Electronically tunable external-cavity laser diode using a liquid crystal deflector

A novel external-cavity wavelength tunable laser based on a liquid crystal (LC) deflector is proposed. This device consists of a gain chip, collimating lens, LC deflector, and diffraction grating. By controlling the voltage applied to the LC deflector, a maximum wavelength variation of 12 nm and a sidemode suppression ratio higher than 30 dB are obtained.     

Electronically tunable external-cavity semiconductor laser

The authors have demonstrated electronic tunability of 35 nm in an external cavity GaAs semiconductor laser by using an acousto-optic (AO) tunable filter and an AO modulator inside the cavity. Tuning is accomplished by varying only the drive frequency of the AO devices     

MEMS型可调外腔激光器的研究

文章提出了一种以MEMS TOF(微电子机械系统可调光滤波器)和标准具作为波长选择元件,LC(液晶)作为相位补偿元件,平面反射镜提供光反馈的可调外腔半导体激光器结构。实际研制了该结构的激光器样品,实验测得该激光器的输出功率>10dBm,边模抑制比>50dB,可调谐范围达到7nm,线宽约为200kHz。     

外腔调谐激光泵浦的差频中红外宽调谐激光光谱系统

室温工作的连续可调谐相干光源在痕量气体检测技术中有着重要的应用价值,非线性差频方法是获得室温工作的中红外相干光源的有效途径,是对传统激光光源的重要补充.报道了一种基于差频方法的室温工作宽调谐中红外激光光谱系统,使用两台近红外半导体激光器作为种子光源,采用PPLN晶体作为非线性混频器件,结合准相位匹配技术实现了3.2～3.7μm中红外相干光源输出,最大差频输出功率约为1μW,对CH4基频吸收谱线的光谱检测表明,系统能够满足在中红外光谱区对气体成分进行高分辨、高灵敏、快速吸收检测的需要.     

Micromirror device controlled tunable diode laser diode laser

An electronically controlled external cavity laser diode for fast wavelength tuning and multiple-colour lasing is presented. The spectral-tuning is accomplished by a digital micromirror device. Tuning of 47.4 nm with a tuning speed of 0.85 nm/ms was achieved. Simultaneous emission of up to 9 laser lines is demonstrated     

Chaotic self-pulsation and cross-modulation in awavelength-selective external-cavity laser diode

Chaotic self-pulsation in a single wavelength external-cavity laser diode is observed. It is shown that the self-pulsation is caused by interdependencies between the optical output power and the compound cavity losses through the refractive index of the laser diode material. Refractive index changes result in a detuning between the externally selected wavelength and the weak internal-mode structure of the anti-reflection coated laser diode. This detuning is directly related to the compound cavity losses. On the one hand, a change in optical output power results in a change of the refractive index via the carrier density. On the other hand, it results in a change of refractive index via temperature changes. Compared to the carrier induced refractive index change, the temperature induced refractive index change is opposite in sign, a factor of ~10² smaller and slower. The switch-on and switch-off time of the self-pulsation is governed by the carrier life time. The repetition rate of the self-pulsation is governed by the thermal time constant and is in the megahertz region. Cross-modulation resulting from the thermal induced refractive index change is demonstrated. In a two-wavelength double external-cavity laser diode, optical power at one wavelength effects the optical power at the other wavelength. This cross-modulation is shown to be related to previous experiments on a laser neural network. A novel technique is introduced to measure the thermal impedance of a laser diode that is based on the cross-modulation     

16-channel digitally tunable external-cavity laser with nanosecond switching time

We present a 16-channel 100-GHz-spacing digitally tunable packet-switching transmitter based on a novel external-cavity laser design. The transmitter can switch within 0.8 ns between its channels at 0-dBm output power and <0.7-dB penalty when switched from just above threshold and within 20 ns and 0.5-dB penalty when switched from below threshold. All 16 channels are within 2.1 GHz of the ITU grid.     

