Tunable laser assembly
AssigneeThorlabs Quantum Electronics, Inc.
InventorsPeter J. S. Heim, John Hryniewicz, Jacob Mertz, Jianfei Wang
Life of this patent
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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).
Claims35
A tunable laser assembly comprising:
- a tunable semiconductor laser emitting tunable laser radiation that sweeps over a range of wavelengths at a sweep rate;
- a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA);
- at least one photodetector;
- and
- a planar lightwave circuit (PLC);
- wherein the tunable semiconductor laser, the SOA, and the at least one photodetector are aligned to optical waveguides on the PLC, and
- wherein the PLC contains a wavelength monitoring circuit (WMC) that provides signal pulses to the at least one photodetector that enable control at least one of the absolute wavelength and width of the tuning range of said tunable laser radiation by observing the timing and number of the pulses as the tunable semiconductor laser sweeps across the wavelength range.
A tunable laser assembly comprising:
- a tunable semiconductor laser emitting tunable laser radiation that sweeps over a range of wavelengths at a sweep rate;
- a pump laser;
- a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA);
- at least one photodetector;
- and
- a planar lightwave circuit (PLC);
- wherein the tunable semiconductor laser, the pump laser, the SOA, and the at least one photodetector are aligned to optical waveguides on the PLC;
- and
- wherein the PLC contains a wavelength monitoring circuit (WMC) that provides signal pulses to the at least one photodetector that enable control at least one of of the absolute wavelength and width of the tuning range of said tunable laser radiation by observing the timing and number of the pulses as the tunable semiconductor laser sweeps across the wavelength range.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.