Wideband External Cavity Wavelength-Tunable Laser Utilizing a Liquid-Crystal-Based Mirror and an Intracavity Etalon

Author

Sato, Kenji ; Mizutani, Kenji ; Sudo, Shinya ; Tsuruoka, Kiyotaka ; Naniwae, Koichi ; Kudo, Koji

Author_Institution

NEC Corp, Otsu

Volume

25

Issue

8

fYear

2007

Firstpage

2226

Lastpage

2232

Abstract

In this paper, high-performance full-band external cavity wavelength-tunable lasers (ECTLs) are detailed. Our approach utilizes an external cavity configuration, which makes use of a liquid-crystal tunable mirror and a wavelength reference etalon. This ECTL module shows a tuning range of 45 nm, fiber-coupled output power of more than 14 dBm with a side-mode suppression ratio better than 59 dB, wavelength accuracy of 0.6 GHz, relative intensity noise better than -150 dB/Hz, and linewidth narrower than 1 MHz.

Keywords

laser mirrors; laser tuning; light interferometers; liquid crystal devices; frequency 0.6 GHz; frequency 1 MHz; intracavity etalon; liquid-crystal-based mirror; wavelength 45 nm; wideband external cavity wavelength-tunable laser; Distributed Bragg reflectors; Distributed feedback devices; Laser feedback; Laser tuning; Mirrors; Power generation; Surface emitting lasers; Tunable circuits and devices; Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers; Wideband; Etalon; external cavity; liquid crystal (LC); tunable laser; tunable mirror;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2007.901535

Filename

4285906