Fringe Locking in a Laser Diode Interferometer under Both Mirror Vibration and Injection Current Modulation

We have found that the fringes in a laser diode interferometer can be locked even in the presence of mirror vibration and injection current modulation. A theoretical analysis explains the fringe locking phenomenon. The dependence of wavelength change on both PZT (piezoelectric transducer) mirror vibration and the injection current variation are calculated using a model of coupled resonators consisting of the laser cavity and the interferometer. The fringe phase change caused by the vibration and modulation of the current is derived from this model, and was proven to be suppressed within much less than 2ϖ in excess of an integer multiple of 2ϖ.     

Nanometer-scale displacement sensing using self-mixing interferometry with a correlation-based signal processing technique

A self-mixing interferometer is proposed to measure nanometre-scale optical path length changes in the interferometer’s external cavity. As light source, the developed technique uses a blue emitting GaN laser diode. An external reflector, a silicon mirror, driven by a piezo nanopositioner is used to produce an interference signal which is detected with the monitor photodiode of the laser diode. Changing the optical path length of the external cavity introduces a phase difference to the interference signal. This phase difference is detected using a signal processing algorithm based on Pearson’s correlation coefficient and cubic spline interpolation techniques. The results show that the average deviation between the measured and actual displacements of the silicon mirror is 3.1 nm in the 0–110 nm displacement range. Moreover, the measured displacements follow linearly the actual displacement of the silicon mirror. Finally, the paper considers the effects produced by the temperature and current stability of the laser diode as well as dispersion effects in the external cavity of the interferometer. These reduce the sensor’s measurement accuracy especially in long-term measurements.     

Analysis of fringe locking in a laser diode interferometer under injection-current modulation

A theoretical analysis has been performed that explains a fringe-locking phenomenon observed in a two-beam interferometer in which a laser diode was subjected to optical feedback and modulation of its injection current. The dependence of wavelength change on the injection-current variation is calculated by use of a model of coupled resonators consisting of the laser cavity and the interferometer. The fringe phase change caused by modulation of the injection current is derived from this model and has proved to be suppressed within much less than 2pi in excess of an integer multiple of 2pi if the path difference of the interferometer is longer than 10 mm. The calculated phase fluctuation agrees well with those observed in experiments.     

Fringe Locking in a Laser Diode Interferometer by Optical Feedback During Modulation of Injection Current

A fringe locking phenomenon in a two beam interferometer using a semiconductor laser subject to optical feedback was, whose injection current is modulated. When a path difference of the interferometer is sufficient, fringes taken by a charge coupled device camera are seen to be stationary and the rms fluctuations of fringe phase is reduced to as low as 0.2ϖ radians from more than 8ϖ radians without the optical feedback. The rms phase fluctuation is independent of frequency and amplitude of the current modulation. The fringe locking has also been observed in the presence of both injection current modulation and piezoelectric transducer mirror vibration.     

A new design of pulsed laser diode driver system for multistate quantum key distribution

In this paper, we describe a new design of laser diode driver system based on MOSFET current mirror and digital signal controller (DSC). The system is designed to emit stream pairs of photons from three semiconductor laser diodes. The DSC is able to switch between the three laser diodes at constant rate. The duty cycle is maintained at 1% in order to reduce its thermal effect and thus prolong the laser diodes’ life cycles. The MOSFET current mirror circuits are capable of delivering constant modulation current with peak current up to 58 mA to each laser diode. This laser driver system will allow the generating biphotons automatically with qubit rate around 8-13% for μ less than or equal to 1, thus making it practical for six-states quantum key distribution implementation.     

Fast interrogation using sinusoidally current modulated laser diodes for fiber Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor consisting of fiber Bragg gratings

A fast interrogation method using a sinusoidal modulated laser diode for a fiber Fabry–Perot interferometric sensor consisting of Bragg gratings (FBG–FPI) is proposed.. The FBG–FPI has sharp transmittance peaks in the reflection band of the FBGs. Wavelength sweep produced by current modulation of a laser diode can be used to detect the peak position. This enables high-resolution strain or temperature measurement. To precisely control the current, the current modulation is realized using a laser diode controller (LDC) with external modulation function. In the modulation by a sawtooth wave, the possible speed of wavelength sweeping is limited to 100 kHz or less due to the bandwidth limitation of an LDC and thermal effect in a laser diodeUsing a sinusoidal wave as a modulation waveform enables wavelength sweeping at speeds exceeding 100 kHz. The modulation characteristics of the laser wavelength is evaluated experimentally and the operating wavelength is monitored using an asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The resolution of 0.2 fm/\(\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}\) and measurement time of 1 \(\upmu\)s were experimentally demonstrated in the present sensor.     

