Optical fiber Raman oscillator
AssigneeBell Telephone Laboratories, Incorporated
InventorsArthur Ashkin, Ravinder Kumar Jain, Chinlon Lin, Rogers Hall Stolen
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Abstract
A tunable radiation source employing the stimulated Raman-scattering process is disclosed. The source generates several orders of Stokes radiation in an optical-fiber oscillator cavity, which Stokes radiation may be independently tuned by incorporating separate tuning elements for the several Stokes orders. Several different arrangements of fiber and tuning elements are disclosed.
Claims13
A Raman oscillator having a pump laser for generating a coherent optical pump beam and a multifrequency Raman oscillator cavity for generating Stokes radiation at at least two frequencies in response to said coherent optical pump beam, said cavity comprising:
- an optical fiber having optical waveguiding properties at the wavelengths of said optical pump beam and of said Stokes radiation,
- means for focusing radiation into said fiber and for collimating radiation emitting from said fiber, and
- means for selectively resonating simultaneously in said optical fiber radiation of at least two frequencies, whereby Stokes radiation of at least two frequencies is generated in said optical fiber and resonated in said multifrequency oscillator cavity.
A tunable Raman oscillator for generating tunable Stokes radiation comprising:
- a laser for generating a coherent optical pump beam,
- an optical fiber having optical waveguiding properties at the wavelength of said optical pump beam and at the wavelength of said Stokes radiation,
- a first mirror, located between said laser and said fiber, for transmitting said pump beam and for reflecting said Stokes radiation,
- means for focusing optical radiation into said fiber and for collimating optical radiation emerging from said fiber, at least two tuning mirrors for selecting and returning to said first mirror optical radiation of desired frequencies,
- frequency-dispersive means for altering the direction of propagation of said optical radiation, located between said fiber and said at least two tuning mirrors whereby said optical radiation of desired frequencies resonates between said first mirror and said at least two tuning mirrors, traversing said focusing means, said fiber and said dispersive means on each pass between said first mirror and said tuning mirrors.
A tunable Raman oscillator comprising:
- a pump laser for generating a pump beam,
- an optical fiber responsive to said pump beam for generating simultaneously Stokes radiation of at least two frequencies, by means of the stimulated Raman scattering process,
- means for focusing optical radiation into said fiber and for collaminating optical rediation emerging from said fiber,
- frequency-selective means for feeding back into said fiber optical radiation of at least two selected frequencies, whereby Stokes radiation of said at least two selected frequencies is resonated in said fiber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.