1038
3, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Compact Hybrid Integrated 100-Gb/s Transmitter
Optical Sub-Assembly Using Optical Butt-Coupling
Between EADFB Lasers and Silica-Based
AWG Multiplexer
Takaharu Ohyama, Yoshiyuki Doi, Member, IEEE, Wataru Kobayashi, Shigeru Kanazawa, Kiyoto Takahata,
Atsushi Kanda, Member, IEEE, Takeshi Kurosaki, Takuya Tanaka, Tetsuichiro Ohno, Member, IEEE, Hiroaki Sanjoh,
and Toshikazu Hashimoto
Abstract—A compact hybrid-integrated 100 Gb/s (4 lane ×
25.78125 Gb/s) transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA) has been
developed for a 100 Gb/s transceiver for 40-km transmission over
a single-mode fiber. The TOSA has a simple configuration in which
four electro-absorption modulator-integrated distributed feedback
(EADFB) lasers are directly attached to the input waveguide end-
face of a silica-based arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multi-
plexer without bulk lenses. To achieve a high optical butt coupling
efficiency between the EADFB lasers and the AWG multiplexer,
we integrated a laterally tapered spot-size converter (SSC) for the
EADFB laser and employed a waveguide with a high refractive in-
dex difference of 2.0% for the AWG multiplexer. By optimizing the
laterally tapered SSC structure, we achieved a butt-coupling loss
of less than 3 dB, which is an improvement of around 2 dB com-
pared with a laser without an SSC structure. We also developed an
ultracompact AWG multiplexer, which was 6.7 mm × 3.5 mm in
size with an insertion loss of less than 1.9 dB. We achieved this by
using a Mach–Zehnder interferometer-synchronized configuration
to obtain a low loss and wide flat-top transmission filter spectra.
The TOSA body size was 19.9 mm (L) × 6.0 mm (W) × 5.8 mm (H).
Error-free operation was demonstrated for a 40-km transmission
when all the lanes were driven simultaneously with a low EA modu-
lator driving voltage of 1.5 V at an operating temperature of 55 °C.
Index Terms—100 Gb/s Ethernet, AWG multiplexer, EADFB
laser, hybrid-integration, spot-size converter, transmitter optical
sub-assembly.
I. INTRODUCTION
ORE compact and cost-effective optical transceivers are
M needed for 100 Gb/s Ethernet (100 GbE) to deal with the
Manuscript received October 8, 2015; revised December 5, 2015; accepted
December 8, 2015. Date of publication December 16, 2015; date of current
version February 5, 2016.
T. Ohyama, Y. Doi, S. Kanazawa, K. Takahata, A. Kanda, T. Kurosaki, T.
Ohno, and H. Sanjoh are with the NTT Device Innovation Center, Nippon
Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), Atsugi-shi 243–0198, Japan
(e-mail: oyama.takaharu@lab.ntt.co.jp; doi-yoshiyuki@ntt-el.com; kanazawa.
shigeru@lab.ntt.co.jp; takahata.kiyoto@lab.ntt.co.jp; kanda.atsushi@lab.ntt.
co.jp; kurosaki.takeshi@lab.ntt.co.jp; ohno.tetsuichiro@lab.ntt.co.jp; sanjoh.
hiroaki@lab.ntt.co.jp).
W. Kobayashi, T. Tanaka, and T. Hashimoto are with the NTT De-
vice Technology Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
(NTT), Atsugi-shi 243–0198, Japan (e-mail: kobayashi.wataru@lab.ntt.co.jp;
tanaka.takuya@lab.ntt.co.jp; hashimoto.toshikazu@lab.ntt.co.jp).
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.2015.2508758
0733-8724 © 2015 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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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO.
