| As the demand for bandwidth and density continue to rise, fueled by the growth of modern computing and communication networks, short-distance interconnections become the limiting bottleneck. As photonics continue to push towards faster bit-rates, they become more attractive in replacing electronics for use in board and chip level interconnect applications.; Traditionally, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers have been the technology of choice for deployment in short-reach datacom interconnect applications. However in these interconnect systems, most of the power consumption occurs over the receiver electronics. In this work, we propose a 'receiverless' architecture, thereby eliminating most of the power consuming receiver electronics. This requires high-output power transmitters to directly drive detectors controlling the decision circuits.; A short-cavity DBR laser with an integrated electroabsorption modulator (EAM) was developed to achieve high-output powers and high-speed modulation within a small form factor. This dissertation explores the tradeoffs of short-cavity lasers and its effect on thresholds and output power. Additionally, the effects of quantum well intermixing (QWI) on EAM performance is studied.; The principal contribution of this research is the development of photonic integration technologies in the GaAs material system. Specifically, QWI, gratings fabrication, and regrowth by MBE were developed for monolithic integration of edge-emitting devices at shorter wavelengths. This was applied towards the realization of the first 40 Gb/s transmitter at 980 nm for datacom applications. |
