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US 5,390,202 AGranted
Regenerative optical pulse generator
AssigneeUniversity of New Mexico
InventorsChi Yan, Kalidev'Apura P. J. Reddy, Ravinder K. Jain, John G. McInerney
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Abstract
Filtered regenerative feedback is used to modulate a laser or other source of electromagnetic radiation to generate optical pulses whose amplitudes and repetition rates are continuously tunable. The technique is in principle applicable to any source of electromagnetic radiation and is especially effective for semiconductor diode lasers.
Claims12
A method of producing pulsed electromagnetic radiation, the method comprising the steps of:
- a) providing a modulatable source of electromagnetic radiation driven by an external, continuous drive signal, said source having instantaneous fluctuations in intensity;
- b) coupling a portion of the output produced by the source to a detector to produce an electrical control signal whose frequency spectrum corresponds to the instantaneous fluctuations of the intensity of the source;
- c) filtering the control signal with a narrow bandpass filter, said filter having a pass-band peak frequency selected to correspond to a desired pulse repetition frequency;
- d) modulating the drive signal of the source directly or modulating the output thereof with said filtered control signal, thereby causing short duration pulses to be radiated by said source at a pulse repetition frequency corresponding to the selected pass-band peak frequency of step c;
- whereby the output of a continuously driven source of electromagnetic radiation is converted into pulsed radiation at a pulse repetition frequency corresponding to the pass-band peak frequency
- e) varying the pulse repetition frequency output of said source by varying the pass band frequency of said narrow bandpass filter.
3 more elements
A pulse generator comprising:
- a) a modulatable source of electromagnetic radiation driven by an external, continuous drive signal and having detectable fluctuations of intensity:
- b) detector means to convert a portion of the source radiation into a control signal having a frequency spectrum that corresponds to the instantaneous fluctuations of the intensity of the source;
- c) a narrow bandpass filter means to filter the control signal, said filter means having a pass-band peak frequency that may be selected as desired;
- d) means to modulate the source drive signal or the output thereof by the filtered control signal;
- whereby the output of a continuously driven source of electromagnetic radiation is converted into pulsed radiation whose pulse repetition frequency corresponds to the selected pass-band peak frequency
- e) means to vary the pass-band peak frequency such that the pulse repetition frequency of the generated pulses will correspond to the varied pass-band peak frequency.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.