|
We present a miniaturized external cavity diode laser concept which will be compared with well-known laser systems such as distributed feedback (DFB) lasers. DFB lasers suffer high internal losses due to the overlap of the DFB grating with the optical waveguide. Our concept of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) based lasers are stabilized with a transmission grating, resulting in significantly less losses. Furthermore, the tuning of the diffraction efficiency of the gratings allows the optimization of the output power and the overall tuning range, which is measured to be one order of magnitude larger than what can be achieved with DFBs. It is also important to point out the tuning speed of the MEMS lasers due to the fast nature of the tilting capabilities of the MEMS actuators. Excellent relative intensity noise and narrow linewidth features are present in these laser systems due to the low noise driving electronics for both the diode lasers and the MEMS actuators. The high output power and the low linewidth will enable a higher sensitivity and resolution for a wide range of applications. The performance of the MEMS laser systems will be presented, being suitable for applications such as Raman spectroscopy or tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) in the wavelength ranges of 780 nm and 920 nm. |
|
|
