Light source with optical frequency mixing
AssigneeFacebook Technologies, LLC
InventorsGareth Valentine, Maik Andre Scheller, James Ronald Bonar
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A light source based on an optical frequency mixer is disclosed. The light source has a first laser for emitting light at a first optical frequency, and a plurality of second lasers for emitting light at different second optical frequencies. The optical frequency mixer provides output light beams at mixed optical frequencies of the first and second lasers. Wavelength of output light beams may be tuned by tuning wavelength of any of the first or second lasers. In this manner, RGB wavelength-tunable light sources may be constructed based on red or near-infrared lasers. The wavelength tunability of the output light beams may be used to angularly scan or refocus the light beams.
Claims20
A light source comprising:
- a first laser for emitting light at a first optical frequency;
- a plurality of second lasers for emitting light at different second optical frequencies;
- and
- an optical frequency mixer coupled to the first laser and to the plurality of second lasers for nonlinear optical mixing of optical frequencies of the light emitted by the first laser and the light emitted by each one of the plurality of second lasers, to provide a plurality of output light beams at mixed optical frequencies.
A tunable RGB light source comprising:
- red, green, and blue light sources, each comprising a tunable laser and a nonlinear optical element coupled thereto;
- and
- a controller operably coupled to the tunable lasers of the red, green, and blue light sources, for synchronous tuning of optical frequency of the tunable lasers.
A projector comprising:
- a light source comprising:
- a tunable laser for emitting light at a tunable optical frequency;
- and
- a nonlinear optical element for receiving the light at the tunable optical frequency and converting the light to a first beam of visible light at a higher optical frequency;
- and
- an optical element configured to receive the first beam of visible light, the optical element having an optical property depending on optical frequency of the first beam.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.