exponential growth in data traffic generated in telecommunica-
tion networks and data center networks. 100 GbE, standardized
in IEEE 802.3ba [1], has a long reach specification for 10 km
or 40 km transmission over single-mode fiber (SMF), namely
100 GBASE-LR4 or 100 GBASE-ER4. The specification de-
fines a multi-lane configuration that has four 25.78125 Gb/s
lanes with local area network wavelength division multiplexing
(LAN-WDM), which is assigned a wavelength channel spacing
of 800 GHz in the 1.3 μm wavelength band. A transceiver for
100 GbE is also defined in the multi-source agreement (MSA).
To further reduce both the body size and the power consumption
of the 100 GbE transceiver, a CFP4 transceiver [2] defined in the
centum form-factor pluggable MSA or a QSFP28 transceiver [3]
defined in the quad small form-factor pluggable MSA has been
enacted. However, with a multi-lane configuration it is compli-
cated to fabricate such a compact transceiver because we have
to further miniaturize the optical components installed in the
transceiver such as the transmitter optical sub-assembly (TOSA)
and the receiver optical sub-assembly (ROSA). Nevertheless,
the multi-lane configuration must be a promising approach even
for the next generation 400-Gb/s Ethernet (400 GbE), which
is currently being discussed by an IEEE task force [4]. There-
fore, an integration technique that satisfies the increasing lane
number is an important technical issue for a future TOSA and
ROSA.
Various multi-lane configurations for a 100 Gb/s TOSA
have been reported [5]–[10]. The TOSA reported in [5],
[6] uses monolithic integration technology. In these cases,
a four-channel laser array with four wavelength lanes and a
4-input × 1-output multi-mode interferometer (MMI) optical
coupler are monolithically integrated in a single chip. However,
with this approach, it is difficult to obtain sufficient average
optical output power (Pavg ) due to the large intrinsic loss of the
4 × 1 MMI optical coupler. The TOSAs reported in [7]–[9] are
constructed by using many optical components such as lenses
and wavelength filters. However, the bulk component assembly
approach complicates TOSA fabrication owing to the need for
very tight lane-by-lane alignment, which requires sub-micron
order accuracy. The TOSA reported in [10] uses hybrid integra-
tion technology. In this case, a four-channel electro-absorption
(EA) modulators integrated distributed feedback (DFB) laser
OHYAMA et al.: COMPACT HYBRID INTEGRATED 100-Gb/s TRANSMITTER OPTICAL SUB-ASSEMBLY USING OPTICAL BUTT-COUPLING
Fig. 1. Schematic configuration of TOSA. As shown in the inset, four carriers
with an EADFB laser chip are directly bonded to the end of an AWG without a
lens.
(EADFB laser) array chip and a silica-based arrayed waveguide
grating (AWG) multiplexer with a refractive index difference
(Δ) of 1.5% are optically butt-coupled. This approach allows
the workload imposed by the alignment process to be reduced
thanks to its lens-less configuration. However, the reported
hybrid integrated TOSA was insufficiently small to install in a
CFP4 transceiver due to the large size of the AWG multiplexer,
and the report did not mention the transmission performance.
In this paper, we describe a hybrid integration technology for
fabricating a compact multi-lane TOSA that can be applied to a
CFP4 transceiver capable of 40 km transmission. In Section II,
we describe our concept of a hybrid integrated TOSA using an
AWG multiplexer. To achieve a 40 km transmission, we used
an EADFB laser, which is likely to achieve the higher dynamic
extinction ratio (DER) of over 8 dB required in the 100 GBASE-
ER4 specifications. We introduced optical butt coupling, namely
lens-less optical coupling similar to the TOSA reported in [10],
between an EADFB laser and an AWG multiplexer to reduce
the number of optical components and thus reduce fabrication
costs. We detail the SSC design integrated in the EADFB laser
to recover the optical butt-coupling loss between the EADFB
lasers and AWG multiplexer. We also describe the AWG mul-
tiplexer design made by using a silica-based planar lightwave
circuit (PLC) with a high Δ of 2.0% to reduce the TOSA
size. In Section III, we describe the fabrication of a TOSA. In
Section IV, we report the performance of the fabricated TOSA.
The TOSA achieves a 4-lane × 25.78125 Gb/s error-free
transmission over a 40 km SMF with all-lane simultaneous
operation that is realized by using low EA modulator driving
voltages (Vpp ) of 1.5 and 2.0 V at an operating temperature
(Top ) of 55 °C. We summarize the paper in Section V.
II. TOSA DESIGN
A. Concept for Compact TOSA
We designed the TOSA configuration shown in Fig. 1. In this
study, the TOSA main assembly consists of a silica-based PLC
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1039
Fig. 2. Schematic view of a lateral tapered ridge-type SSC integrated EADFB
laser.
sub-block in which four EADFB laser chips on each carrier are
directly attached to the end of the input waveguide of an AWG
multiplexer. The optical butt-coupling configuration between
the EADFB laser chips and the PLC without bulk lenses allows
us to eliminate the complicated assembly procedure, which re-
quires tight tree-body optical alignment. The advantage of using
a discrete EADFB laser chip is that it allows us to optimize the
design for the detuning between the absorption band-edge wave-
length of an EA modulator and the lasing wavelength of a DFB
laser for every wavelength lane. We employed a PLC with a high
Δ of 2% to reduce the size of the AWG multiplexer and thus
reduce the TOSA size for installation in the CFP4 transceiver.
