achieved. After packaged in a compact module, the device successfully performs 10-Gb/s NRZ transmission experiments through 53.3km of standard fiber with 8.7dB dynamic extinction ratio. A receiver sensitivity of −18.9dBm at bit-error-rate of 10−10 is confirmed.