Multi-stripe edge-emitting laser
AssigneeMicrosoft Technology Licensing, LLC
InventorsShiva Shahin, Dale Eugene Zimmerman
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An edge-emitting laser including a substrate, a lower power optical cavity located on the substrate and a higher power optical cavity located on the substrate adjacent the lower power optical cavity. The lower power optical cavity includes a first active gain section having a first length. The higher power optical cavity includes a second active gain section having a second length greater than the first length.
Claims17
An edge-emitting laser, comprising:
- a substrate;
- a lower power optical cavity located on the substrate, the lower power optical cavity including a first active gain section having a first length;
- and
- a higher power optical cavity located on the substrate adjacent the lower power optical cavity, the higher power optical cavity including a second active gain section having a second length greater than the first length, wherein the edge-emitting laser is configured to lase coherent light into a waveguide, and wherein a length of the lower power optical cavity and a length of the higher power optical cavity are tuned to avoid fringe interference due to coherent light propagating through the waveguide.
An edge-emitting laser, comprising:
- a substrate;
- a lower power optical cavity located on the substrate, the lower power optical cavity including a first active gain section having a first length;
- a higher power optical cavity located on the substrate adjacent the lower power optical cavity, the higher power optical cavity including a second active gain section having a second length greater than the first length;
- and
- a controller configured to excite the first active gain section to lase coherent light from the lower power optical cavity based on a target optical power being less than an optical power threshold, and excite the first active gain section to lase coherent light from the lower power optical cavity and excite the second active gain section to lase coherent light from the higher power optical cavity based on the target optical power being greater than the optical power threshold.
A method for operating a multi-stripe edge-emitting laser including a lower power optical cavity located on a substrate and a higher power optical cavity located on the substrate adjacent the lower power optical cavity, the method comprising:
- exciting a first active gain section of the lower power optical cavity to lase coherent light from the lower power optical cavity based on a target optical power being less than an optical power threshold;
- and
- based on the target optical power being greater than the optical power threshold, exciting the first active gain section to lase coherent light from the lower power optical cavity and exciting a second active gain section of the higher power optical cavity to lase coherent light from the higher power optical cavity.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.