Optical loss management of the optic within the TOSA is a
very important issue if we are to achieve the specifications for a
100 GBASE-ER4, which requires a Pavg of over −2.9 dBm. The
optical butt-coupling loss and the AWG multiplexer insertion
loss are considered the main causes of Pavg degradation. In
this study, we aimed to suppress the total optical loss to less
than 6 dB in consideration of the optical output power from
our EADFB laser at a Top of 55 °C. In terms of optical butt-
coupling loss reduction, an effective way is to make the spot-
size of the EADFB laser close to that of the input waveguide
of the AWG multiplexer. Therefore, we introduced a spot-size
converter (SSC) into the EADFB laser as detailed below in
Section II-B. The AWG multiplexer insertion loss is described
in Section II-E.
B. Design of SSC for EADFB Laser
To reduce the optical butt-coupling loss, we designed an SSC
with a laterally tapered waveguide for the EADFB laser chip. As
shown in Fig. 2, we employed a ridge waveguide structure for the
overall structure of the chip. Unlike a buried-hetero structure,
this structure is insulated from the influence of the Zn diffu-
sion of p-type dopant. Therefore, it features a larger frequency
bandwidth for an EA modulator section. The DFB laser section
and the EA modulator section are based on our previous study
[11]. In addition, we employed a passive waveguide between
the DFB laser and the EA modulator to reduce the optical loss
of their joint section. The core layer of the SSC section is the
same as that of the passive waveguide, and this means that no
1040
Fig. 3. Calculated optical coupling loss at a gap of 5 μm between the laterally
tapered SSC integrated EADFB laser and the waveguide of the PLC when the
FWHM for the vertical direction (FWHM_V) is 37° and the PLC spot-size is
2.3 μm. An open square dot shows the estimated coupling loss using the EADFB
laser without an SSC. A closed circular dot shows the coupling loss measured
when using our fabricated EADFB laser with an SSC.
Fig. 4. Photograph of laterally tapered SSC integrated EADFB laser.
additional epitaxial regrowth is needed. Therefore, the laterally
tapered SSC structure does not increase the workload involved
in EADFB laser fabrication.
We estimated the optical butt-coupling loss between the lat-
erally tapered SSC of the EADFB laser and the PLC waveguide
with a Δ of 2%, which has a spot-size of 2.3 μm as shown
in Fig. 3. Then, we assumed that the far-field pattern (FFP)
emitted from the SSC had a constant full width at half max-
imum (FWHM) of 37° in the vertical direction (FWHM_V),
which means that the EADFB laser does not have an SSC struc-
ture in the vertical direction. The solid line in Fig. 3 shows the
calculated optical coupling loss between the laterally tapered
SSC integrated EADFB laser and the PLC waveguide versus
the FWHM in the horizontal direction (FWHM_H) of the SSC
when the gap between the SSC and the PLC waveguide was
5 μm in view of the actual assembly situation. This shows that
if the FFP from the SSC has an FWHM_H of 9 ∼ 17°, we
can achieve an optical butt-coupling loss of less than 3 dB. On
the other hand, the original EADFB laser chip without an SSC
had an FWHM_H of 35° and an FWHM_V of 37°, and so the
optical butt-coupling loss was around 5 dB as shown by the
open square in Fig. 3. Therefore, the laterally tapered SSC in-
tegrated EADFB laser can improve the butt-coupling loss over
2 dB compared with the EADFB laser without an SSC.
