Rectangular ring lasers based on total reflection mirrors and three waveguide couplers

Abstract

Novel rectangular ring lasers containing active and passive sections are fabricated and characterized. The rectangular laser cavity is formed using four low-loss total internal reflection (TIR) mirrors and an output coupler made out of passive three coupled waveguides. The fabrication process is exactly the same as for other active and passive devices except for one deep etch step for TIR mirror fabrication. Two different lasers having active section lengths of 250 and 350 mu m and total cavity lengths of 580 and 780 pm are fabricated. For both devices, lasing thresholds of 38 mA are obtained at room temperature and under continuous-wave operation. Lasing is predominantly single-mode with a sidemode suppression ratio better than 20 dB. The power loss of a single TIR mirror is also determined to be about 0.5 dB. Such low-loss TIR mirrors enabled lasers with very small footprints.