JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO.
16, AUGUST 15, 2017
Performance Evaluation of Integrated Semiconductor
Ring Laser Gyroscope
Arpit Khandelwal, Student Member, IEEE, Azeemuddin Syed, and Jagannath Nayak, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—We present a mathematical analysis and compar-
ison of the performance of integrated on-chip semiconductor
ring laser gyroscope (SRLG) fabricated using GaAs/AlGaAs and
InP/InGaAsP technologies. The performance parameters of the
gyro are modeled in terms of fundamental material, waveguide, and
resonator parameters. In addition to this, influence of phenomena
specific to semiconductor lasers such as nonlinear coupling, spatial
hole burning, gain grating formation, and carrier induced index
change on the gyro performance is also included. The analysis
helps in identifying critical parameters, which must be optimized
to improve the gyro performance.Best achievable performance of
integrated SRLG is calculated, and design modifications are sug-
gested to enhance it for high-performance military applications.
Index Terms—Bias, integrated gyroscopes, lock-in threshold,
quantum limit, scale factor stability, semiconductor ring laser.
I. INTRODUCTION
ING laser gyroscopes (RLG) are inertial rotation sensors
R used in Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS)
in aircrafts and satellites to provide accurate information about
their orientation [1]. They work on the principle of Sagnac ef-
fect, with an optical gain medium incorporated in the ring cavity
to form an active ring laser system. After their first experimen-
tal demonstration in 1963 [2], several configurations of RLGs
involving gaseous, solid state and semiconductor gain medium
have been proposed. They have been used in variety of applica-
tions ranging from military navigation to robotics and unmanned
vehicular navigation.
Precision inertial navigation systems in military applications
require highly sensitive gyroscopes which can measure angular
rotation velocities as low as 0.1–0.01 deg/hr, with good stabil-
ity, over a long integration time [3]. The gaseous He-Ne RLG
has been the preferred choice for these high performance ap-
plications. Although the sensitivity and stability of He-Ne RLG
have improved, its size, operating lifetime and power require-
ments still limit the payload carrying capacity of the satellites
[4]. Alternate technologies such as interferometric fiber optic
Manuscript received May 15, 2016; revised July 4, 2016 and August 9, 2016;
accepted August 9, 2016. Date of publication August 17, 2016; date of current
version June 24, 2017.
A. Khandelwal and A. Syed are with the Centre for VLSI and Embedded Sys-
tem Technologies, International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad
500032, India (e-mail: arpit.khandelwal@research.iiit.ac.in; azeemuddin.s@
iiit.ac.in).
J. Nayak is with the Inertial Systems Group, Research Center Imarat, Defence
Research and Development Organization, Hyderabad 500069, India (e-mail:
nayal_jagannath@rediffmail.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2016.2601313
0733-8724 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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3555
gyro (IFOG), resonant fiber optic gyro (RFOG), MEMS gyro
and hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG) are steadily emerging
as suitable replacement for RLG in high performance military
applications. Some implementations of IFOG and HRG have
shown high performance operation, but the signal processing
for output extraction remains complex, requiring an array of
components [5]. With the electronic systems getting rapidly
miniaturized, it is desired to have a compact, on-chip optical
gyro with high performance to replace the bulky He-Ne RLGs.
Integrated SRLG and resonant micro-optic gyro (RMOG)
have shown promise of small size, low cost and low power im-
plementation of a gyro on-chip. RMOG is a passive device with
a silica-on-silicon resonator acting as the primary sensing el-
ement [6], [7]. Light is injected using an external high power
laser source and a beam splitter. Being a passive device, RMOG
requires several signal processing elements such as acousto-
optic modulators, electro-optic modulators, lock in amplifiers,
isolators etc. to efficiently measure the rotation velocity [8].
Implementing such a complex system on a single photonic in-
tegrated circuit (PIC) require hybrid active-passive integration
technology. Also, the final output depends upon the stability and
linearity of every signal processing element, thus increasing the
possibility of random errors.
Integrated SRLG consists of an active ring resonator, fabri-
cated on GaAs or InP substrate, as its sensing element. Light
is generated inside the resonator and interference pattern is de-
tected using a directional coupler and photodetector [9]. Thus,
the overall footprint of an integrated SRLG is very small as
compared to RMOG [10]. Several configurations of integrated
SRLG have been designed and implemented. Although they
have been used in low performance applications like robotics,
automobiles and consumer electronics, their performance re-
mains inferior for military navigation applications [11]. Poor
performance has been attributed to phenomena like gain com-
petition and mode coupling, but their dependence on waveguide
and material parameters have not been analyzed.
One such analysis was reported by us in [12], which dealt
specifically with the most influential performance degrading
phenomenon in SRLG i.e. lock-in at low rotation rates.
In this paper, we analyze the performance of integrated
SRLGs, fabricated in GaAs/AlGaAs and InP/InGaAsP, for other
important metrics such as quantum limit, angle random walk,
null shift and scale factor stability. For the analysis, we model
the performance metrics in terms of fundamental semiconduc-
tor material and waveguide parameters. Also included in the
model are the equations describing the phenomena specific to
3556 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO. 16, AUGUST 15, 2017