C. Fabrication of SSC Integrated EADFB Laser
We fabricated a laterally tapered SSC integrated EADFB laser
chip as shown in Fig. 4. The active section of the DFB laser
and the EA modulator were fabricated with an InGaAlAs-based
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Fig. 5. Measured FFP from our fabricated laterally tapered SSC integrated
EADFB laser for (a) horizontal direction and (b) vertical direction.
multi-quantum well (MQW), because this MQW material sys-
tem is tolerant to high temperature and has a large extinction
ratio [12]. On the other hand, we employed an InGaAsP-based
core layer for the SSC section and the joint section between the
DFB laser and the EA modulator. The DFB laser, EA modulator,
and SSC were connected by a butt-joint technique to optimize
each structure. As described above, the waveguides of these
sections had a ridge structure. To achieve a high output power
with a small injection current, the front and rear facets were
coated with anti-reflection and high-reflection coating, respec-
tively. The direction of the output waveguide in the SSC region
was tilted 5° to the normal orientation of the cleaved facet to
suppress facet refraction. The DFB laser and EA modulator
were 400 and 150 μm long, respectively. By taking the design
shown in Fig. 3 into account, we could obtain an FFP with an
FWHM_H of 14° and an FWHM_V of 37° by Gaussian fitting
as shown in Fig. 5 when the SSC layout had a taper length (Lt )
of 200 μm and a width (Wt ) of 6 μm at the taper end to keep an
optical field with a single-mode condition. The obtained FFP is
expected to achieve a butt-coupling loss of less than 3 dB. The
chip size was 0.25 mm × 0.92 mm.
D. Optical Butt-Coupling Experiment
We evaluated the optical butt-coupling characteristics be-
tween the fabricated SSC integrated EADFB laser chip with an
FWHM_H of 14° and an FWHM_V of 37° and a PLC waveguide
with a spot size of 2.3 μm. Fig. 6 shows the optical coupling
tolerance at a gap of 5 μm between the SSC integrated EADFB
laser chip and the PLC waveguide. We confirmed that the min-
imum coupling loss was 2.9 dB when the X- and Y-direction
tolerances were both 0 μm, which is the same as the estimated
low level as shown by the closed circle in Fig. 3. The 0.5 dB
down coupling tolerance was ±0.7 μm for the X-direction and
±0.5 μm for the Y-direction.
Before fabricating a complete TOSA with four wavelength
lanes, we made a half-finished TOSA with a single lane to
investigate the initial performance using optical butt coupling.
We prepared a PLC sub-block with a single waveguide instead
of an AWG multiplexer. As detailed in Section III, the SSC
integrated EADFB laser chip on the carrier and the end of the
OHYAMA et al.: COMPACT HYBRID INTEGRATED 100-Gb/s TRANSMITTER OPTICAL SUB-ASSEMBLY USING OPTICAL BUTT-COUPLING
Fig. 6. Measured optical butt-coupling tolerance at a gap of 5 μm between the
SSC integrated EADFB laser chip with an FFP of 14° × 37° and the waveguide
of the PLC with a spot-size of 2.3 mm.
Fig. 7. Optical output power (P f ) of a half-finished TOSA with a single lane
as a function of injection current (If ) at an operating temperature (T o p ) of
55 °C.
PLC waveguide were actively aligned and then attached to each
other with an optical adhesive. The butt-coupling distance was
around 5 μm. The 5 μm-gap was filled with the optical adhesive.
Fig. 7 shows the optical output power (Pf ) as a function of the
injection current (If ) into the DFB laser at a Top of 55 °C
when the bias voltage for the EA modulator (Vb ) was in an
open circuit condition. There was no kink in the curve and no
threshold variation before or after the EADFB laser chip was
attached to the end-face of the PLC waveguide. The evaluated
optical butt-coupling loss between the SSC integrated EADFB
laser chip and the PLC waveguide was 3.0 dB, which revealed
that the alignment could achieve the minimum coupling loss
level of 2.9 dB shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 8 shows the lasing spectra
at an If of 90 mA for the DFB laser, in which single-mode
lasing spectra with side-mode suppression ratios (SMSRs) of
over 50 dB were obtained. These static characteristics indicate
that the optical butt-coupling configuration does not degrade the
lasing stability of the DFB lasers.
We also evaluated the dynamic modulation characteristics of
the half-finished TOSA with a single lane. Eye diagrams output
from the TOSA are shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b) for EA modulator
driving voltages (Vpp ) of 2.0 and 1.5 V, respectively, when the
operational condition using input electrical signals with a bit
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1041
Fig. 8. Lasing wavelength spectrum of a half-finished TOSA with a single
lane at an operating temperature (T o p ) of 55 °C.
