Design of a monolithic tunable laser based on equivalent-chirp grating reflectors

A Vernier-tuned distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) semiconductor laser is an effective monolithic approach for wide wavelength tunability, at the expense, however, of costly electron-beam lithography during fabrication. In this Letter, a tunable laser design with equivalent-chirp based, flat-top envelope grating reflectors is proposed that can be implemented easily by conventional two-beam interference lithography. The principle is described, and a detailed design shows uniform output power (0.08 dB variation) and excellent side-mode suppression ratio (47 dB minimum) within a wide tuning range (>32 nm) through numerical simulation.