TABLE I
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL PARAMETERS

Parameter Symbol GaAs/AlGaAs InP/InGaAsP

Linewidth Enhancement Factor [13] α 1.5 4.5

Emission Wavelength [14] λ 0.8–0.9 μm 1.1–1.6 μm
Electron Mobility [14] μ 4100 cm2 /V·s 5000 cm2 /V·s
Effective Index [15] n̄ 3.37 3.6
Dielectric Constant [14]  8.5 13
Internal Loss [16] αi 4 cm−1 1.5 cm−1
Internal Quantum Efficiency [17] ηi 0.7 0.6
Gain Coefficient [17] a 8 ×10 −1 6 cm2 6 ×10 −1 6 cm2
Spontaneous Emission Factor [18] η sp 3 0.6
Carrier Induced Index Change [19] δn 0.01 0.02
Thermal Expansion Coefficient [14] α th 5.2–6.86 × 10−6 /K 4 ×10−6 /K
Transparency Carrier Density [17] n 0 2.6 ×101 8 cm−3 2.2 ×101 8 cm−3

semiconductor laser dynamics such as non-linear coupling, spa-
tial hole burning, gain grating formation and mode competition.
The overall gyro performance is calculated by substituting the
corresponding values of GaAs/AlGaAs and InP/InGaAsP and
compared. Dependence of gyro performance on critical mate-
rial parameters is studied and modifications are suggested to
enhance the sensitivity.
II. MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS
In this section, we will analyze the performance of the
integrated semiconductor gyro based on GaAs/AlGaAs and
InP/InGaAsP material systems which are the two most widely
used systems for integrated optics applications. Some funda-
mental parameters related to both the material systems are given
in Table I. The values of all the parameters are realistic, as re-
ported in the literature specified beside them. These parameters
will be defined in the following sections and used to calculate
the performance of the gyro in terms of metrics such as quan-
tum limit, angle random walk, sensitivity, null shift, scale factor
stability and mode competition.
A. Quantum Limit
Quantum limit specifies the fundamental limit of the mea-
surement capacity of any optical rotation sensor using laser
light as a probe. It is governed by the uncertainty in the accurate
measurement of the frequency of modes present inside the ring
resonator and can be calculated from the spontaneous emission
noise. The magnitude of quantum limit for any RLG is given
by [20]