In-plane ESPI using an achromatic interferometer with low-coherence laser source

The use of an achromatic interferometer is explored as a means of doing in-plane ESPI measurements using a laser diode as the light source. This interferometer type, which uses a diffraction grating in place of the conventional beamsplitter, has two features that make it suitable for making ESPI measurements over extended areas, even when using a low-coherence laser diode source. First, the parallelogram optical geometry of the interferometer causes all rays passing through to have the same optical path lengths. Second, the interferometer is achromatic, whereby the piezo-actuated mirror that steps the illumination light does so by the same phase angle, independent of wavelength. This latter feature accommodates the spectral impurity of a laser diode source. A periodic variation of fringe visibility is observed in experiments, where narrow ranges of high visibility occur at regular spatial intervals. This behavior derives from the clustered discrete spectral character of laser diode light output. A method to “tune” the interferometer by slightly rotating the diffraction grating is described so as to achieve consistent high fringe visibility throughout the measured images.     

Disturbance-free laser diode Sagnac interferometer using direct phase modulation

We exploited the wavelength tunability of the laser diode of a phase-shifting Sagnac interferometer to realize disturbance-free measurements. The Sagnac interferometer is robust against mechanical disturbances because it has a common path configuration and requires no special references. An unbalanced optical path was introduced between p- and s-polarized beams to enable easy phase shifting by direct current modulation. The experimental results indicate that the proposed system is effective for performing precise disturbance-free measurements.     

Sinusoidal phase-modulating laser diode interferometer insensitive to intensity modulation for real-time displacement measurement with feedback control system

In sinusoidal phase modulating laser diode (LD) interferometer, the injection current of the LD is sinusoidally modulated to realize the modulation of the wavelength. However, the light intensity of LD is also modulated, which affects the measurement accuracy. An all-fiber sinusoidal phase modulating LD interferometer for real-time displacement measurement is proposed where the influence of the intensity modulation is eliminated with a new algorithm. It is made clear that an optimal depth of the sinusoidal phase modulation (SPM) exists in the algorithm. Moreover, the SPM depth is locked at the optimal value by controlling the injection current with a feedback control system. The feasibility of the proposed interferometer for displacement measurement is verified by experiments.     

光热正弦相位调制干涉仪中相位的抗干扰测量

在正弦相位调制半导体激光干涉仪中,半导体激光波长随注入电流和温度漂移而产生相位测量误差,同时干涉仪的机械振动和干涉仪两臂中的空气扰动也会引入相位误差,在已有光热正弦相位调制干涉仪中引入反馈机制,有效地降低了上述误差,增强了干涉仪的抗干扰能力,使用此干涉仪测量了物体的位移,测量结果表明这种方法可以有效地提高相位的测量精度。     

Real-time surface shape measurement by an active interferometer

We have succeeded in video rate analysis of fringes stabilized by an active interferometer placed outside optical benches. The interferometer uses the closed loop control of injection current of a laser diode to compensate for fringe movement that is detected by a spatial filtering detector. A video image of the locked fringes with tilt is supplied to the real-time fringe analyzer that delivers unwrapped phase distribution from the three phase shifted fringes generated by the electronic moiré method. For a concave mirror of 130 mm diameter placed on a wooden desk we observed the repeatability of λ/60 for P-V surface error of λ/5.     

Two-wavelength sinusoidal phase-modulating interferometer for nanometer accuracy measurement

A two-wavelength sinusoidal phase-modulating(SPM) laser diode(LD) interferometer for nanometer accuracy measurement is proposed.To eliminate the error caused by the intensity modulation,the SPM depth of the interference signal is chosen appropriately by varying the amplitude of the modulation current periodically. Then,the refine theory is induced to the measurement,and the two-wavelength interferometer (TWI) is combined with the single-wavelength LD interferometric technique to realize static displacement measurement with nanometer accuracy.Experimental results indicate that a static displacement measurement accuracy of 5 nm can be achieved over a range of 200μm.     

