A WAVELENGTH-TUNABLE DUPLEX INTEGRATED LIGHT-SOURCE FOR FAST WAVELENGTH SWITCHING

A new monolithically integrated opto-electronic device has been develo ped for fast wavelength switching in photonic packet switching, The in tegrated device, called a tunable duplex integrated light source compr ises two distributed Bragg reflector lasers (DBR-LD's), two electroabs orption optical switches, a Y-shaped waveguide coupler, an electroabso rption modulator, and two thermal drift compensators (TDC's), The tuni ng range of the DBR-LD's is 3 nm, and the wavelength switching time of the optical switches is estimated to be 60 ps including a 50 ps rise time for the electrical pulse generator, The wavelength of a 10 Gb/s N RZ-modulated optical signal is switched without bit loss. Thermal cros stalk between the DBR-LD's, and wavelength drift of the DBR-LD's, whic h is due to a thermal transient, are effectively suppressed by thermal -drift-compensation operation using the TDC's.