Tunable lasers and their sensing applications
AssigneeSentek Instrument LLC
InventorsDyson BUITENKAMP, Logan THEIS
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The process of heating up a cavity with a diode laser or light beam source with a booster current pulse followed by application of a drive to the diode to produce a continuous wave (CW) over time while the cavity cools (spontaneously or otherwise), or by the application of pulses of current to produce pulsed waves of different wavelengths allows for fast tuning of wavelength laser or light emissions. These processes may be used with sensing fibers to sense a variety of different parameters including but not limited to temperature, strain, gas concentration, etc.
Claims17
A method for tuning a laser or light source, comprising:
- initially heating a cavity of a diode laser or light source by providing a booster current pulse to the cavity;
- and then
- during temperature decay after the booster current pulse,
- i) driving the diode laser or light source with successive current pulses to produce laser beams or light beams of different wavelengths based on differences in a temperature of the cavity, or
- ii) driving the diode laser or light source with a continuous current for a selected time period to produce laser beams or light beams of different wavelengths based on differences in a temperature of the cavity over the time period.
A method for providing a tuned pulsed laser or light beam, comprising:
- producing a continuous wave laser or light beam using a driving current;
- and
- chopping the continuous wave laser or light beam into temporal pulses using an optical modulator that is positioned to receive the continuous wave laser or light beam, wherein the temporal pulses have different wavelengths.
A device for providing a tuned pulsed laser beam, comprising:
- a continuous wave laser beam source;
- a source of laser driving current connected to the continuous wave laser beam source;
- and
- an optical modulator positioned to chop a continuous wave laser produced by the continuous wave laser beam source into temporal pulses having different wavelengths.
A sensor, comprising
- a source of a tuned pulsed laser or light beam;
- a sensing fiber positioned to receive a pulsed laser or light beam from said source of the tuned pulsed laser or light beam;
- and
- a detector for detecting the pulsed laser or light beam after passing through at least a portion of the sensing fiber,
- wherein the source of the tuned pulsed laser or light beam comprises
- i) a cavity
- a diode laser or light source positioned in the cavity,
- wherein the cavity is heatable by applying a booster current pulse to the cavity, followed by a temperature decay, and
- wherein the diode laser or light source is drivable by with successive current pulses to produce laser beams or light beams of different wavelengths based on differences in a temperature of the cavity, or wherein the diode laser or light source is drivable with a continuous current for a selected time period to produce laser beams or light beams of different wavelengths based on differences in a temperature of the cavity over the time period, or
- ii) a continuous wave laser beam source,
- a source of laser driving current connected to the continuous wave laser beam source, and
- an optical modulator positioned to chop a continuous wave laser produced by the continuous wave laser beam source into temporal pulses having different wavelengths.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.