摘要:
A semiconductor injection laser is mounted on a silicon substrate. An optical detector is integral to the substrate and aligned at oblique angles relative to the path of the light from one of the light emitting facets of the laser. The detector may be connected to the current control circuit for the laser to provide a feedback signal which is proportional to the light deflected from the facet. The transversely disposed detector may also function to detect light from another source as part of an optical communication system. The detector may be a Schottky barrier or a p-n junction.
摘要:
A light beam scanner of the moving interference fringe pattern type which includes a body of semiconductor material having a source of coherent radiation and wave guides for guiding the coherent radiation along a plurality of spatially displaced paths which are optically uncoupled, and means associated with the spatially displaced paths for producing relative phase changes between radiation in the different paths whereby interference fringes in the far field are spatially scanned. In addition, wavelength modulation of the laser over a range of about 80 A can be achieved. The source of the coherent radiation can be a single laser or a plurality of optically coupled lasers, and the optical uncoupling can be achieved by spatial displacement of the paths or by insertion of a high loss medium between the paths.
摘要:
Mode control both for longitudinal and fundamental transverse modes can be achieved by employing a mesa structure on the laser substrate during fabrication. The mesa will provide significant variations in the thickness of one or more heterostructure waveguiding layers that may be fabricated on the mesa formed substrate. As a result, the equivalent index of refraction for each waveguiding layer will be different. For longitudinal mode operation, a branching directional coupler can be directly fabricated during preferential LPE growth due to the presence of the mesa formed on the substrate. For fundamental transverse mode operation, oscillation can be restricted to a high gain region in a waveguiding layer due to the presence of the mesa and thickness variation and curvature in the active layer. Connected or juxtaposed stripe contact geometry can also be employed to provide a multicavity effect in a light waveguiding layer to enhance longitudinal mode selectivity.
摘要:
A heterojunction diode laser which produces a highly collimated, polarized light beam perpendicular to the plane of the PN junction of the laser rather than through cleaved end faces in the plane of the PN junction. The diode laser includes a periodic structure which is buried at a heterojunction interface and in contact with a light waveguide layer. The periodic structure acts to produce the feedback necessary for lasing. If the spacing of the teeth of the periodic structure are an integer number of wavelengths of the light photons produced in the laser, the light beam exits at an angle perpendicular to the plane of the PN junction. If a tooth spacing is chosen that is not equal to an integer number of wavelengths of the light photons produced in the laser, the light beam may emerge from the diode at an angle other than the normal with the specific angle determined by the particular tooth spacing. To increase output intensity, the ends of the laser perpendicular to the plane of the PN junction and parallel to the teeth of the periodic structure may be cleaved and coated with a highly light reflective film.
摘要:
An electrically pumped, distributed feedback laser having all side surfaces of the active laser medium cleaved and a periodic structure at a 45.degree. angle to all of the cleaved surfaces. Current confining channels restrict pumping current to selected regions of the active laser medium to provide sufficient feedback such that two parallel filamentary areas of the active medium lase. By having multiple lasing filaments the divergence of the output beam in the direction of the width of the filaments is reduced by a factor proportional to the number of filamentary lasing areas.
摘要:
A hybrid index/gain guided semiconductor laser has a gain guide type body with index waveguide attributes is characterized by having two regions of current confinement means. The first of these regions contains primary current confinement means and at least one second region which includes a pair of current confinement means parallel to each other and axially offset relative to the axis of the primary current confinement means and extend from the other laser facet toward the first region. The axially offset current confinement means in the second region provide regions of lower refractive index in the laser structure compared to the region of the laser optical cavity established between the offset current confinement means and, as a result, function as an index optical waveguide for the laser. The first region may be electrically isolated from the second region so that the first region is independently pumped relative to the second region. By varying the pumping current to the regions of the axially offset current confinement means, one can selectively change the refractive index differences established between the axially offset confinement means regions and the optical cavity region therebetween. The primary and offset current confinement geometry may be utilized in single or multiple element lasers.
摘要:
In an injection laser of the type having a mesa provided on the substrate, at least one or more radiation confinement layers is provided in the laser and with the active layer form an enlarged optical cavity (LOC) for radiation propagation to focus the beam produced into a narrow index guided filament.
摘要:
Enhanced higher order mode discrimination is obtained in injection lasers with lateral spatial thickness variations (LSTV) in the active layer with (1) the proper refractive index quantitative differences in the cladding layers contiguous with the active layer and (2) by fabricating the active layer to have a rapidity in its LSTV from the maximum thickness to the minimum thickness that is very gradual.
摘要:
Integrated laser diode devices are utilized as repeater elements and logic circuit elements in fiber optic and other light transfer systems. One embodiment discloses a six layer device (10) which is triggered not by an external electrical gating source, but by an external light source (8, 9) as from an optical fiber. Another embodiment operates a laser diode in a bilateral mode. That is, depending on the polarity of the applied voltage bias V to the device (50), two separate light pulses are emitted from different regions (56, 52) of the crystal. A further embodiment utilizes the semiconductor laser as a logical AND function. When the electrical bias (V) of the device (60) is set so that when at least two external light sources (67, 68) are applied, the device will emit laser light (69). Still another embodiment utilizes two semiconductor laser devices (911, 913) as an astable optical multivibrator (90).
摘要:
A monolithic laser device produces a plurality of spatially displaced emitting cavities in an active layer of a semiconductor body acting as a waveguide for light wave propagation under lasing conditions. Various means are disclosed to deflect and directly couple a portion of the optical wave propagation into one or more different spatially displaced emitting cavities to improve coherence and reduce beam divergence.