External cavity type broadband tunable laser coupling filter with double laser gain media

Abstract

The invention relates to an external cavity type broadband tunable laser coupling a filter with double laser gain media, comprising a first laser gain medium, a first intracavity collimating lens, an active optical phase modulator, a tunable acousto-optic filter, an intracavity reflecting mirror, an optical etalon and an intracavity totally reflecting mirror which are sequentially mounted in a laser cavity, a second laser gain medium, a second laser cavity end mirror and a second intracavity collimating lens which are mounted on the second laser gain medium, a multi-layer medium film optical filter for coupling output light beams of the first laser gain medium and the second laser gain medium, a radio frequency signal source, pump sources of the two laser gain media, a driving source of the active optical phase modulator, and a laser driving control circuit. The external cavity type broadband tunable laser is reasonable in design, realizes the function of enabling the output spectrum range of the single laser to cover C and L spectral bands, expands the output spectrum range of the tunable laser, and has the characteristics of stability and reliability in performance, low cost, small size, easiness in mounting and production and the like.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of optoelectronics, in particular to an external cavity broadband tunable laser coupled with a filter to double laser gain media. Background technique [0002] In external-cavity tunable lasers, there are mainly the following tuning technologies: (1) Tuning is carried out by driving the rotation of the grating by a precision stepping motor. The stepping accuracy and repeatability of the stepping motor are very high, so the manufacturing cost is relatively high; the second is that it is not easy to miniaturize due to the use of the stepping motor; the third is that the working stability in the harsh working environment is relatively poor, especially The ability to resist various mechanical vibrations is relatively poor. Due to the above-mentioned problems, tunable lasers using this technology are only suitable for use in laboratory working environments. (2) Use other optical filter devices in gratings or laser resonat...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0002] In external-cavity tunable lasers, there are mainly the following tuning technologies: (1) Tuning is carried out by driving the rotation of the grating by a precision stepping motor. The stepping accuracy and repeatability of the stepping motor are very high, so the manufacturing cost is relatively high; the second is that it is not easy to miniaturize due to the use of the stepping motor; the third is that the working stability in the harsh working environment is relatively poor, especially The ability to resist various mechanical vibrations is relatively poor. Due to the above-mentioned problems, tunable lasers using this technology are only suitable for use in laboratory working environments.

(2) Use other optical filter devices in gratings or laser resonators, such as optical etalons, to tune the frequency of transmitted light with temperature drift. The advantages of this technology are high tuning accuracy and relatively narrow spectral bandwidth of output light , the disadvantage is that the speed is relatively slow, especially in the case where a wide range of tuning spectrum is required. The range is 400 degrees, therefore, this is difficult to achieve in practical applications

(3) The main disadvantage of micro-motor system (MEMS) is that it has poor working stability in harsh working environments, especially the poor ability to resist various mechanical vibrations

(4) Tuning with tunable acousto-optic filters has the advantages of fast tuning speed, no mechanical moving parts, and miniaturization. The disadvantages are that the tuning accuracy is not high and the filtering bandwidth is relatively wide. Therefore, simply using this Technology tunable lasers are only suitable for applications where tuning accuracy and output bandwidth are not high

(5) Using a single laser gain medium, its spectral range is difficult to cover the C spectral band and the L spectral band

[0003] To sum up, the existing technology cannot meet the requirements of various applications of tunable lasers with miniaturization, fast tuning in a wide spectral range, narrow-band laser output and long-term stable operation in harsh environments, especially in optical fiber communications.

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