Ge-polymer bridge waveguide for mode-locked laser pulse generation

Abstract

A Ge-polymer hybrid waveguide is sandwiched between an indium phosphide (InP) reflective gain chip and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) to construct a laser system. The hybrid waveguide serves as a bridge between the gain chip and the fiber with tailored mode-field matching at both facets. The 50-nm amorphous Ge (α-Ge) layer shows a nonlinear absorption effect at 1550 nm. The hybrid waveguide is further verified by a femtosecond laser transmission experiment to show the pulse width compression effect. Such waveguide is then integrated inside the laser cavity as a passive saturable absorber to modulate the longitudinal modes for a pulsed output. This polymer-bridged mode-locked laser adopts an InP gain chip for compact assembly and also a FBG with a flexible length to adjust the pulse repetition rate. The mode-locked laser output around the designed 50 MHz repetition rate is demonstrated. The pulse width is measured as 147 ps, and the signal-to-noise ratio is larger than 50 dB. This work introduces a “ternary” mode-locked laser system, taking advantage of discrete photonic components bridged by a polymer-based waveguide. It also proves the feasibility of applying α-Ge films as practical and low-cost saturable absorbers in photonic devices.