1476 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 11, NO.

11, NOVEMBER 1999

Double-Locked Laser Diode for Microwave

Photonics Applications
T. B. Simpson and F. Doft

Abstract— Semiconductor lasers subjected to near-resonant

external optical injection can exhibit strong oscillations of the
output power due to a dynamic instability in the coupling of
the gain medium to the circulating optical field. The oscillation
frequency depends on the operating point of the injected laser and
the strength and frequency offset of the injected optical signal.
Adding a reference current modulation to the dc-bias current can
induce the oscillation frequency of the optical power to become
locked to the reference. Tunable, locked output from 9.5 to 17.1
GHz is demonstrated, with a linewidth below the 1-kHz resolution
limit of the measurement apparatus.
Index Terms— Injection-locked oscillators, microwave/milli-
meter-wave, optical modulation, semiconductor lasers.

M ODULATION of semiconductor lasers at radio fre-

quency (RF), microwave frequency, and millimeter-
wave frequencies has received considerable attention for appli-
cation to signal control and distribution in radar and wireless
communications [1]. Direct modulation of laser diodes is gen-
erally limited to low modulation frequencies due to intrinsic
and parasitic limitations on the modulation bandwidth, or
is limited by the noise characteristics of free-running laser
diodes. Injection locking of laser diodes with a relatively
strong optical beam has been shown to increase the intrinsic
modulation bandwidth to beyond the small-signal theoretical
limit for a free-running semiconductor laser, with reduced
noise [2], [3]. Recently, the bandwidth enhancement was di-
rectly confirmed [4]. However, the bandwidth enhancement is
strongly limited in real devices by electronic circuit and circuit
parasitic characteristics rather than the intrinsic characteristics
of the laser cavity and gain medium. In many applications, the
microwave modulation is a subcarrier for another modulation
at lower frequencies. In this case, if the subcarrier can be
generated without a strong current modulation, the bandwidth
requirements on the semiconductor laser can be relaxed.
External optical injection of a semiconductor laser can
induce a variety of output characteristics, including four-wave
and multiwave optical mixing, periodic dynamics due to an
induced instability in the coupling between the gain medium
and the circulating optical field, and chaotic dynamics [5]. For
injection levels where the laser displays periodic dynamics,
sometimes called unstable injection locking, the output power
undergoes strong oscillations due to beating between optical
field components. The resonance frequency of the periodic
Manuscript received April 26, 1999; revised July 26, 1999. This work was
supported by the Army Research Office under Contract DAAG-55-98-C-0038.
The authors are with the Jaycor, Inc., San Diego, CA 92186-5154 USA.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1041-1135(99)08659-0.
1041–1135/99$10.00  1999 IEEE
Fig. 1. Schematic of the experimental apparatus. Solid lines are optical
signal paths and dashed lines are microwave signal paths.
dynamics depends on the strength of the injected optical
beam and the detuning between the optical frequencies of
the injected beam and the free-running laser. We demonstrate
here that adding a modulation current reference to the bias
of a semiconductor laser undergoing such optical injection
can doubly lock the optical field components to the optical
injection and the current modulation. The locked oscillation
frequency of the output power can be broadly tuned and the
linewidth of the detected feature is less than 1 kHz, with
resolution limited by the measurement apparatus.
A schematic of the experimental apparatus is shown in
Fig. 1. Two current and temperature stabilized laser diodes are
in a master/slave configuration. The laser diodes are variants
of commercially available devices from SDL which have been
modified to have an increased modulation bandwidth [6]. They
are under independent control and, when free-running, have
essentially single-mode output at optical frequencies and
for the slave and master laser, respectively. All side modes
have powers more than 30 dB below the main peak. Both lasers
are biased with a dc-current well above threshold, 5.5 and
9 for the slave and master, respectively, and the slave laser
can also be subjected, via a bias- to a modulation current,
from an HP 8673C frequency synthesizer. Due
to circuit effects, the slave laser has a current modulation 3-
