Micro non-planar ring oscillator with optimized output power and minimized noise in a reduced size package

A master oscillator configured as a seed laser for a laser optical module for use in a space based gravitational wave detection system for measuring picometer variations over distances of more than 1 million kilometers featuring precision interferometry with a low noise, high power laser source, the master oscillator comprising:

• a temperature controlled micro non-planar ring oscillator containing a crystal;
• a piezo-electric transducer mounted on the micro non-planar ring oscillator;
• a pump laser diode, wherein the pump laser diode has an output wavelength of approximately 885 nm;
• coupling optics configured to couple a laser output of the pump laser diode to an end face of the micro non-planar ring oscillator;
• and a temperature controller operably connected to said micro non-planar ring oscillator to control the temperature of said micro non-planar ring oscillator crystal in the range of 15-60° C. to approximately +/−0.001 K with a thermal load generated with a wavelength of 885 nm reducing said thermal load by approximately 30% compared to traditional pumping at 808 nm and increasing by 30% the optical-to-optical efficiency of said micro non-planar ring oscillator;
• whereby the micro non-planar ring oscillator exhibits a predefined free spectral range, including a mode-hop free tuning range of predetermined width of 30 GHz for a range of micro non-planar ring oscillator temperatures of 20-60° C. with a predetermined coupling between neighboring modes, and a spatial overlap between pump and signal beams within the oscillator with a resultant minimized un-pumped region and said piezo-electric actuator with predetermined mass and volume, resulting in a predefined wide frequency tuning bandwidth, enhanced in-loop noise suppression, efficient tuning, improved thermal control with a uniform temperature, and efficient heat extraction;
• where the pump laser diode with a low output power of approximately 50-400 mW, with one of a single-mode and low-order multimode with a beam quality factor of approximately M2<1.3, where the beam quality factor is a ratio of a beam parameter product of a Gaussian beam to a beam parameter product of the beam from the laser diode at an equivalent wavelength.