Fig. 9. Eye diagrams for a BtoB transmission with a half-finished TOSA
obtained at 25.78125 Gb/s when the EA modulator driving voltage (V p p ) was
(a) 2.0 V and (b) 1.5 V.
rate of 25.78125 Gb/s, a non-return-to-zero (NRZ) format, and
a pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) of 231 –1, at an If of
70 mA and a Top of 55 °C. Vb was set at −2.15 V so that
the optical cross point was around 50%. The eye diagrams were
observed through a fourth-order Bessel filter. Clear eye openings
were obtained with DERs of 8.8 and 8.1 dB and Pavg of 3.0 and
2.1 dBm for Vpp values of 2.0 and 1.5 V, respectively.
The 100 GBASE-ER4 specifications stipulate a DER of over
8 dB and an optical modulation amplitude (OMA) of over
0.1 dBm. To satisfy the OMA which is defined with the DER
and the Pavg , a complete TOSA with a four-wavelength multi-
plexer needs a Pavg of over −1.5 dBm. On the other hand, the
half-finished TOSA without the AWG multiplexer had a Pavg
of 2.1 dBm even for a low driving Vpp of 1.5 V as mentioned
above. Therefore, there is a loss margin of 3.6 dB, namely 2.1
− (−1.5) dB, for the AWG multiplexer including the receptacle
side optic to meet the 100 GBASE-ER4 specifications.
E. AWG Multiplexer
The AWG multiplexer requires a low insertion loss and flat
passband characteristics to obtain a larger optical output power
in addition to its compactness for the CFP4 transceiver. In this
study, our goal was for the passband of the AWG multiplexer to
1042 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2016

Fig. 10. Schematic layout of AWG multiplexer. To obtain a flat wide passband
width with a low insertion loss, a MZI was inserted into the output of the AWG. Fig. 12. Photograph of a PLC sub-block. Four carriers with an SSC integrated
Input ports were assigned at a pitch of 1 mm. EADFB laser chip are directly attached to the end of the AWG multiplexer.

Fig. 11. Transmission spectra of the AWG multiplexer with an MZI-

synchronized configuration.

Fig. 13. Photograph of a fabricated TOSA with LC-type receptacle and flex-
be the same as that over 370 GHz defined by LAN-WDM with ible printed circuits.
a channel spacing of 800 GHz. To obtain such a wide passband
width with a low insertion loss, we introduced a Mach-Zehnder
interferometer (MZI)-synchronized configuration into the AWG
multiplexer, where the MZI was inserted at the output port of
the AWG circuit [13]. We used a silica-waveguide on silicon
substrate with a Δ of 2% and a core size of 4.5 μm × 4.5 μm
to realize a compact AWG multiplexer. As shown in Fig. 10,
we designed a PLC chip consisting of four input waveguides
at a pitch of 1 mm for the input ports, an MZI-synchronized
AWG multiplexer, and an output waveguide for the output port.
In the middle of each input waveguide, a tap waveguide was
extracted for a monitor port connecting to a monitor PD. A high
Δ of 2% realized an ultra-compact AWG multiplexer size of
6.7 mm × 3.5 mm. Fig. 11 shows the transmission spectra of
the fabricated AWG multiplexer. We obtained an insertion loss Fig. 14. Optical output power (P f ) of a TOSA as a function of injection
of less than 1.9 dB including a 1% tap for monitor ports and a current (If ) at an operating temperature (T o p ) of 55 °C.
0.5 dB-down transmission bandwidth of over 410 GHz for all
channels.
of the EADFB laser chip was positioned 5 μm away from the
edge of the carrier to avoid a direct contact between the edge
III. TOSA FABRICATION of the EADFB laser chip and the end of the input waveguide of
The TOSA fabrication process is described below. First, we the AWG multiplexer. Next, we precisely aligned the EADFB
prepared four SSC integrated EADFB laser chips that had dif- laser chip on the carrier with the input waveguide of the AWG
ferent output wavelengths with a channel spacing of around multiplexer while actively monitoring the optical output power.
800 GHz. Then, each EADFB laser chip was bonded to an alu- Next, we fixed the carrier and the AWG multiplexer at their
minum nitride based carrier using Au-Sn solder. The front edge end-faces with a UV-curable adhesive. We repeated the carrier

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OHYAMA et al.: COMPACT HYBRID INTEGRATED 100-Gb/s TRANSMITTER OPTICAL SUB-ASSEMBLY USING OPTICAL BUTT-COUPLING
Fig. 15. Lasing wavelength spectra of a TOSA at an operating temperature
(T o p ) of 55 °C.
Fig. 16. Small-signal frequency response of a TOSA at an operating temper-
ature (T o p ) of 55 °C.
