Abstract
Semiconductor broadband light sources are greatly in demand for highly-sensitive sensing, spectroscopy, optical telecommunications, eye-safe low-speckle sources for flash lidar and high resolution bio-imaging particularly optical coherence tomography (OCT). In this paper, we report on the observation of broadband lasing action from the InAs/InAlGaAs quantum dash (Qdash) structure. This novel device exhibits lasing action with emission wavelength coverage over 60nm at the center wavelength around similar to 1.60 pm. By applying the quantum-dash intermixing (QDI) technique to the same material structure, we have successfully tuned the center lasing wavelength of the Qdash broadband laser to 1.54 mu m and broadened its emission coverage over 80 nm, making it an attractive source for many novel applications in optical communications. The intrinsic response of Qdash lasers under optical modulation has been studied.