Optical Bistability Behavior in a Distributed Coupling Coefficient Nonuniform DFB Semiconductor Laser Amplifier

Abstract

In this paper, a distributed feedback (DFB) semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA) with nonuniform grating is studied for optical bistability behavior. The investigation is focused on distributed coupling coefficient (DCC) structures which have a corrugation with nonuniform depth along the cavity. A modified implementation of transfer-matrix method is used to take gain saturation and coupling coefficient variation along the DCC DFB structure into account. Wavelength dependence of optical bistability and the effect of gain-tuning in DCC DFB SLA's are demonstrated.