Mid-IR silicon photonics DBR laser with hybrid integrated GaSb gain element for sensing applications

Development of integrated photonics enables unprecedented scaling of optical systems with small and cost-effective architectures, which is instrumental for the penetration of photonics solutions to a vast variety of new applications. To this end, mid-IR integrated photonics is emerging as a key technology for advanced sensing applications. We demonstrate the first DBR lasers exploiting on-chip integration of GaSb gain elements and silicon photonics circuit for wavelength conditioning. The hybrid integrated DBR laser delivers a maximum power of 6.0mW in CW mode at room temperature, with a narrow spectrum around 2µm. The integration scheme enables wavelength scaling beyond 3 µm.