Thermally insensitive determination of the chirp parameter of InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers epitaxially grown onto silicon

Abstract : A common way of extracting the chirp parameter (i.e., the α-factor) of semiconductor lasers is usually performed by extracting the net modal gain and the wavelength from the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) spectrum. Although this method is straightforward, it remains sensitive to the thermal effects hence leading to a clear underestimation of the α-factor. In this work, we investigate the chirp parameter of InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) lasers epitaxially grown on silicon with a measurement technique evaluating the gain and wavelength changes of the suppressed side modes by optical injection locking. Given that the method is thermally insensitive, the presented results confirm our initial measurements conducted with the ASE i.e. the α-factor of the QD lasers directly grown on silicon is as low as 0.15 hence resulting from the low threading dislocation density and high material gain of the active region. These conclusions make such lasers very promising for future integrated photonics where narrow linewidth, feedback resistant and low-chirp on-chip transmitters are required.