Patent ID: 6243402
Filing Date: 2001-06-05
Classification: H01S

Abstract:
A tunable laser comprising:a laser cavity defined by reflective elements in an actively doped semiconductor wafer; anda chirped, waveguide grating router formed in the cavity comprising a plurality of controllable frequency selective pathways optically connecting the reflective elements such that selective gating of one or more of the frequency selective pathways causes selected one or more lasing frequencies to be supported in the laser cavity thereby providing tunability of the laserCHARACTERIZED IN THATsaid chirped waveguide grating router is optically connected to a first set of optical amplifiers and a second set of optical amplifiers and has a nonlinear path length distribution such that a path between a selected one of the first set of amplifiers and a selected one of the second set of amplifiers will undergo laser oscillation.