Widely tunable coupled-ring reflector laser diode

A coupled-ring reflector (CRR), which is composed of two coupled rings both of which are coupled with a straight waveguide, is applied to a widely tunable laser diode. When the radii of two rings are slightly different, the peak reflection wavelength of the CRR can be widely tuned over a few tens nanometers by a small amount of refractive index change. It is shown that a few tens nanometers of tuning with a sidemode suppression ratio exceeding 45 dB both for adjacent cavity mode and for adjacent ring mode is achievable in the widely tunable CRR laser diode.     

FMCW-LIDAR with tunable twin-guide laser diode

The realisation of a coherent frequency modulated continuous wave LIDAR used for the accurate measurement of short distances employing a tunable twin-guide laser diode is demonstrated for the first time. A relative accuracy of distance measurement of 4×10^-3 has been achieved at a distance of some centimetres     

外腔可调谐半导体激光器动态特性的解析研究

利用微扰法对速率方程进行线性处理,得到了外腔半导体激光器调谐过程中某些重要参量的解析表达式,这些表达式有助于我们了解外腔可调谐半导体激光器的动态过程。     

1 W CW, diffraction-limited, tunable external-cavity semiconductor laser

An external-cavity diode laser is demonstrated to emit greater than 1.0 W CW in a diffraction-limited radiation pattern. The laser wavelength is tunable over a 35 nm span centred at 852 nm.<>     

Two-mode chaos synchronization using a multimode external-cavity laser diode and two single-mode laser diodes

Strong optical injection and optical frequency matching have been used to effect an experimental demonstration of two-mode synchronization using a multimode external-cavity chaotic transmitter laser and two single-mode stand-alone receiver lasers. It is shown by means of synchronization diagrams and measured cross-correlation functions that the longitudinal modes of the receiver lasers have been successfully synchronized to frequency matched modes of the transmitter laser operating in the low frequency fluctuation regime.     

Large-area varactor diode for electrically tunable, high-power UHF bandpass filter

An electronically tunable, high-power, UHF (225-400-MHz) bandpass filter which utilizes large-area, high-capacitance varactor diodes has been designed and tested. The varactor diodes with 100-V breakdown potential, uniform impurity density in the active layer and 400-pF capacitance at -8-V bias are used as the tuning elements of the filter. The diodes are fabricated from epitaxial layers grown on high-conductivity silicon substrates. The epitaxial layers include an n⁺transition layer between the substrate and n-type active layer to minimize the growth defects in the n layer which reduce the breakdown potential to a fraction of the theoretical value. Measurements in a test cavity at 151 MHz indicate a diode Q of 190 at -8-V bias. Input power levels of 1-5 W can be accommodated across the tuning range. Insertion loss varies from 4 to 7 dB and intermodulation products are suppressed 30 dB or more for two input tones of 1 W each. This filter exhibits an order-of-magnitude improvement in power-handling capability over present state-of-the-art filters.     

Two-channel tunable laser diode based on photonic crystals

We report the development of a tunable laser diode array monolithically integrated with a Y-coupler structure based on photonic crystals. The laser diodes consist of two longitudinally coupled photonic crystal waveguide segments that are separated by a photonic crystal mirror section. Quasicontinuous tuning is achieved in a 30.6-nm window with 100-GHz channel spacing as typically required by wavelength-division-multiplexing applications. The sources can be operated independently allowing the simultaneous transmission of two freely selectable wavelengths.     

