Linewidth reduction and optical frequency stabilization of a distributed feedback laser

by incoherent optical negative feedback

Hiroshi Yasaka and Hitoshi Kawaguchi

Citation: Applied Physics Letters 53, 1360 (1988); doi: 10.1063/1.99979

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.99979
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/53/15?ver=pdfcov
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 Unewidth reduction and optical frequency stabilization of a distributed
feedback laser by Incoherent optical negative feedba.ck:
Hiroshi Yasaka and Hitoshi Kawaguchi
NIT Opto-electronics Laboratories, 3-1 Morinosato, Wakamiya, Atsugi, Kanagawa 243-01, Japan
(Received 31 May 1988; accepted for publication 1 August 1988)
A new, incoherent, optical negative feedback method is proposed and demonstrated for
spectrallinewidth reduction and optical frequency stabilization of distributed feedback lasers.
The spectrallinewidth and the optical frequency drift are simultaneously reduced to about 50
kHz and less than 10 MHz, respectively.

Recently, many studies of the single-mode characteris-
tics of distributed feedback (DFB) laser diodes (LD's) have
been performed. The spectral purity ofDFB LD'" is known
to be insufficient for many applications, such as coherent
optical communications or coherent optical measurements.
This is primarily due to the fact that the optical frequency
drift and spectrallinewidth of the free-running DFB LD's
are typically some hundreds of megahertz and several tens of
megahertz, respectively. Thus, it is necessary to reduce the
spectral linewidth and optical frequency drift of semicon-
ductor lasers.
Test trials on spectrallinewidth reduction and optical
frequency stabilization have been carried out by coherent
optical l and electrical negative feedback 2 ,3 methods. The co-
herent optical feedback technique, although successful, is
inherently unstable as it is difficult to eliminate mode hop-
ping among the external cavity modes. The electrical nega-
tive feedback technique, although more stable than the opti-
cal feedback one, has its limitations. First, the feedback
electrical circuits create a time delay due to the long feed-
back length resulting in phase rotation in the high~frequency
region. Phase inversion of the frequency shift in a LD is a
second problem. In a LD, the refractive index of the active
region changes due to thermal effect when the injection cur-
rent is modulated at low frequency, and the wavelength
shifts to longer values (red shift). At high modulation fre-
quencies, on the contrary, the refractive index change result-
ing from carrier effects causes a short wavelength (blue)
shift. 4 Consequently, phase inversion occurs at an intermedi-
ate modulation frequency. It has been demonstrated that the
problem of phase inversion can be eliminated using a multi-
electrode DFE laser. s.6 However, such structures cannot
eliminate long-time delays attributable to the electrical feed~
back circuits.
In this letter, a new, incoherent, optical negative feed-
back method is proposed and demonstrated for spectral
linewidth reduction and optical frequency stabilization. This
method is more stable compared with the more conventional
coherent optical feedback methods and is very simple com-
pared with electrical negative feedback methods.
The principle of the incoherent optical negative feed-
back method is to change the lasing wavelength through the
refractive index by changing the optical feedback light pow-
er in accordance with its lasing optical frequency. An optical
filter is used whose reflectivity increases when the optical
frequency increases, and decreases with decreasing optical
frequency. The polarization of the reflected light is orthogo-
nal to the emitted light and therefore the reflected light does
not affect the laser coherently. Rather it only modifies the
carrier density and thereby the refractive index so as to stabi-
lize the laser wavelength. The principle of this method is
illustrated in Fig. 1. The figure shows the reflectivity depen-
dence of a Fabry-Perot etalon, used as an optical filter, on
the optical frequency of the input light. The optical frequen-
cy of the laser is fixed to the positive slope (reflectivity in-
creasing side as increasing the optical frequency, shown by
the closed circle) of this figure. When the optical frequency
of the laser moves to the higher frequency side, the reflectiv-
ity of the Fabry-Perot eta10n increases and the intensity of
the feedback light to the laser also increases. This decreases
the carrier density in the laser cavity and the refractive index
in the laser cavity increases. Thus, the optical frequency of
the laser output shifts toward lower frequency. In this way,
optical negative feedback is obtained. For wavelength drifts
toward lower frequency, the reduced feedback has exactly
the opposite effect.
In order that the reflected light does not add coherently
to the laser oscillation, its polarization is rotated 90° in the
external cavity. The combination of reflection from the
Fabry-Perot etalon and the polarization rotation causes the
laser refractive index to be modulated without modulating
1
OC
>-
l-
S;
1=
(,)
w
..J
i.L
\ \\
\
w
0:
0
low +-- --- high
OPTICAL FREQUENCY f
FIG. 1. Principle of the incoherent optical negative feedback technique.

