The present invention is a tunable semiconductor laser for swept source
optical coherence tomography, comprising a semiconductor substrate; a
waveguide on top of said substrate with multiple sections of different
band gap engineered multiple quantum wells (MQWs); a multiple of
distributed feedback (DFB) gratings corresponding to each said band gap
engineered MWQs, each DFB having a different Bragg grating period; and
anti-reflection (AR) coating deposited on at least the laser emission
facet of the laser to suppress the resonance of Fabry-Perot cavity modes.
Each DFB MQWs section can be activated and tuned to lase across a
fraction of the overall bandwidth as is achievable for a single DFB laser
and all sections can be sequentially activated and tuned so as to
collectively cover a broad bandwidth, or simultaneously activated and
tuned to enable a tunable multi-wavelength laser. The laser hence can
emit either a single lasing wavelength or a multiple of lasing
wavelengths and is very suitable for swept-source OCT applications.