Reliable Integrated Photonic Light Sources Reliable Integrated Photonic Light Sources Using Curved Al 2 O 3 : Er 3 + Distributed Feedback

We propose a curved erbium doped aluminum oxide (Al2O3:Er3+) distributed feedback (DFB) laser for a reliable integrated photonics light source. The curved structure allows us for compensation of the radially varying film thickness due to the Al2O3:Er3+ deposition process. In a conventional straight DFB structure, we observe randomly distorted transmission responses and relatively higher threshold power even for an estimated <0.5% thickness variation. The transmission response of the curved DFB laser shows good agreement with an ideal DFB structure of uniform thickness. We show 1.2 mW output power with a threshold power of 16 mW, demonstrating >6 times lower threshold compared to the straight DFB laser.