Investigation of External Optical Feedback Resistance of IC-DFB and GC-DFB Lasers Using a Very Simple Experimental Set-up

We study the external optical feedback resistance of both index-coupled (IC) and gain-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) lasers using a very simple experimental set-up. Though IC-DFB lasers with large coupling coefficients are found to be less sensitive to external reflection, they suffer from mode instability at high injection level. On the other hand, the introduction of gain-coupling mechanism can significantly improve both the immunity to external optical feedback and the single mode yield of the device.