Chomet Baptiste, Zhao Jian, Ferrieres Laurence, Myara Mikhael, Guiraud Germain, Beaudoin Grégoire, Lecocq Vincent, Sagnes Isabelle, Traynor Nicholas, Santarelli Giorgio, Denet Stephane, Garnache Arnaud
Appl Opt. 2018 Jun 20;57(18):5224-5229. doi: 10.1364/AO.57.005224.
Exploiting III-V semiconductor technologies, vertical external-cavity surface-emitting laser (VECSEL) technology has been identified for years as a good candidate to develop lasers with high power, large coherence, and broad tunability. Combined with fiber amplification technology, tunable single-frequency lasers can be flexibly boosted to a power level of several tens of watts. Here, we demonstrate a high-power, single-frequency, and broadly tunable laser based on VECSEL technology. This device emits in the near-infrared around 1.06 µm and exhibits high output power (>100 mW) with a low-divergence diffraction-limited TEM beam. It also features a narrow free-running linewidth of <400 kHz with high spectral purity (side mode suppression ratio >55 dB) and continuous broadband tunability greater than 250 GHz (<15 V piezo voltage, 6 kHz cutoff frequency) with a total tunable range up to 3 THz. In addition, a compact design without any movable intracavity elements offers a robust single-frequency regime. Through fiber amplification, a tunable single-frequency laser is achieved at an output power of 50 W covering the wavelength range from 1057 to 1066 nm. Excess intensity noise brought on by the amplification stage is in good agreement with a theoretical model. A low relative intensity noise value of -145 dBc/Hz is obtained at 1 MHz, and we reach the shot-noise limit above 200 MHz.
利用III-V族半导体技术，垂直外腔面发射激光器（VECSEL）技术多年来一直被认为是开发具有高功率、大相干性和宽可调谐性激光器的良好候选技术。与光纤放大技术相结合，可调谐单频激光器可以灵活地提升到几十瓦的功率水平。在此，我们展示了一种基于VECSEL技术的高功率、单频且宽可调谐激光器。该器件在1.06 µm附近的近红外波段发射，具有高输出功率（>100 mW），衍射极限的TEM光束发散角小。它还具有小于400 kHz的窄自由运转线宽、高光谱纯度（边模抑制比>55 dB）以及大于250 GHz（<15 V压电电压，6 kHz截止频率）的连续宽带可调谐性，总可调谐范围高达3 THz。此外，无任何腔内可移动元件的紧凑设计提供了稳健的单频状态。通过光纤放大，实现了输出功率为50 W、覆盖1057至1066 nm波长范围的可调谐单频激光器。放大阶段带来的过量强度噪声与理论模型吻合良好。在1 MHz时获得了-145 dBc/Hz的低相对强度噪声值，并且在200 MHz以上达到了散粒噪声极限。
