Pulsed diode ring laser gyroscope

A pulsed ring laser gyroscope, comprising:

• an optical ring resonator;
• a single semiconductor optical amplifier connected within said ring resonator, said optical amplifier generating and amplifying a first clockwise and a second counterclockwise optical pulses in said ring resonator, said optical pulses crossing at points in said ring resonator away from said optical amplifier;
• electrical means for driving said optical amplifier with current pulses synchronous with said first clockwise and second counterclockwise optical pulses, respectively, said current pulses having a pulse width much less than a round trip period of said optical pulses in said ring resonator;
• and
• said current pulses turning said optical amplifier on at times synchronous with said first and second optical pulses, respectively, to amplify said first clockwise optical pulse only in the clockwise direction and to amplify said second counterclockwise optical pulse only in the counterclockwise direction.

A method of modulating a pulsed ring laser gyroscope, comprising the steps of:

• providing a pair of semiconductor optical amplifiers connected in an optical ring resonator;
• separating said optical amplifiers by a distance not equal to one-half the length of said resonator;
• generating and amplifying counterpropagating optical pulses in said ring resonator, said counterpropagating optical pulses crossing at points in said ring resonator away from said amplifiers;
• driving said amplifiers simultaneously with current pulses synchronous with said optical pulses, said current pulses having a pulse width much less than a round trip period of said optical pulses in said ring resonator;
• and
• said current pulses turning said amplifiers, on simultaneously to transmit and amplify only said counterpropagating optical pulses.