ν Bhν 180 × 3600
δΩ = × deg/hr
QS Pout π emission characteristics of lasers and typical values for GaAs
 and InP system are 4 cm−1 and 1.5 cm−1 respectively [16].
Δν Bhν 180 × 3600
δΩ = × deg/hr
S Pout π
where S is the gyro scale factor, Δν is the linewidth and Q is
the Quality factor of the resonator, ν is the operating frequency,
B is the sensor bandwidth and Pout is the useful power coupled
out of the gyro.
Fig. 1. Variation of Q-factor with output coupling coefficient for
GaAs/AlGaAs and InP/InGaAsP ring lasers showing high Q-factor for InP
based ring lasers at very low coupling coefficients.
1) Scale Factor: The scale factor of the gyro is the propor-
tionality constant between the input rotation rate and the output
beat frequency and is given for circular cavity as
2R
S= (3)
λ
where R is the radius of the cavity and λ is the operating wave-
length. The radius of the ring cavity is a trade-off between several
parameters and is generally selected so as to obtain sufficiently
high scale factor with moderate bending and scattering losses
as in [10], where a ring with radius of 1500 μm is fabricated.
The wavelength depends upon the laser material system being
used as shown in Table I. Thus, the scale factor for GaAs and
InP ring lasers comes out to be 3750 and 2000 respectively.
2) Q Factor: The Q-factor of the resonator is the ratio of
the total energy stored to the energy lost and depends upon
various losses inside the resonator. In case of an integrated
semiconductor ring laser (SRL), the Q factor is given as [21]

2πnR π 4 41 − ηcoup exp[−(αscat + αabs + αrad )πR/2]
Q= 
λ 1 − 1 − ηcoup exp[−(αscat + αabs + αrad )πR]
(4)
where ηcoup is the coupling efficiency of output coupler and
αscat , αabs , αrad are surface scattering, free carrier absorption
and radiation losses respectively inside the ring resonator.
All the losses inside the ring cavity are grouped together as
the average internal loss (αi ), i.e.
αi = αscat + αabs + αrad (5)
The internal loss can be experimentally measured from the
(1)
(2) The output coupling coefficient between the active ring res-
onator and passive output waveguide is a trade-off between high
Q-factor and high output power as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. Gen-
erally, low value of coupling factor (ηcoup = 0.2) is chosen to
get sufficiently high output power while maintaining sufficiently
high Q-factor. Using the above mentioned values in Eq. (4), the

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KHANDELWAL et al.: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF INTEGRATED SEMICONDUCTOR RING LASER GYROSCOPE
Fig. 2. Output power variation with coupling coefficient for GaAs/AlGaAs
and InP/InGaAsP ring lasers showing higher achievable output power for GaAs
based ring lasers as compared to InP.
Q-factor comes out to be 1 × 106 and 6 × 105 for GaAs and InP
resonators respectively.
3) Output Power: The useful output power coupled out of a
laser is given as [17]
hν
Pout = ηd (I − Ith )
q creasing their threshold current by a fair amount as compared
where I and Ith are the driving current and threshold current
respectively and ηd is the differential quantum efficiency de-
scribing the ratio of escaped photons to generated photons and
given as
ηi αm
ηd = (7)
αi + αm
The differential quantum efficiency depends upon the laser’s
internal quantum efficiency (ηi ) and the associated losses, which
include internal loss (αi ) and mirror loss (αm ).
Internal quantum efficiency is a fundamental parameter of any
laser describing the fraction of injected charge carriers converted