Fig. 17. Eye diagrams for the BtoB transmission of a fabricated TOSA ob-
tained at 25.78125 Gb/s when all lanes were driven simultaneously at an EA
modulator driving voltage (V p p ) of (a) 2.0 V and (b) 1.5 V.
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1043
attachment process four times. The photograph in Fig. 12 shows
a fabricated PLC sub-block in which four carriers with the SSC
integrated EADFB laser chip are attached to the ends of the
input waveguides of the AWG multiplexer at a pitch of 1 mm.
No increase was observed in optical coupling loss for any of
the lanes before and after the carrier attachment process. A col-
limator lens for the receptacle side optic was directly attached
to the edge of the output waveguide of the AWG multiplexer.
The receptacle side optic had the same optical design as our
multi-lane ROSA for 100 GbE [14]. A four-channel monitor
PD array chip on the carrier was also attached to the end of the
output waveguides for monitor ports. The PLC sub-block was
mounted on a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) using Silver paste.
Another carrier with four 50 Ω termination circuits was also
mounted on the PLC sub-block, and then the electrical connec-
tions between the EA modulator and termination circuit were
connected with bonding wires. After the PLC sub-block was
hermetically sealed in a package, the focusing lens and the LC
receptacle with an isolator were fixed to the TOSA package by
using a conventional YAG laser welding technique after active
alignment. Finally, two flexible printed circuits were attached
to the TOSA package. Fig. 13 shows the fabricated TOSA. The
package size was 19.9 mm (L) × 6.0 mm (W) × 5.8 mm (H),
which is sufficiently small to be installed in a CFP4 transceiver.
As a result, the total optical loss of the fabricated TOSA,
which consisted of an optical butt-coupling loss of around 3.0 dB
as detailed in Section II-D, an AWG insertion loss of 1.9 dB as
detailed in Section II-E, and a receptacle side optic loss of 0.5 dB
that included an isolator and a receptacle alignment error caused
by YAG welding process, was 5.4 dB, thus achieving the target
level of less than 6 dB.
IV. TOSA CHARACTERISTICS
The fabricated TOSA was evaluated at a Top of 55 °C
controlled by a built-in TEC. Fig. 14 shows the Pf from each
lane of the TOSA as a function of the If into each DFB laser.
The bias voltage for Vb was in an open circuit condition. The
threshold currents were around 14 mA. No kinks were observed
in the curves for any of the lanes. The Pf of all the lanes
exceeded 5.0 mW at an If of 100 mA. The reason why the
nonlinear shape was observed in the Pf curves for the Lane-0
and −1 is that the emitting wavelength from the EADFB laser
for the Lane-0 and −1 was close to the shortwave-side filter
slope of the AWG multiplexer. It can be resolved by carefully
selecting an EADFB laser with an emitting wavelength within
a flat passband of an AWG multiplexer. Fig. 15 shows the
lasing spectra output from the TOSA at an If of 70 mA for
all the DFB lasers. Single-mode lasing spectra with SMSRs of
over 45 dB were observed for all the lanes. These static results
indicate that the multi-lane optical butt-coupling configuration
does not degrade the lasing stability of the DFB lasers through
the AWG multiplexer. Fig. 16 shows the small-signal frequency
response of the TOSA at an If of 90 mA for all the DFB lasers,
a Vb of −1.8 V for all the EA modulators, and a Top of 55 °C.
The TOSA could not obtain a sufficiently wide 3-dB down
1044
Fig. 18. BER characteristics for BtoB, and after 10, and 40-km transmissions
when all the lanes were driven simultaneously at an EA modulator driving
voltage (V p p ) of 2.0 V.
bandwidth. We assume that an often-used bonding wire for
high frequency electrical connection degrades the bandwidth.
We measured the TOSA dynamic characteristics using elec-
trical signals with a bit rate of 25.78125 Gb/s, a NRZ format,
and a PRBS of 231 –1. Fig. 17 shows the eye diagrams through
a fourth-order Bessel filter for a back-to-back (BtoB) transmis-
sion when all the lanes were driven simultaneously. Fig. 17(a)
and (b) show eye diagrams obtained with a Vpp of 2.0 and 1.5 V,
respectively. The If was set at 70 mA for all the lanes. Each Vb
value was adjusted to obtain an optical cross point of 50% for
each lane. Each eye diagram was extracted from the wavelength
multiplexed signals by using a tunable wavelength filter. Clear
eye openings were obtained with the DER of over 8.1 dB and
a Pavg of over −2.3 dBm. The variation in the obtained Pavg
values among lanes was caused by the inherent output power of
each EADFB laser chip. We consider that the variation can be
suppressed by chip sorting before the EADFB laser on the car-
rier attached to the AWG multiplexer. However, there is some
jitter in the waveform compared with that obtained with the sin-
gle lane driving shown in Fig. 9. We assume that some jitter is
caused by electrical crosstalk between lanes within the TOSA
package.
