By having one laser, instead of several, that can generate light over a range of wavelengths, the network infrastructure is greatly simplified, and inventory and operational costs are dramatically reduced, thus strengthening the capability of telecommunications providers to deliver bandwidth-on-demand services at higher profit margins.

On the other hand, commercial tunable lasers require multiple components in their set-up in order to achieve the necessary wide tuning range, thereby contributing to the bulkiness of these lasers and rendering them unsuitable for system integration.

Presented at the 2013 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in the USA , the design uses simple packaging and provides ease of fabrication for mass production. This miniature on-chip system can also be readily integrated into high-density photonic circuits to achieve smaller form-factor. These distinct functionalities and highlights make the laser an attractive light source for next generation optical telecommunications, as well as in other spectroscopy applications.

Professor Liu Ai Qun, from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, NTU, said: "This new chip is very attractive to communications and biomedical device companies because of its small size and low cost. Our prototype, a 1 cm by 1 cm microchip, is the smallest tunable laser which can be easily manufactured as it is ten times smaller than most commercially available tunable laser devices. The key innovation was that our tunable laser is integrated onto a microchip using MEMs technology, made possible only through NTU's strong expertise in MEMs, backed by a decade of solid research into single-chip solutions."

"This breakthrough signifies the successful partnership enjoyed by IME and NTU, leveraging on each other's strengths which led to the successful design, fabrication, packaging and characterisation of this new chip which is expected to impact industries which require tunable laser technology such as in optical fiber communications," added Prof. Liu, who is also Programme Director at VALENS, an NTU research centre which focuses on bio-instrumentation, devices and signal processing, and has collaborations with many international industry partners.

Professor Dim-Lee Kwong, Executive Director of IME, said, "The tunable laser is a timely solution to address a key technological hurdle that is holding back the outreach of affordable, dynamic and versatile optical network services to consumers. We expect this breakthrough to augment IME's capabilities in silicon photonics to enable product developers and relevant industries to get a head start in the optical networking space."