to photons. It is the ratio of radiative recombination rate to the
total recombination rate given as [17]
Bn2 + Rst Nph
ηi =
Anr n + Bn2 + Cn3 + Rst Nph
where n and Nph are charge carrier and photons concentration
respectively, Rst is the total stimulated recombination rate and
Anr , B and C are Einstein’s coefficients describing the non-
radiative, spontaneous and Auger recombination mechanisms
respectively.
The average internal loss inside the ring laser is given by
Eq. (5) whereas the lumped losses inside the resonator due
to the presence of coupler and other intra-cavity elements are
combined together in the mirror loss (αm ) given as [22]
ln(1 − ηcoup − αL )
αm = − (9)
2πR
where ηcoup is the coupling ratio and αL is the excess loss of
the output coupler.
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3557
4) Threshold Current: The minimum injection current re-
quired to overcome the cavity losses inside the resonator by
increasing the rate of radiative transitions over non-radiative
transitions is called threshold current. It is the value of injection
current above which the lasing action starts and is given by [15]
qVa nth
Ith = + IL (10)
τe
where Va is the volume of active region, τe is the charge carrier
lifetime inside the active region, IL is the leakage current and
nth is threshold charge carrier density given by
αm + αi
nth = n0 + (11)
aΓ
where n0 is the carrier density at transparency, a is the dif-
ferential gain coefficient of the laser and Γ is the confinement
factor in the active region. The lifetime of charge carriers in
the active region is inversely related to the non-radiative and
spontaneous recombination rates which contributes to the loss
of otherwise useful charge carriers. Thus, carrier lifetime can be
expressed as
τe = (Anr + Bn + Cn2 )−1 (12)
where Anr , B and C are the Einstein’s coefficients describing
the non-radiative, spontaneous and Auger recombination mech-
anisms respectively. Non-radiative recombinations are found to
be very high for long wavelength InGaAsP/InP materials, in-
(6)
to GaAs/AlGaAs QW devices.
Using the values given in the Table I, the threshold current
for GaAs and InP lasers comes out to be 12 mA and 11 mA re-
spectively. In order to maintain stable bidirectional single mode
operation, the drive current is 1.5 to 2 times the threshold value.
Using the above values in Eq. (6), the output power for GaAs
and InP ring lasers comes out to be 7 mW and 4 mW respec-
tively. The output power is a critical function of the coupling
coefficient as shown in Fig. 2 and it increases as more and more
useful power is coupled out of the ring.
5) Linewidth: Linewidth is the uncertainty in the phase and
frequency of the laser emission brought about by dephasing
mechanisms such as spontaneous emission. As the semicon-
ductor gain medium is homogeneously broadened, all the de-
phasing mechanisms act on all the dipoles in the same way so
(8) that the response of each individual atom is broadened in the
same fashion. The expression of linewidth in case of integrated
semiconductor lasers is given as [23]
(vg gth )2 hνnsp ηcoup (1 + α2 )
Δν = (13)
4π(ηcoup + αL )Pout
where vg is the group velocity, gth is the material threshold gain,
nsp is the spontaneous emission factor and α is the linewidth
enhancement factor i.e. the ratio of the change in the real part
of refractive index (Δn ) to the change in the imaginary part
(Δn ) given by [24]
Δn
α= (14)
Δn
The typical value of gth for semiconductor ring lasers is
around 2000 cm−1 and the values for linewidth enhancement
3558 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO. 16, AUGUST 15, 2017

