Tunable laser with tilted-mirrors interferometer and dynamic wavelength reference

Nicolae Miron

doi:10.1117/12.808239

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19 February 2009 Tunable laser with tilted-mirrors interferometer and dynamic wavelength reference

Nicolae Miron

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Proceedings Volume 7195, Fiber Lasers VI: Technology, Systems, and Applications; 71952J (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.808239
Event: SPIE LASE: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2009, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

The paper presents a fiber optic tunable laser built with a band pass tunable optical filtering cascade made of two tiltedmirrors (Optune) interferometers as feedback element of an optical amplifier. A dynamic wavelength reference monitors the laser wavelength. The optical cascade has 200 nm tuning range, the band pass has 0.2 dB insertion loss flatness across the entire tuning range, 0.1 nm bandwidth at 3 dB, 45 dB rejection ratio and 160 dB/nm roll-off. According to the measurements, the line width of this tunable laser is below 41 MHz. The dynamic wavelength reference generates wavelength markers with 0.1 pm relative accuracy and with 1 pm absolute accuracy across 40°C temperature interval. These markers could be used to mitigate the non-linearity of the laser tuning. It was achieved 800 nm/ms tuning speed with the tuning element working below its resonant frequency. The experiments performed in open-loop operation in 1550 nm spectral region revealed 1 pm tuning accuracy and 0.1% tuning non-linearity versus the tuning voltage across 40 nm tuning interval. Laser line roll-off is steeper than 160 dB/nm. With appropriate reflective coatings, the filtering cascade can operate also in other spectral regions (visible, UV) with tuning accuracy limited by the wavelength reference and by the laser controller. A digital signal processor monitors the operation of the tunable laser to achieve optimum performance. This tunable laser source has applications in interrogators for fiber optic sensors and in optical coherence tomography.

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Nicolae Miron "Tunable laser with tilted-mirrors interferometer and dynamic wavelength reference", Proc. SPIE 7195, Fiber Lasers VI: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 71952J (19 February 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.808239

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