Miniaturized injection-locked laser using microelectromechanical systems technology

Abstract

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.

Photonic MEMS: From Laser Physics to Cell Biology

“…Another photonic device was also first presented by the integration of several MEMS components into a functional subsystem [10]. It is a miniaturized injection-locked laser (ILL) that consists of a MEMS grated-tuned laser and a Fabry-Pérot multimode laser within dimensions of 3 mm × 2 mm × 0.6 mm as shown in Fig.…”

“…The 14th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, Lyon, France, June [10][11][12][13][14]2007 presence/absence can be used to determine the cell's RI and size. Experiment on kidney cancer cells measures an effective RI of 1.399 at 0.1% accuracy.…”

“…Hence, inspired by the inherent advantages of such technology, we have been working particularly in the area of photonic MEMS devices and biophotonic chips, and have developed a series of new generation devices, such as thermooptic switches and different types of tunable lasers, which make use of the micromachined prisms/mirrors/gratings for switching and wavelength tuning [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The same principle is also extended to the polymer material microfluidic chips for the detection of living cells [14][15][16].…”

“…1Micromachined thermo-optic switch that employs the total internal reflection of a silicon prism . (a) SEM of the integrated device International Conference on Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems, Lyon, France, June[10][11][12][13][14] 2007 …”

Characteristics of micromachined injection locking lasers

“…However, the conventional injection-locked lasers (ILLs) are bulky and require complicated driving and adjusting mechanism. A simple way of forming the injection-locked laser might be through the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology [7][8]. Previous studies have shown the physical properties of the injection locking, including optical spectrum change, locking depth and drifting of peak wavelength in the steady state.…”