Impact of Damping on High-Speed Large Signal VCSEL Dynamics

• An investigation of the optimal relaxation oscillation damping for high-speed 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) under large signal operation is presented, using devices with K-factors ranging from 0.1 to 0.4 ns. Time-domain measurements of turn-on transients are used to quantify damping dependent rise times, overshoots, and signal amplitudes. Optical eye diagrams together with timing jitter and bit error rate measurements reveal a tradeoff between the rise time and the duration of the relaxation oscillations. To produce a high-quality eye at a specific data rate, a proper amount of damping is needed to simultaneously obtain sufficiently high bandwidth and low timing jitter. We found that for error-free transmission, a VCSEL with a 0.3 ns K-factor achieved the best receiver sensitivity at 10 and 25 Gb/s, whereas a less damped VCSEL with a 0.2 ns K-factor achieved the best sensitivity at 40 Gb/s.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Telekommunikation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Telecommunications (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

high-speed modulation

relaxation oscillation

semiconductor lasers

large signal modulation

vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)

photon lifetime

Damping

Publikations- och innehållstyp

art (ämneskategori)

ref (ämneskategori)