The huge amount of data traffic behind the rapid growth of cloud computing is putting pressure on the operation of mobile fronthauls and data center networks so there is a need to improve their power consumption and latency. We developed an electro-optically tunable laser diode employing a tunable filter that is practically tuned even with small refractive index change of the electro-optic effect. The laser shows a small tuning power dissipation of less than 10 mW for a practical tuning range of over 35 nm with a linewidth of about 350 kHz. We also achieved high-speed optical switching of less than 50 ns for 100 Gb/s coherent signals. In addition to its application in optical communications, the electro-optically tunable laser diode is also beneficial to laser sensing applications because its higher tuning speed increases the time resolution of the sensing system. Furthermore, a narrow linewidth, conventionally difficult to reconcile with high-speed tuning, can also enable a longer sensing distance and/or a higher signal-to-noise ratio when using coherent detection. Our result shows that we can use the electro-optic effect to overcome the limitations of conventional tunable laser diodes and drastically change optical communications and laser sensing systems.

中文翻译：

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具有超低调谐功率耗散和纳秒级波长切换的电光可调谐激光器，用于相干网络

云计算快速增长背后的大量数据流量正给移动前传和数据中心网络的运行带来压力，因此需要改善其功耗和延迟。我们开发了一种采用可调谐滤光片的电光可调谐激光二极管，该滤光片即使在电光效应的折射率变化很小的情况下也可以进行实际调谐。对于超过35 nm的实际调谐范围和约350 kHz的线宽，激光器显示出小于10 mW的小调谐功耗。对于100 Gb / s相干信号，我们还实现了小于50 ns的高速光切换。除了在光通信中的应用外，电光可调谐激光二极管也有利于激光传感应用，因为其更高的调谐速度可提高传感系统的时间分辨率。此外，当使用相干检测时，通常难以与高速调谐协调的较窄线宽还可以实现更长的感测距离和/或更高的信噪比。我们的结果表明，我们可以利用电光效应来克服传统可调谐激光二极管的局限性，并彻底改变光通信和激光传感系统。