TABLE II
SEMICONDUCTOR LASER PARAMETERS

Parameter GaAs/AlGaAs InP/InGaAsP

Scale Factor 3750 2000

Q-Factor 1 × 106 6 × 105
Δν 4 MHz 5 MHz
Ith 12 mA 11 mA
Po u t 7 mW 4 mW

Fig. 4. Variation of quantum limit with internal efficiency of GaAs/AlGaAs

and InP/InGaAsP ring lasers. The change in quantum limit of InP based gyros
is more pronounced as compared to GaAs based gyros.

Fig. 3. Gyro quantum limit variation with coupling coefficient. Quantum limit
of InP based gyros increases more rapidly with coupling coefficient as compared
to GaAs based gyros making them more unstable w.r.t fabrication tolerances.

factor (α) and spontaneous emission factor (ηsp ) are given in

Table I, which when substituted in Eq. (13) gives linewidth of
4 MHz and 5 MHz for GaAs and InP ring lasers respectively.
The values of all the semiconductor laser parameters calcu-
lated above are summarized in Table II. Substituting the values
of scale factor (S), Q-factor and output power (Pout ) in Eq. (1),
the fundamental quantum limit for a sensor bandwidth of 1 Hz
comes out to be 120 deg/hr and 180 deg/hr for GaAs/AlGaAs
and InP/InGaAsP gyro respectively.
The gyro quantum limit depends critically upon the cou-
pling coefficient and the internal quantum efficiency as shown
in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. Thus, to obtain minimum possible
theoretical sensitivity from a semiconductor gyro, it is necessary
to have low coupling coefficient and high internal quantum ef-
ficiency. Lower coupling coefficient means higher gap between
the ring and the straight output bus waveguide, which increases
the device size and reduces the coupled output power. Higher
internal efficiency can be obtained by reducing the non-radiative
and spontaneous recombinations inside the gain medium.
B. Angle Random Walk
Angle Random Walk (ARW) is the random error in the mea-
surement of angle of rotation by a gyro. Angle of rotation is
generally measured by integrating the rate output of the gyro.
Thus, any random variations in the rate output also get added
over time, resulting in random deviations of the angle output
from the mean value. The magnitude of ARW for an undithered
Fig. 5. Variation of gyro Angle Random Walk (ARW) with the injection
current for GaAs and InP based gyros. ARW increases sharply below threshold
current density with gradual decrease thereafter. Variations in InP based gyros
are more pronounced than GaAs gyros.
gyro depends upon its quantum limit (δΩ) and bandwidth (B)
and is given as
δΩ
ARW = √ (15)
60 B
Using the calculated values of quantum
√ limit and a bandwidth
√
of 1 Hz, we get an ARW of 0.033 deg/ hr and 0.05 deg/ hr re-
spectively for GaAs and InP gyros. ARW of semiconductor RLG
is dependent on laser parameters such as injection current and
ring resonator radius. Fig. 5 shows the variation of ARW with the
input injection current (I) for GaAs/AlGaAs and InP/InGaAsP
ring laser gyros. As is seen, the ARW decreases with increasing
current but rises sharply below threshold current. Thus, high
current operation is preferable for better ARW performance as
long as nonlinear effects such as carrier heating do not come
into effect. Similarly, random gyro error also decreases with an
increase in the device size as shown in Fig. 6, which presents
a trade-off between chip area occupied and performance of the

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KHANDELWAL et al.: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF INTEGRATED SEMICONDUCTOR RING LASER GYROSCOPE
Fig. 6. Gyro Angle Random Walk (ARW) variation with the ring radius for
InP and GaAs based gyros, showing a decrease in ARW with increasing device
size. The performance of GaAs based gyros is superior as compared to InP
based gyros w.r.t variations in ARW with ring dimensions.
gyro. As is evident from both Figs. 5 and 6, the variations in
InP/InGaAsP based gyros are more pronounced as compared to
gyros fabricated using GaAs/AlGaAs material system.
C. Sensitivity
Sensitivity defines the minimum angular velocity that can be
measured by a gyro. Ideally, every gyro should follow the linear
Sagnac relation down to zero angular velocities. But below cer-
tain threshold rotation velocity, the clockwise (CW) and coun-
terclockwise (CCW) modes in a gyro synchronize with each
other and are locked at the same frequency [25]. Thus the beat
signal corresponding to the rotation is lost, imposing a minimum
non-zero limit to the rotation sensitivity. This phenomenon is
called lock-in.
Lock-in occurs due to coupling of CW and CCW waves into
each other via backscattering [26]. Incorporating this effect into
the Sagnac relation, the expression for instantaneous frequency
difference between the CW and CCW waves in a gyro is then
given by
dψ iκ
= 2πSΩ − sin(ψ + ) (16)
dt 2 perature as shown in Fig. 7, where lock-in threshold of GaAs
where ψ and  are the instantaneous and backscattering induced
phase differences between the CW and CCW waves, S is the
gyro scale factor and κ is the amplitude coupling coefficient for
the CW and CCW optical modes. Thus, the lock-in threshold
or minimum measurable rotation velocity for any gyro can be
calculated as
κ D. Null Shift
ΩL = (17)
4πS
1) Backscattering: The backscattering inside a gyro can be
linear or non-linear depending on its origin i.e. backscattering
from passive cavity elements is generally linear while that in
the active semiconductor gain medium is non-linear [26]. Non-
linear backscattering arises due to the formation of population
inversion grating inside the gain medium when two oppositely
directed modes of different frequencies are present simultane-
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3559
ously [27]. This leads to the formation of a refractive index
grating as the refractive index of a semiconductor medium is
dependent on the carrier density. The backscattered CW and
CCW modes thus couple to each other, leading to frequency
synchronization and suppression of the beat signal on rotation.
From the perturbation theory analysis, the non-linear coupling
between the modes inside a semiconductor ring laser can be
represented by modifying the rate equations as [17]

