DFB laser with attached external intensity modulator

摘要

A theoretical study is made of the frequency pulling effect exerted on a distributed feedback (DFB) laser by an external amplitude modulator that is directly attached to it. The modulator consists of a piece of waveguide whose loss is modulated by means of an externally applied voltage. The modulator affects the laser due to residual reflections from its far end which appear as a variable effective reflectivity to the output end of the DFB laser. Modulation affects the magnitude as well as the phase of the effective reflection coefficient presented to the laser due to the coupling of the real and imaginary parts of the effective refractive index of the modulator waveguide. The tuning problem is formulated as an eigenvalue equation for the DFB laser in the presence of an externally attached lossy cavity.