Uncooled 2.5 Gb/s operation of 1.3 μm GaInNAs DQW lasers over a wide temperature range

Ridge waveguide 1.3 mu m GaInNAs lasers were fabricated from high quality double quantum well material grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Short cavity ( 250 mu m) lasers have low threshold currents and small temperature dependencies of threshold current and slope efficiency, with a characteristic temperature of the threshold current as high as 200 K. The temperature stability allows for uncooled 2.5 Gb/s operation up to temperatures as high as 110 degrees C with a constant modulation voltage and only the bias current adjusted for constant average output power. Under these conditions, an extinction ratio larger than 6 dB and a spectral rms-width smaller than 2 nm are obtained. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America