dE1 −j ω 1 t −jk22 δ(x, y)|U |2 dA
e = E2 ej ω 2 t e−j l(2π /T )t 
dt 2ω1 |U |2 dA
(18)

dE2 −j ω 2 t −jk12 δ(x, y)|U |2 dA
e = E1 ej ω t e−j l(2π /T )t 
dt 2ω2 |U |2 dA
(19)
where E1 and E2 are mode amplitudes, ω1 and ω2 are angular
frequencies and k1 and k2 are wavevectors in CW and CCW
modes respectively, U (x, y) is the transverse mode distribution,
T is the temporal period of population inversion grating formed
in the active medium and δ is the perturbation in the dielectric
constant due to carrier density variations.
The nonlinear coupling coefficient as derived in [12] for an
integrated SRLG is given as
 
k 2 c2 ng δng (x, y)
κ= (20)
2ω  + ng δng (x, y)
where δng (x, y) is the carrier induced change in the refractive
index of the semiconductor gain medium. For typical GaAs and
InP lasers, δng (x, y) can be as large as 10−2 [19]. Using the
values for GaAs and InP ring lasers as given in Table I, the non-
linear coupling coefficient (κ) comes out to be equal to 3.8 ×
1012 and 3.46 × 1012 respectively. Substituting these values
in Eq. (17), we get a lock-in threshold of 8 × 107 deg/hr and
1 × 108 deg/hr for GaAs and InP integrated gyros respectively,
which is many orders of magnitude higher than the sensitivity
achieved by He-Ne RLG (0.01–0.1 deg/hr), used in military
applications.
Moreover, the lock-in threshold is dependent on ambient tem-
gyros decreases with temperature and that of InP gyros increases
with temperature. In order to make the performance of integrated
semiconductor gyros comparable to that of He-Ne RLGs, it is
therefore necessary to eliminate or wipe-off the population in-
version gratings or reduce the magnitude of coupling from them.
Null shift is defined as the beat signal at the output of the
gyro when no input rotation is applied to it. It occurs due
to non-reciprocity in the design of resonator or due to non-
homogeneous refractive index in the CW and CCW direction
[28]. Moreover, if the non-reciprocity or inhomogeneity is ran-
dom in nature, the magnitude of error signal changes over time
and it becomes difficult to extract the rotation induced beat sig-
nal from the overall output when the gyro is rotating.
3560
Fig. 7. Temperature dependence of lock-in threshold for GaAs/AlGaAs and
InP/InGaAsP based gyros. InP based gyros show an increase of lock-in threshold
at higher temperature, limiting their use in space applications.
For a semiconductor ring laser gyro, the magnitude of error
due to null shift is given by [29]
c √
Δfe = b (21)
nπL
where b is the coefficient of linear backscattering which de-
pends upon the surface sidewall roughness profile of the ring
waveguide and is given as
b = Re[2Rl exp(jπ)] (22)
where Rl is the linear amplitude reflection coefficient given by
[30]
√ is also a function of temperature as
Rl2 = 2πR(0 ωδn2 hE/4)2 4 π|r|2 Lc exp[−(βr Lc )2 ] (23)
where E and βr are the normalized electric field amplitude
and propagation constant inside the ring, r is the amplitude of
sidewall surface roughness, Lc is the correlation length and δn
is the refractive index difference between the core and cladding
layers given by
δn2 = (n2core − n2clad ) (24)
From [10], the linear backscattering coefficient (b) for GaAs
and InP ring laser is equal to 1.2 × 10−9 and 1.3 × 10−9
respectively. Substituting these values in Eq. (21), the magnitude
of null shift for GaAs and InP integrated gyros comes out to be
100 kHz and 105 kHz respectively.
E. Scale Factor Stability
For efficient operation of a gyro, it is essential that the scale
factor should remain constant over a long period of time and
under varying environmental conditions. Since the scale factor
depends upon the dimensions of the ring laser and the operating
wavelength, the stability of these parameters should be taken
into account.
In a semiconductor laser system, the operating wavelength is
determined by the bandgap energy which is temperature depen-
dent. For GaAs/AlGaAs lasers, the temperature dependence of
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 35, NO. 16, AUGUST 15, 2017
Fig. 8. Variation of scale factor with temperature for GaAs/AlGaAs and
InP/InGaAsP based gyros. The slope for GaAs based gyro is higher showing
more variation w.r.t temperature as compared to InP based gyros.
bandgap energy is given by [31]
Eg (T ) = 1.519 − 5.405 ∗ 10−4 ∗ T 2 /(204 + T) (25)
whereas for InP/InGaAsP lasers, the temperature dependence
of bandgap energy is given as
Eg (T ) = 1.421 − 3.63 ∗ 10−4 ∗ T 2 /(T + 162) (26)
where the temperature (T) is measured in K. This tempera-
ture dependence of bandgap energy leads to a corresponding
temperature dependence of peak emitted wavelength.
Moreover, the effective radius of the semiconductor ring laser
Reff (T ) = Reff [1 + αth (T − T0 )] (27)
where αth is the thermal expansion coefficient of the semicon-
ductor material, whose value for GaAs and InP is 6 × 10−6 /K
and 4 × 10−6 /K respectively [14]. The temperature depen-
dence of all these parameters causes the overall gyro scale factor
to be temperature dependent as [10]
 
