Widely tunable external cavity lasers based on the 3µm-thick silicon-on-insulator platform for operation in the C and L bands in the DYNAMOS EU project

Broadband, high wall-plug-efficiency, and narrow-linewidth tunable lasers with a small footprint remain a critical unmet need in a range of applications. In particular, ever-increasing demands on speed and throughput in data center networks can be addressed with the novel fast-tunable-laser based network system proposed in the DYNAMOS EU project. The 3μm-thick silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform offers the benefits of ultra-low propagation loss, broadband operation, polarization insensitivity, and mature fabrication techniques scalable to high volumes. We demonstrate a wide tuning range of over 60nm in the C and L bands for external cavity lasers (ECLs) fabricated on 3μm SOI based on a three-ring resonator tunable reflector using the Vernier effect. We additionally show via simulation results the impact of various tunable reflector parameters on loss and tuning range.