Narrow linewidth tunable laser system and method of operation

Abstract

The invention provides a narrow-linewidth tunable laser system and an operation method thereof. A tunable laser module of the system comprises a semiconductor laser, a driving circuit and a wavelength-tunable control submodule, wherein the driving circuit and the wavelength-tunable control submodule are connected with the semiconductor laser. A switch voltage stabilizer, connected with an inductor and a diode, of a power management submodule enables positive voltage to be converted into negative voltage so as to supply electricity to the system. A microcontroller connected with a host is connected with the driving circuit through digital-to-analog conversion to transmit instructions of the host and states of the laser. The microcontroller and a power failure detection submodule are used for detecting circuit voltage of the laser at regular time, and power is recovered in time when power failure is found out. The operation method of the narrow-linewidth tunable laser system includes the steps that after being initialized, the microcontroller transmits preset default data frames to the laser, the data frames returned by the laser are read, the situation that the data frames have no error is determined, whether power failure occurs or not is detected at regular time, updated instructions of the host are received and transmitted to the laser, and the current working state information of the laser is transmitted to the host. The system only needs to be powered up by a single power supply and can be used easily in an embedded mode. A tuning control interface of the host is simple and visual, and reliable operation is guaranteed through power failure self-detection.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the technical field of semiconductor lasers, in particular to a narrow linewidth adjustable laser system and an operating method. Background technique [0002] Tunable laser is an important light source device, in wavelength division multiplexing system, local oscillator, reconfigurable optical bifurcation multiplexing network, interferometric system, packet switching technology, multi-service providing platform, cross-connect and optical switch, etc. All fields require the use of tunable lasers. [0003] Tunable lasers have the characteristics of low cost, small size, light weight, high electro-optic conversion efficiency, simple control, etc., and the wavelength, power and channel spacing can be adjusted, so they are more and more widely used. Tunable lasers are mostly realized by external cavity semiconductor lasers. In the tunable wavelength range, thermally tunable etalon filters are used to achieve single-mode operation ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0005] At present, there are three main technical problems in the integrated tunable laser module: 1. It needs two sets of positive and negative power supplies, and the tunable laser needs a set of negative voltage power supply with high current

A single supply uses a polarity inversion topology to convert positive to negative voltages, which has stability issues due to the fact that the polarity inversion topology has a right half plane zero in its control-to-output transfer function

2. The control is complicated. Relevant developers or engineers who use tunable laser modules need to be very familiar with the multi-source protocol of OIF (Optical Internetworking Forum, the abbreviation of Optical Internetworking Forum)

3. In some occasions with special requirements (such as occasions with other strong electromagnetic interference), the tunable laser will have failures such as power failure. These applications often involve the national defense security, and more stable work of the tunable laser module is required. reliable

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