We evaluated the bit-error-rate (BER) characteristics for
BtoB, 10 and 40 km transmissions over SMF when all the lanes
were driven simultaneously using the eye diagram condition
shown in Fig. 17. Figs. 18 and 19 show the BER characteristics
with Vpp values of 2.0 and 1.5 V, respectively. The wavelength
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Fig. 19. BER characteristics for BtoB, and after 10, and 40-km transmissions
when all the lanes were driven simultaneously at an EA modulator driving
voltage (V p p ) of 1.5 V.
multiplexed optical signals of four lanes after transmission were
selected with a tunable wavelength filter, and then received by
a ROSA with a p-i-n photodiode. After the 40 km transmission,
we used a praseodymium-doped fiber amplifier to amplify the
optical signal. We could obtain error-free operation in all the
lanes and under all transmission conditions. The power penalty
after a 40 km transmission was less than 0.3 dB for a Vpp of
2.0 V and less than 0.7 dB for a Vpp of 1.5 V.
V. CONCLUSION
We developed a compact hybrid-integrated 100 Gb/s TOSA
employing EADFB lasers and a silica-based AWG multiplexer.
To simplify the optic fabrication process for the multi-lane
TOSA, we introduced an optical butt-coupling connection be-
tween the EADFB laser and the AWG multiplexer. Moreover,
we integrated a laterally tapered SSC into an EADFB laser to
improve the butt-coupling efficiency with the PLC waveguide.
By optimizing the laterally tapered SSC structure, we achieved
an optical butt-coupling loss of 3.0 dB, which was an improve-
ment of more than 2 dB compared with the conventional EADFB
laser without an SSC. We designed an AWG multiplexer with
an MZI-synchronized configuration to obtain a wide passband
width with a low insertion loss. The use of a PLC with a high
Δ of 2% enabled us to realize an ultra-compact AWG size of
6.7 mm × 3.5 mm with a low insertion loss of 1.9 dB and a
wide 0.5 dB-down passband of over 410 GHz. We confirmed
OHYAMA et al.: COMPACT HYBRID INTEGRATED 100-Gb/s TRANSMITTER OPTICAL SUB-ASSEMBLY USING OPTICAL BUTT-COUPLING
that the 19.9 mm × 6.0 mm × 5.8 mm TOSA realized a 4-lane
× 25.78125 Gb/s (total bit-rate of over 100 Gb/s) error-free
transmission over a 40 km SMF with an EA modulator driving
Vpp of 1.5 V at a Top of 55 °C.
This hybrid integration technique using an optical butt-
coupling configuration is an effective way to fabricate a compact
and cost-effective multi-lane TOSA for a long 100 Gb/s-class
transmission of over 40 km.
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Takaharu Ohyama received the B.E. degree from the Kyushu Institute of
Technology, Kitakyushu, Japan, in 1992, and the M.E. degree from Kyushu
University, Fukuoka, Japan, in 1994. Since joining NTT Opto-electronics (Pho-
tonics) Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Japan, he has been engaged in research
on optical integration module. He is currently with the NTT Device Innovation
Center, Kanagawa, Japan. He is a Member of the Institute of Electronics, Infor-
mation and Communication Engineers of Japan.
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1045
Yoshiyuki Doi (M’11) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics, and the
Ph.D. degree in material science from Shinshu University, Nagano, Japan, in
1995, 1997, and 2007, respectively. He joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Corporation (NTT), Atsugi Opto-Electronics Laboratories, in 1997. From 1997
to 2002, he was engaged in research on microwave photonics using a high-
speed photonic millimeter-wave light source, a phase-shift-keying modulator,
and a high-power emitting base station. Since 2002, he has been involved in
the research and development of photonic devices and subsystems using hy-
brid integration on silica-based planar lightwave circuits, such as high-speed
receivers, large-scale optical switches, and high-functional optical modulators.
