Abstract

A laser diode (LD) with a spot-size converter provides easy and high efficiency coupling to the optical fiber and waveguide without using coupling lenses. These kinds of LDs have been investigated in several studies,^1–4 and this paper describes the coupling efficiency and alignment tolerance of a 1.3-p.m LD integrated with spot-size converter (SS-LD) and joined to a silica planar lightwave circuit (PLC). When the coupling efficiency increases, the optical feedback increases and the LD characteristics degrade. This paper therefore also evaluates the bit error rate (BER) performance when the amount of the optical feedback is changed.

© 1995 IEEE