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:
Sep. 01, 2015
Filed:
Feb. 27, 2014
Agilent Technologies, Inc., Loveland, CO (US);
Miao Zhu, San Jose, CA (US);
Charles Hoke, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Agilent Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
An external cavity laser and method for operating same are disclosed. The external cavity laser includes a gain chip, a grating, an actuator and actuator driver. The grating diffracts light leaving the gain chip in a band of wavelengths back to the gain chip, the grating is characterized by an angle relative to light leaving the gain chip and distance from the gain chip, the angle and distance is controlled by the actuator. Part of the diffracted light is amplified by the gain chip. The actuator driver causes the angle to be dithered about an equilibrium angle in a motion characterized by an amplitude and average frequency. The amplitude of the dithering motion is chosen to either excite a plurality of adjacent laser modes of the gain chip or provide a servo signal for maintaining the grating angle at a target value.