Broad-band tunable two-section laser diode with external gratingfeedback

A tunable laser light source consisting of a two-section laser diode and an external grating is discussed. A wide tunable range of 154 nm was realized by improving the antireflection (AR) coating and the coupling efficiency. At both edges of the tunable range, however, the tuning characteristics were strongly influenced by the internal mode, in spite of the high-quality AR coating. The effects of the internal mode were avoided by using a phase-control section of the laser. Consequently, single-mode oscillation can be obtained at any desirable wavelength within the above tunable range by controlling the current injected into the phase-control section     

A tunable cavity-locked diode laser source for terahertzphotomixing

An all solid-state approach to the precise frequency synthesis and control of widely tunable terahertz radiation by differencing continuous-wave diode lasers at 850 nm is reported in this paper. The difference frequency is synthesized by three fiber-coupled external-cavity laser diodes. Two of the lasers are Pound-Drever-Hall locked to different orders of a Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity, and the third is offset-frequency locked to the second of the cavity-locked lasers using a tunable microwave oscillator. The first cavity-locked laser and the offset-locked laser produce the difference frequency, whose value is accurately determined by the sum of an integer multiple of the free spectral range of the FP cavity and the offset frequency. The dual-frequency 850-nm output of the three laser system is amplified to 500 mW through two-frequency injection seeding of a single semiconductor tapered optical amplifier. As proof of precision frequency synthesis and control of tunability, the difference frequency is converted into a terahertz wave by optical-heterodyne photomixing in low-temperature-grown GaAs and used for the spectroscopy of simple molecules. The 3-dB spectral power bandwidth of the terahertz radiation is routinely observed to be ≲1 MHz. A simple, but highly accurate, method of obtaining an absolute frequency calibration is proposed and an absolute calibration of 10^-7 demonstrated using the known frequencies of carbon monoxide lines between 0.23-1.27 THz     

Axial-mode instability in tunable external-cavity semiconductorlasers

The axial-mode instability of a tunable external-cavity semiconductor laser was studied experimentally and theoretically. Optical and radio-frequency (rf) spectra and time-domain traces show the laser output in progressive stages of instability. The optical sidemode ratio was used to experimentally characterize the wavelength and current dependencies of the instability. Measurements show a strong tendency for the sidemode ratio to degrade when the laser was tuned within wavelength bands occurring at the periodicity of the laser diode mode spacing. The probability of instability also increased with injection current. Analysis of the single-mode strong feedback rate equations shows that stability of an external-cavity mode is determined by the sign of the chirp reduction factor. A model for the physical origin of instability is provided. Calculations show that for facet reflectivities above a threshold value dependent on the external feedback level and the linewidth broadening factor, unstable and stable axial modes coexist in wavelength regions whose locations agree with regions where sidemode ratio degradation is observed. The stability boundary at which unstable axial modes appear is shown as a surface in the parameter space of facet reflectivity, feedback level, and linewidth broadening factor     

Bit-error performance of a newly designed external-cavity diode laser for uncooled WDM applications

The impact of fiber chromatic dispersion and an isolated mode hop on the bit-error performance of an external-cavity diode laser newly designed for uncooled wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) applications was investigated. Bit-error-rate measurements confirmed that the power penalty resulting from optical waveform distortion after a transmission through 80 km of standard single-mode fiber (SMF) was suppressed to about 1 dB. Moreover, it was confirmed that the deterioration in the bit-error performance caused by an isolated mode hop can be disregarded.     

Highly coherent electronically tunable waveguide extended cavity diode laser

A frequency agile extended cavity diode laser using an integrated Bragg reflector in a Ti : Fe : LiNbO/sub 3/ waveguide is developed and characterized. The laser emits up to 7 mW in the 1.5-/spl mu/m telecommunication window. The emission spectrum exhibits a 18-kHz linewidth, >40-dB sidemode suppression ratio, and a wavelength stability of /spl plusmn/1 pm over hours. Very fast mode hop-free frequency tuning is achieved through the electrooptic effect, with a tuning slope of 55.5 MHz/V.     

Optical exclusive-OR operation using tunable wavelength conversion laser diode

Lasing was suppressed by light injection into a bistable laser diode due to gain quenching of the lasing mode. Based on this phenomenon and optically triggered lasing due to saturable absorption, an optical exclusive-OR function is demonstrated using a tunable wavelength conversion laser diode.<>