dB rolloff frequency which is measured to be 3 GHz. The
output of the master laser is passed through an optical isolator
to prevent mutual injection and coupled into the slave laser
after passing through a 50/50 beamsplitter. The output from
the slave laser is monitored by a scanning Fabry–Perot optical
SIMPSON AND DOFT: DOUBLE-LOCKED LASER DIODE FOR MICROWAVE PHOTONICS APPLICATIONS
Fig. 2. Optical spectra of the slave laser diode measured with the scanning
Fabry–Perot optical spectrum analyzer. Frequency is referenced to the un-
modulated, free-running frequency of the slave laser The dashed curve is for
the free-running laser undergoing a dc-bias plus a modulated bias current at
5.5 GHz. The solid curve is for the laser under dc-bias plus external optical
0
injection at a relative frequency of 3 GHz, which induces an instability
generating a strong sideband 14 GHz below the injection frequency.
spectrum analyzer and a fast photodiode followed by a gain
of 30-dB broad-band amplifier and a microwave spectrum
analyzer (Tektronics 492 PGM).
When the slave laser is subjected to external injection, its
dynamics and optical spectrum are modified. For injection at
an optical frequency on or just below the free-running optical
frequency of the slave laser, periodic dynamics are established
for injection levels stronger than required for chaotic dynamics
but less than needed to reestablish stable dynamics [5]. An
optical spectrum, typical of limit-cycle dynamics at these
injection levels, is shown in Fig. 2. Here, the master laser
optical frequency is shifted, GHz, relative to the
free-running slave laser frequency. The optical power incident
on the slave laser output facet is approximately 8 dB below
the output power of the free-running slave laser. However, the
spatial overlap of the modes is not matched so that less is actu-
ally coupled into the oscillating mode. The spectrum shows the
regeneratively amplified peak at the injection frequency and
the two strongest sidebands. The dominant one, 14 GHz less
than the optical injection frequency, is at the injection-shifted
cavity resonance frequency and offset by the injected-shifted
dynamic resonance frequency, which accounts for the strong
asymmetry in the spectrum [5]. Also shown for comparison is
a spectrum of the free-running laser under current modulation,
GHz. This is near the relaxation resonance frequency
of the free-running laser where the modulation signal peaks.
While the regeneratively amplified peak is locked to the
master laser, the sidebands are not in this unstable injection-
locking regime. Without locking there is an intrinsically broad
linewidth to the power spectrum which is enhanced by jitter
between the two lasers. Fig. 3 shows the power spectrum of
the photodetected signal around 14 GHz corresponding to
the optical spectrum of Fig. 2. The jitter is evident as the
spectrum analyzer sweeps across the spectrum. Locking the
resonance to a fixed-reference frequency was accomplished
1477
Fig. 3. Spectra of the amplified photodetector signal for the laser under the
same external optical injection which yielded the optical spectrum in Fig. 2.
The dashed curve shows the signal jitter without a locking current input to
the slave laser and the solid line shows the locked signal. The locked signal is
narrower than the 1-kHz resolution bandwidth filter of the spectrum analyzer.
Fig. 4. Tuning range of the locked oscillation frequency when the dc bias
to the master laser is varied along with the frequency of the locking current
modulation to the slave laser. All other parameters remain fixed.
by adding a modulation current to the dc-bias current of the
slave laser. Also shown in Fig. 3 is the narrow resonance
feature achieved when a 14-GHz current modulation is added.
The spectrum of the locked feature was indistinguishable
from the 1-kHz resolution bandwidth filter of the spectrum
analyzer down to the noise floor more than 80 dB below
the signal level. The modulation current from the frequency
synthesizer used to achieve this locking was the same as
used to generate the sidebands of the free-running laser at
5.5 GHz shown in Fig. 2, However, due to the
circuit rolloff at 3 GHz and the reduced modulation response
above the relaxation resonance frequency, the free-running
laser produced a similarly narrow modulation feature, but with
a signal level down by 36 dB.
The strong oscillation of the optical power induced by
the optical injection is readily locked to a range of ref-
erence modulation frequencies with minor changes to the
laser operating points. Fig. 4 shows the range of locked
frequencies achieved when the bias current to the master laser
