Coherence sidelobe suppression of laser diode by white-noise-current modulation and external cavity feedback.

A coherence sidelobe suppression method for a laser diode (LD) is proposed, based on the white-noise-current modulation and external cavity feedback. The theoretical model of the coherence of the white-noise-current-modulated external cavity laser (WECL) is established, which details the spectrum broadening mechanism and the coherence sidelobe suppression. At the noise current modulation, the coherence sidelobe induced by the internal cavity is lowered by the external cavity feedback, and the position of the coherence sidelobe induced by the external cavity is controlled with the cavity length, which can extend the coherence range without the sidelobes. The experimental results demonstrate that the 98.4% sidelobe suppression ratio (SLSR) of the WECL is achieved in dynamic interferometry, which is about 20% higher than that of the laser diode only with the white-noise-current modulation. This new, to the best of our knowledge, method can avoid the stray fringe cross talk caused by the multiple coherence sidelobes in the surface error measurements of parallel plates.