Tunable laser assembly and method of control
AssigneeThorlabs Quantum Electronics, Inc.
InventorsPeter J. S. Heim, John Hryniewicz, Jacob Mertz, Jianfei Wang
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Abstract
A tunable laser assembly housed in a single enclosure and a method of control is described wherein the tunable laser, pump and semiconductor optical amplifier do not share a common optical axis but are all aligned to optical waveguides on an intervening planar lightwave circuit (PLC). Wavelength monitoring circuitry is included on the PLC to enable monitoring and control of the tunable laser center wavelength and optical bandwidth. The design of the PLC does not introduce perturbations into the swept-source laser output spectrum that would cause artifacts in imaging applications such as optical coherence tomography (OCT).
Claims18
A method for closed-loop controlling an absolute wavelength and an optical bandwidth of a swept-source tunable laser, wherein a closed-loop control uses timing information from a signal generated by a reference wavelength filter and an optical element that generates signal pulses corresponding to nearly equally spaced wavenumbers,
- wherein said reference wavelength filter and said optical element that generates signal pulses corresponding to nearly equally spaced wavenumber comprises a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) with multiple reflection peaks,
- wherein said FBG with multiple reflection peaks has one main reflection peak that is higher in amplitude than all the other reflection side peaks and serves as said wavelength reference filter, all other reflection side peaks generate said signal pulses corresponding to nearly equally spaced wavenumber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.