Spot-size converter integrated polarization insensitive semiconductor optical amplifiers

Spot-size converter integrated polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier (SSC-SOA) with angled window has been designed and fabricated using both selective area growth and successive lateral tapering. A narrow beam divergence of 80/spl times/15/spl deg/, 0.2-dB amplified-spontaneous-emission ripple, and 1.5-dB polarization sensitivity within the 3-dB optical bandwidth were obtained at 29.7-dB chip gain. The fiber-to-fiber gain of the SOA module was measured to be 22 dB at 200 mA, i.e., the coupling loss was below 4 dB per each facet.