Patent ID: 7529279

Claim:
A monolithic tuneable laser, comprising: a gain section bounded at one end by a first mirror and at the other end by a second mirror, wherein each of the mirrors is in the form of a chirp grating, wherein at least one of the chirp gratings has a substantially continuous wavelength reflection spectrum and a plurality of selectable electrodes by which one portion of the chirp grating is tuned to reflect substantially the same wavelength as a second portion of the same chirp grating, to thereby selectively adjust the wavelength reflection spectrum of the chirp grating to produce a single distinct enhanced reflection peak at a predetermined wavelength, and wherein one of the chirp gratings is a front grating and the other chirp grating is a rear grating, each of the front grating and the rear grating having a pitch characteristic, and the pitch characteristics of the front and rear gratings being such that the optical cavity length of the laser is substantially constant at different wavelengths.