Noise performance of mode-locked 40 GHz pulse source modules

The implementation of high capacity optical communication networks, based on WDM and high speed (O)TDM technologies, needs high performance and low cost high speed transmitters in the future. Monolithically integrated mode-locked semiconductor lasers are promising solutions due to their compactness, ease to handle, robustness, and cost aspects. Different monolithic laser architectures and their performance characteristics have been published in the literature to date. In this paper, the amplitude noise and jitter noise of fiber pigtailed 40 GHz pulse laser modules, which contain a monolithic GaInAsP/InP mode-locked semiconductor laser chip, are presented. The influence of the noise behavior on the bit error rate (BER) performance was studied and the results are discussed in comparison with the data observed on a commercial mode-locked, external cavity laser.