Picarro, Inc.

David M Adams

Chris W Rella

Eric R Crosson

Barbara A Paldus

Bruce A Richman

Grzegorz Pakulski

Jinchun Xie

Alexander Katchanov

Robert Lodenkamper

Serguei Koulikov

A tunable laser and laser tuning method, based on the interaction of a spectrally dependent beam distortion and a spatial filter within a laser cavity. One embodiment of this laser is an external cavity semiconductor laser in which broad tunability is obtained by the insertion of an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) into the laser cavity such that the intra-cavity laser beam passes through the AOTF in zeroth order.

Laser tuning by spectrally dependent spatial filtering

A laser tuning mechanism which embodies 'spectrally dependent spatial filtering' (SDSF) and contemplates two key elements of the tuning mechanism. The first element of the SDSF tuning mechanism is a spectrally dependent beam distortion (i.e. alteration of the amplitude and/or phase profile of the beam) provided by an SDSF tuning element in a laser cavity. The second element of the SDSF tuning mechanism is an intracavity spatial filter which makes the round trip cavity loss a sensitive function of both beam distortion and cavity alignment. Such a laser can be aligned so that a specific beam distortion, which is provided by the SDSF tuning element at a tunable wavelength, is required to obtain minimum round trip cavity loss, thereby providing tunable laser emission. A preferred embodiment of the SDSF tuning mechanism is an external cavity semiconductor laser having a zeroth order acousto-optic tuning element.

Laser Tuning by spectrally dependent spatial filtering

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Ottawa, Canada

David M Adams