He is currently a Senior Research Engineer at NTT Device Innovation Center,
Kanagawa, Japan. He is a Member of the IEEE Photonics Society, IEEE Mi-
crowave Theory and Techniques Society, and Information and Communication
Engineers (IEICE) of Japan. He received the IEICE 2004 Young Researcher’s
Award and the 2005 Best Paper Award.
Wataru Kobayashi received B.S. and M.E. degrees in applied physics and the
Dr.Eng. degree in nanoscience and nanoengineering from Waseda University,
Tokyo, Japan, in 2003, 2005, and 2011, respectively. In 2005, he joined NTT
Photonics Laboratories, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan. He has been engaged in the
research and development of optical semiconductor devices. He is a Member
of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers of
Japan.
Shigeru Kanazawa received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Tokyo Institute
of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 2005 and 2007, respectively. In April 2007, he
joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Photonics Laboratories, Atsugi,
Kanagawa, Japan. He has been engaged in the research and development of
optical semiconductor devices and integrated devices for optical communica-
tions systems. He is currently with the NTT Device Innovation Center. He is a
Member of the Japan Society of Applied Physics and the Institute of Electronics,
Information and Communication Engineers of Japan.
Kiyoto Takahata received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in physical engineering
from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1988 and 1990, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 2010. In
1990, he joined NTT Opto-electronics Laboratories, Kanagawa, Japan, where
he was initially engaged in research on a wavelength conversion device based
on a semiconductor laser. Since 1993, he has been engaged in research on
high-speed monolithically integrated photoreceivers, ultrafast optical packet
processing based on optoelectronic circuits, and semiconductor lasers. He is
currently with the NTT Device Innovation Center. He is a Member of Japan
Society of Applied Physics and the Institute of Electronics, Information, and
Communication Engineers of Japan.
Atsushi Kanda (M’95) received the B.E. degree in applied physics from Waseda
University, Tokyo, Japan, and the M.E. degree in information processing from
the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1988 and 1990, respectively.
In 1990, he joined the NTT Radio Communication Systems Laboratories, where
he was engaged in design and evaluation of microwave and millimeter-wave
integrated circuits for wireless communications. He is currently with the NTT
Device Innovation Center, where he is engaged in the development of optical
and electrical modules for optical networks.
Takeshi Kurosaki received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronics engineering
from Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, in 1987 and 1989, respectively.
In 1989, he joined the Opto-electronics Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation (NTT), Atsugi, Japan. Since then, he has been engaged in
research on high-performance distributed-feedback lasers and low-cost optical
modules for optical communication systems. He is currently a Senior Research
Engineer with NTT Device Innovation Center. He is a Member of the Japan
Society of Applied Physics and the Institute of Electronics, Information and
Communication Engineers of Japan.
1046
Takuya Tanaka received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in applied physics
from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1993, 1995, and 2006, respec-
tively. In 1995, he joined the NTT Opto-electronics Laboratories, Ibaraki, Japan,
where he has been engaged in research on optical waveguide devices for com-
munication. He is currently with NTT Device Technology Laboratories. He is a
Member of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engi-
neers of Japan and the Japan Society of Applied Physics.
Tetsuichiro Ohno (M’98) received the B. E. degree in 1989, and the M. E. degree
in 1991, both from Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, and the Ph.D. degree in 1999
from Shizuoka University, Shizuoka, Japan. In 1991, he joined NTT Opto-
electronics Laboratories, and has been engaged in research on opto-electronics
devices. He is currently a Senior Research Engineer with the NTT Device
Innovation Center, Kanagawa, Japan. He is a Member of the IEEE Photonics
Society.
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JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 34, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 2016
Hiroaki Sanjoh received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in applied physics from
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, in 1990 and 1992, respectively. Since join-
ing NTT Opto-electronics (Photonics) Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Kana-
gawa, Japan, he has been engaged in the developmental research on optical
semiconductor devices. He is currently with the NTT Device Innovation Center,
Kanagawa, Japan. He is a Member of the Institute of Electronics, Information
and Communication Engineers of Japan.
Toshikazu Hashimoto received the B.E. and M.S. degrees in physics from
Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, in 1991 and 1993, respectively. In 1993,
he joined NTT Opto-electronics (Photonics) Laboratories, Ibaraki, Japan, where
he was involved in research on guided-wave optical devices. In 2014, he joined
the NTT Device Technology Laboratories, Atsugi, Japan. He is a Member of the
Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers of Japan,
and the Physical Society of Japan.