Dynamic and CW linewidth measurements of buried heterostructure distributed feedback lasers

Measurements of frequency chirp as a function of modulation current, data rate, and bias level for the etched-mesa buried heterostructure distributed feedback (EMBH-DFB) laser are presented. The results show that the chirp increases with increasing modulation current and is significantly larger if the laser off-state is below threshold than if it is above-threshold. The 20-dB down chirp widths are in the range of 4 to 6 AA for 40 mA of modulation current at 5 Gb//s under above threshold bias. Using the EMBH-DFB laser, a system experiment over 22-km fiber at 16 Gb/s has been carried out which shows less than 0.5 dB dispersion power penalty. The continuous-wave (CW) linewidths of the asymmetric facet-coated DFB lasers are in the range of 10 to 40 MHz at 6 mW of output power. This wide range arises principally from a variation of the phase of the grating at the high-reflectivity coated facet.>