1360 Appl. Phys. Lett 53 (15), 10 October 19S8 0003-6951/88/411360-03$01.00 © 1988 American Institute of Physics 1360
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 FABRY-PEROT
ETAlON
SPECTRAllINE;ioTH
MEASUREMENT
~-~o fARADAY
ROTATOR
HG. 2. Experimental setup for spectrallinewidth reduction and optical
frequency stabilization of a DFB laser. The polarization of the injected light
to the LD is perpendicular to that of the output light from the LD to elimi-
nate the conventional coherent optical feedback effect.
the current flowing through the pn junction of the laser.
Thus, only the carrier density is affected and the thermal
effects are eliminated. Negative feedback is achieved with-
out phase inversion and the feedback bandwidth is deter-
mined by carrier effect bandwidth in principle. But in a usual
experimental system, the feedback bandwidth is mainly de-
termined by the feedback loop time delay or resolution of a
Fabry-Perot etalon because they are narrower than the car-
rier effect bandwidth,
The experimental setup used in this study is shown in
Fig. 2. A 1.55 !lm InGaAsPIlnP DFB LD is operated at
constant injection current. The Fabry-Perot etalOD used as
an optical reflector has a free-spectral range, finesse, and
resolution of 5 GHz, 25, and 200 MHz, respectively. The
output laser power of about 7 m W per facet is collimated by
the graded refractive index (GRIN) rod lens and inserted
into a Faraday rotator. The rotation angle of the polarization
by the Faraday rotator is 45° per pass for a two-pass shift of
90°. The distance from the laser to the Fabry-Perot eta1011
was about 20 cm (round trip time delay: 1.3 X 10 <) s). Since
the resolution of the Fabry-Perot etalon is 200 MHz, it de-
termines the feedback bandwidth. The intensity of light re-
flected from the Fabry-Perot etalon changes with the optical
frequency of the input light and negative feedback is
achieved_ The output light from the other facet of the laser
was used for spectrallinewidth measurement.
The delayed self-heterodyne method was used for mea-
suring the spectral Hnewidth of the laser. Spectra from this
system are shown in Fig. 3, where (a) shows the beat spec-
(a)
VERTICAL 10dB/div
HORiZONTAL 20MHz/div
1361 Appl. Phys. Lett., VoL 53, No. 15, 10 October 1988
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161.6.141.187 On: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 21:25:25
trum of the laser beam in the free-running state, and (b)
shows the beat spectrum in stabilized state. From these fig-
ures the spectrallinewidth of the free-running laser was esti-
mated to be about 40 MHz, which was reduced to about 50
kHz by the optical negative feedback. The spectrallinewidth
of the stabilized laser was broadened and unstable when the
optical frequency was fixed to the negative slope (reflectivity
decreasing side as increasing the optical frequency) of the
reflectivity shown in Fig. 1. Spectrallinewidth reduction was
not observed when the optical frequency was fixed to the
point that the reflectivity of the Fabry-Perot etalon was 1.
This indicates that the spectral line width reduction shown in
Fig. :3 (b) was achieved by the frequency dispersion charac-
teristic of the Fabry-Perot etalon and not by a three-reflec-
tor cavity.
The optical frequency drift of the laser was determined
by measuring the optical power of the beam coming through
the Fabry-Perot etalon. To measure the optical frequency
drift of the laser in a free-running state, an optical isolator
was inserted instead of a Faraday rotator to eliminate feed-
back to the laser. The variation in optical beam power pass-
ing through the Fabry-Perot etalon is proportional to the
optical frequency drift because FM/ AM conversion occurs
in the Fabry-Perot etalon, Optical frequency drift is illus-
trated in Fig. 4, \vhere (a) shows the optical frequency drift
in a free-running state and (b) shows that in a stabilized
state. From this figure, the laser optical frequency drift in the
free-running state was more than 140 MHz; it was reduced
to less than 10 MHz and laser stability increased by a factor
of more than 14, by feedback from the Fabry-Perot etalon.
Mode hopping to the adjacent mode, which is often observed
in conventional coherent optical feedback methods, was not
observed in this feedback method.
It was shown that a new, incoherent optical negative
feedback method reduces spectral Iinewidth and stabilizes
optical frequency ofa DFB laser simultaneously. The optical
frequency drift ofthe laser was reduced to less than 10 MHz.
At the same time, the spectra! Iinewidth of the laser beam
was also reduced to about 50 kHz.
FIG. 3. Power spectra from the de-
layed self-heterodyne system: (a)
free wnning and (b) stabilized.
(b)
VERTICAL iOdB/div
HORIZONTAL lMHz/div
H, Yasaka and H. Kawaguchi 1361
 FIG. 4. Optical frequency
drifts of the DFB laser: (a) frec
running and (b) stabilized.

(a) (b)

VERTICAL 40MHz/div

HORIZONTAL: 10mS/div

The authors are indebted to Dr. Mitsuo Fukuda for sup-
plying the DFB laser. They would also like to thank Dr.
Hamo Nagai, Dr. Masafumi Yamaguchi, and Dr. Tetsuhiko
Ikegami for their encouragement throughout the research.
IS. Saito, O. Nilsson, and Y. Yamamoto, IEEE 1. Quantum E!o.:ctron. QE-
18,961 (1982).
"Y. Yamamoto, O. Nilsson, and S. Saito, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-
21,1919 (1985).
'M. Ohtsu and S. Kotajima, rEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-21, 1905
(1985).
's. Kobayashi, Y. Yamamoto, M. Ito, and T. Kimura, IEEE J. Quantum
Electron. QE-18, 5SZ (1982).
'H. Yasaka, Y. Yoshikuni, Y. Nakano, and K. Oe, Electron. Lett. 23,1161
(1987).
°H. Yasaka, Y. Yoshikuni, G. Moto8ugi, and K. Oe, Electron. Lett. 23, 984
(1987).

1362 AppL Phys. Lett., Vol. 53, No. 15, 10 October 1988 H. Yasaka and H. Kawaguchi 1362
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