is varied. The principal effect of varying the bias current of
the master laser over this range is to shift its optical frequency
by 2.8 GHz/mA. The low frequency end of the range
1478
where locking is achieved and a strong signal is produced
corresponds to the point where the laser reestablished stable,
locked operation. This bound could be lowered by reducing
the injected optical power and/or changing the slave laser
bias current. The upper end of the range was limited by the
output current from the frequency synthesizer and the rolloff
of the modulation signal actually delivered to the laser diode
gain medium.
The highest locked frequency, 17.1 GHz, is almost six
times the circuit rolloff frequency and more than three times
the free-running relaxation resonance frequency. This demon-
strates how a stable microwave subcarrier can be generated
at frequencies well above those accessible to the free-running
laser. The technique should be broadly applicable to a variety
of lasers, including DFB lasers and VCSEL’s, with single-
mode operating characteristics [5]. Frequency and tuning range
depend on the operating point of the injected laser and the
strength and relative optical frequency of the master laser,
while ultimate linewidth limits also depend on the laser circuit
and noise characteristics, and strength and spectrum of the
modulation current. Relative to the sideband injection locking
technique, where a master laser is modulated and a slave laser
is locked to its sideband [7], the technique described here uses
the modified characteristics of the slave laser under optical
injection to achieve better locking of the optical frequencies
and higher oscillation (beat) frequencies. Phase locking of two
conventional free-running laser diodes, like those used here,
requires a very fast phase lock loop [8]. Use of external cavity
semiconductor lasers eases this requirement [9], [10], but at the
expense of a greatly reduced modulation bandwidth. Experi-
ments are underway to investigate the locking characteristics
of the new technique in the presence of additional RF and mi-
crowave modulations of the master and slave laser bias current.
IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 11, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 1999
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Prof. J. M. Liu of UCLA
and Dr. W. Sha of SDL for helpful discussions.
REFERENCES
[1] See, for example, the special issue on microwave and millimeter-
wave photonics, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. 45, pp.
1277–1536, Aug. 1997.
[2] T. B. Simpson and J. M. Liu, “Enhanced modulation bandwidth in
injection-locked semiconductor lasers,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol.
9, pp. 1322–1324, Oct. 1997.
[3] J. M. Liu, H. F. Chen, X. J. Meng, and T. B. Simpson, “Modulation
bandwidth, noise, and stability of a semiconductor laser subject to strong
injection locking,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 9, pp. 1325–1327,
Oct. 1997.
[4] X. J. Meng, D. T. K. Tong, T. Chau, and M. C. Wu, “Demonstration of
an analog fiber-optic link employing a directly modulated semiconductor
laser with external light injection,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 10,
pp. 1620–1322, Nov. 1998.
[5] T. B. Simpson, J. M. Liu, K. F. Huang, and K. Tai, “Nonlinear dynamics
induced by external optical injection in semiconductor lasers,” Quantum
Semiclass. Opt., vol. 9, pp. 765–784, Oct. 1997.
[6] B. Li, W. Sha, S. Yeh, R. Nagarajan, and R. R. Craig, “High power,
high speed single mode diode lasers for optical intersatellite link
applications,” Proc. SPIE, vol. 3266, pp. 49–53, 1998.
[7] J. Genest, M. Chamberland, P. Tremblay, and M. Têtu, “Microwave
signals generated by optical heterodyne between injection-locked semi-
conductor lasers,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron., vol. 33, pp. 989–998,
June 1997.
[8] U. Gliese, T. N. Nielson, M. Brunn, E. L. Christensen, K. E. Stubkjaer,
S. Lindgren, and B. Broberg, “A wideband heterodyne optical phase-
locked loop for generation of 3–18 GHz microwave carriers,” IEEE
Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 4, pp. 936–938, Aug. 1992.
[9] Z. F. Fan, P. J. S. Heim, and M. Dagenais, “Highly coherent RF
signal generation by heterodyne optical phase locking of external
cavity semiconductor lasers,” IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 10, pp.
719–721, May 1998.
[10] A. C. Davidson, F. W. Wise, and R. C. Compton, “Low phase noise
33–40-GHz signal generation using multilaser phase-locked loops,”
IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., vol. 10, pp. 1304–1306, Sept. 1998.