This letter reports a miniaturized injection-locked laser (ILL) using the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology. The device is formed by the integration of a MEMS grated-tuned laser and a Fabry–Perot multimode laser within dimensions of 3mm×2mm×0.6mm. A movable prism serves for both active alignment and optical isolation. Single injection and multiple injections to the slave laser are both tested, it has achieved a side mode suppression ratio of 55dB, a range of fully locked state of 0.16nm and a rate of all optical switching at 100MHz. Some observed phenomena such as the wave mixing and detuning hysteresis are explained qualitatively. The miniaturization may help pave the way for the ILLs to the emerging applications such as all optical networks, coherent communications and portable atomic clocks.
This paper presents the design and experimental study of a coupled-cavity laser based on the micromachining technology for wide tuning range and improved spectral purity. The core part of this design utilizes a deep-etched movable parabolic mirror to couple two identical Fabry-Pérot chips and thus allows the active adjustment of the cavity gap so as to optimize the mode selection and to increase the tuning range as well. In experiment, the laser achieves the single longitudinal mode output over 51.3 nm and an average side-mode-suppression ratio of 22 dB when the tuning current varies from 5.7-10.8 mA. The measured wavelength tuning speed is 1.2 micros and the single mode output is stable at any wavelength when the tuning current is varied within +/- 0.06 mA. Compared with the conventional fixed cavity gap coupled-cavity lasers, such design overcomes the phase mismatching and mode instability problems while maintaining the merit of high-speed wavelength tuning using electrical current.
A diode-pumped alkali laser (DPAL) is one of the most hopeful candidates to achieve high power performances. As the laser medium is in a gas-state, populations of energy-levels of a DPAL are strongly dependent on the vapor temperature. Thus, the temperature distribution directly determines the output characteristics of a DPAL. In this report, we developed a systematic model by combining the procedures of heat transfer and laser kinetics together to explore the radial temperature distribution in the transverse section of a cesium vapor cell. A cyclic iterative approach is adopted to calculate the population densities. The corresponding temperature distributions have been obtained for different beam waists and pump powers. The conclusion is thought to be useful for realizing a DPAL with high output power.
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