dS 2αth λ(T ) − 2 dλ(T
dT
)
Reff (T )
= (28)
dT λ2 (T )
The variation of scale factor with temperature in semicon-
ductor gyros is shown in Fig. 8. By calculating the slope of
the graphs, the scale factor variations for GaAs and InP gyros
comes out as 319 ppm/K and 236 ppm/K respectively.
III. CONCLUSIONS
The performance of integrated on-chip SRLG has been ana-
lyzed for GaAs/AlGaAs and InP/InGaAsP material systems and
is summarized in Table III. The gyro performance parameters
have been modeled in terms of semiconductor material param-
eters which have been optimized for improved performance of
the gyro. The analysis shows that lock-in is the most influential
performance degrading phenomenon in integrated SRLG. The
high value of lock-in threshold overshadows the limits imposed
KHANDELWAL et al.: PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF INTEGRATED SEMICONDUCTOR RING LASER GYROSCOPE
TABLE III
GYRO PERFORMANCE PARAMETERS
Parameter GaAs/AlGaAs InP/InGaAsP
δΩ (deg/hr)√ 120 180
ARW (deg/ hr) 0.033 0.05
Ω L (deg/hr) 8 × 10 7 1 × 10 8
Null Shift (kHz) 100 105
dS/dT (ppm/K) 319 236
by other phenomena such as ARW, null shift and scale factor
stability. Moreover, gyros fabricated in GaAs/AlGaAs material
system have slightly superior performance in terms of funda-
mental quantum limit, ARW and lock-in threshold. But, their
performance varies significantly with change in atmospheric
variables such as temperature. Whereas, InP/InGaAsP based
gyros, though only slightly inferior in performance, show bet-
ter stability to environmental variations. Design variables such
as output coupling coefficient, injection current and material
parameters such as internal quantum efficiency are found to af-
fect the gyro performance critically. Some novel designs, such
as external-cavity ring lasers or on-chip Brillouin ring lasers,
which optimize these parameters and incorporate lock-in reduc-
tion techniques, are required to allow reasonable applications of
SRLGs.
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Arpit Khandelwal received the B.Tech. degree from Vishwakarma Institute
of Technology, Pune, India, in 2013. He is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree with International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, India.
His research interests include modeling of semiconductor lasers, light–matter
interaction in semiconductors, and nonlinear optics.
Azeemuddin Syed received the B.E. degree from Muffakham Jah College of
Engineering and Technology, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India, in 2003,
and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale,
IL, USA, in 2005 and 2008, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor
at International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad. His research
interests include radio frequency integrated circuits and devices and all-optical
devices using ring lasers.
Jagannath Nayak received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore, India. He is currently the Director of the Center for High
Energy Systems and Sciences, Defence Research and Development Organiza-
tion, Hyderabad, India. His research interests include navigation sensors, fiber
optics, lasers, optical microelectromechanical systems, and signal processing.