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:
Nov. 15, 2005
Filed:
Mar. 10, 2003
Christine P. Spiegelberg, Tucson, AZ (US);
Jihong Geng, Tucson, AZ (US);
Yushi Kaneda, Tucson, AZ (US);
Shibin Jiang, Tucson, AZ (US);
Ronald Pollock, Van Nuys, CA (US);
Ik Joon Song, Montebello, CA (US);
Ping LI, Diamond Bar, CA (US);
Sean Staines, Hampshire, GB;
Chih-jen Chi, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Christine P. Spiegelberg, Tucson, AZ (US);
Jihong Geng, Tucson, AZ (US);
Yushi Kaneda, Tucson, AZ (US);
Shibin Jiang, Tucson, AZ (US);
Ronald Pollock, Van Nuys, CA (US);
Ik Joon Song, Montebello, CA (US);
Ping Li, Diamond Bar, CA (US);
Sean Staines, Hampshire, GB;
Chih-Jen Chi, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
NP Photonics, Inc., Tucson, AZ (US);
Abstract
A short laser cavity (up to 30 cm in length) comprising a free-space tunable MEMS Fabry-Perot filter, a collimating lens and a section of erbium-doped phosphate gain fiber (2-25 cm) is formed between a pair of broadband reflectors. The cavity is optically pumped to excite the erbium ions and provide gain, which establishes an initial longitudinal mode structure that spans the C-band with a mode spacing of at least 0.3 GHz and a roundtrip unsaturated gain of at least 8 dB over the tuning range. A controller tunes the MEMS filter, which has a filter function whose spectral width is at most ten and preferably less than four times the longitudinal mode spacing, to align its transmission maxima to one of a plurality of discrete output wavelengths that span the C-band. A thermal control element adjusts the longitudinal mode structure to align a single mode with the transmission maxima of the filter. Because the spectral width of the filter function is narrow, laser emission will be limited to a single longitudinal mode.