The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 25, 2005
Filed:
Dec. 02, 2002
Barbara Paldus, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Jinchun Xie, Cupertino, CA (US);
Robert Lodenkamper, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
David M. Adams, Ottawa, CA;
Eric Crosson, San Jose, CA (US);
Alexander Katchanov, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Grzegorz Pakulski, Woodlawn, CA;
Chris W. Rella, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bruce A. Richman, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Serguei Koulikov, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Barbara Paldus, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Jinchun Xie, Cupertino, CA (US);
Robert Lodenkamper, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
David M. Adams, Ottawa, CA;
Eric Crosson, San Jose, CA (US);
Alexander Katchanov, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Grzegorz Pakulski, Woodlawn, CA;
Chris W. Rella, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Bruce A. Richman, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Serguei Koulikov, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Picarro, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
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.