Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group
  • International Quantum Electronics Conference
  • 1996 OSA Technical Digest Series (Optica Publishing Group, 1996),
  • paper WL106

Frequency noise of light from external cavity diode lasers: the effect of grating dispersion

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

The intensity noise and frequency noise of diode lasers and external cavity diode lasers (ECDLs) need to be carefully characterised to ensure they meet required specifications in many telecommunications and spectroscopic applications. Previously, we demonstrated that a relatively long cavity (~30-50 cm), Littrow grating configuration, external cavity diode laser (ECDL), has a measured frequency noise spectrum [ 1 ] like that predicted for an ECDL with a plane high reflectance external mirror [2], Here we report on how the grating dispersion can be used to control the bandwidth of this frequency noise. Figure 1 shows the calculated frequency noise spectrum [2] for an ECDL with a high reflectance plane mirror (8, the feedback factor, is 1011). The cavity length is 50 cm and the longitudinal mode spacing is 300 MHz. Also shown on this figure are the normalised grating response functions for a 1200 lines/mm grating used in a Littrow configuration at 850 nm, where the number of lines of the grating illuminated increases from 10,000 for the flattest curve to 50,000 lines for the most dispersive response. In laser systems in general, to suppress adjacent laser modes requires a change in grating reflectance of the order of 1 to a few percent. In contrast, ECDL’s with a high reflectance (>90%) plane mirror as the external reflector operate single frequency without the need of a dispersive element [3]. The grating dispersion is necessary, however, to suppress the frequency noise peaks at multiples of the longitudinal mode spacing frequency.

© 1996 Optical Society of America

PDF Article
More Like This
Frequency Doubled External Cavity Diode Lasers for Spectroscopy Applications

M. L. Bortz, T. Day, M. M. Fejer, and W. Wang
NThE.25 Nonlinear Optics: Materials, Fundamentals and Applications (NLO) 1996

Frequency Doubled External Cavity Diode Lasers for Spectroscopy Applications

M. L. Bortz, T. Day, M. M. Fejer, and W. Wang
NThE.25A Nonlinear Optics: Materials, Fundamentals and Applications (NLO) 1996

Squeezed light from a quantum well laser with an external grating

A.S. Trifonov, P.A. Usachev, A. V. Lutetskiy, N. A. Pikhtin, and I. S. Tarasov
QMC6 European Quantum Electronics Conference (EQEC) 1996

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved