Abstract

The coming of the information age dramatically increases the requirement on data transferring, so broadband property is highly desired, leading to the development of WDM communication system using optical fibers. Nowadays, the mainly used bands in fibers are near 1.55 μm and 1.3 μm, which has the lowest loss and the minimum dispersion, respectively. Recent research had further reduced the hydroxyl absorption near 1.4 μm in optical fibers. Hence a very broad bandwidth of 300 nm can be utilized for communication in the future. At the present time, the wide Er-doped fiber amplifier can amplify both the C-band (1530 nm~1565 nm) and L-band (1565 nm~1610 nm), but it cannot amplify the band near 1.3 μm.¹ To fully exploit the abundant bandwidth of optical fibers for future WDM system, other techniques are required. Semiconductor lasers/amplifiers using multiple-quantum-well (MQW) engineering²⁻⁴ thus provide alternatives for the broadband purpose. This work reports the successful use of nonidentical MQWs to achieve simultaneously lasing at two wavelengths. The two wavelengths are between 1344 nm to 1514 nm, with the spectral separation tunable from a few nanometers to 170 nm.

© 2002 Optical Society of America