干涉光谱仪动镜倾斜误差容限分析

本文从调制度和相位误差角度,系统分析了双光束干涉光谱仪中,当光束孔径为圆形和矩形时,动镜运动过程中发生倾斜的影响,讨论了动镜倾斜容限以及减小动镜倾斜误差的方法.     

激光自外差相干测量中分布反馈半导体激光器电流调谐非线性的补偿方法

半导体激光器的电流调谐非线性对自外差相干测量的精度影响很大.研究了分布反馈半导体(DFB) 激光器的电流调谐特性,据此提出一种数学模型补偿方法.利用已知光程差下的差拍频率,建立了动态调频 系数的数学模型.以此模型对DFB激光器的电流调谐非线性进行补偿,可以将差拍信号频率预测值的相对误差 减小约3%,提高了系统的测量精度.数学模型补偿方法简化了测量系统的结构,适用于高精度的电流调谐 激光在线测量系统.     

半导体抽运Yb∶YAG 五镜腔KLM激光器理论分析计算

对半导体抽运的Yb∶YAG克尔透镜锁模激光器进行理论分析计算,分析五镜谐振腔和四镜谐振腔的稳区不同,利用稳区范围变化对五镜谐振腔稳定锁模机理做出合理解释.详细计算分析Yb∶YAG激光器内克尔调制效应对锁模的影响,获得最佳腔参量.在腔内没有插入硬光阑的情况下,利用五镜腔实现了Yb∶YAG晶体克尔透镜锁模运转.理论分析和实验结果相符.     

Absorption line profile recovery based on TDLS and MEMS micro-mirror for photoacoustic gas sensing

A novel and efficient absorption line recovery technique is presented. A micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) mirror driven by an electrothermal actuator is used to generate laser intensity modulation through the mirror reflection. Tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) and photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) are used to recover the target absorption line profile which is compared with the theoretical Voigt profile. The target gas is 0.01% acetylene (C2H2) in a nitrogen host gas. The laser diode wavelength is swept across the P17 absorption line of acetylene at 1535.4 nm by a current ramp, and an erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) is used to enhance the optical intensity and increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A SNR of about 35 is obtained with 100 mW laser power from the EDFA. Good agreement is achieved between the experimental results and the theoretical simulation for the P17 absorption line profile.     

Experimental study of a semiconductor laser diode having a Mach–Zehnder interferometer in the cavity

The performance of a semiconductor laser diode that has an asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer all-optical switch in the cavity has been studied experimentally. This novel device was designed to be free from clock pulse insertion, since mode-locked optical pulses are generated internally and change the balance of the interferometer periodically. The device was fabricated using a InGaAsP/InP buried heterostructure and the primary optical properties of the device were investigated. Lasing characteristics that were peculiar to the twin-cavity structure were observed, i.e., continuous-wave lasing power oscillation in relation to the injection current balance between the two arms, and cyclic changes in the single/multiple emission peaks as a function of bias voltage at the saturable absorber. Electrical spectrum analysis indicated 40 GHz modulation of lasing output from the twin-cavity laser.     

A laser feedback interferometer with an oscillating feedback mirror

A method is proposed to solve the problem of direction discrimination for laser feedback interferometers.By vibrating the feedback mirror with a small-amplitude and high-frequency sine wave,laser intensity is modulated accordingly.The modulation amplitude can be extracted using a phase sensitive detector(PSD).When the feedback mirror moves,the PSD output shows a quasi-sine waveform similar to a laser intensity interference fringe but with a phase difference of approximately ±π/2.If the movement direction of the feedback mirror changes,the phase difference sign reverses.Therefore,the laser feedback interferometer offers a potential application in displacement measurement with a resolution of 1/8 wavelength and in-time direction discrimination.Without using optical components such as polarization beam splitters and wave plates,the interferometer is very simple,easy to align,and less costly.     

An interferometrically tuned and actively modelocked cw dye laser

An interferometer of the Michelson type is used to tune and to actively modelock an argon ion laser pumped cw dye laser. The interferometer constitutes a resonator mirror with a modulated reflecting coefficient. This modulation corresponds to a transient Fourier spectrum containing the whole emission band of the dye. In the center of this spectrum, a mode-locked train of picosecond pulses is generated. These pulses are tunable throughout the tuning range of the employed lasing medium in a simple and convenient way. Due to the inherent characteristic broad band output of the cw dye laser, the modulation envelope extends only for a fraction of the entire lasing period. Means of extending the said envelope to cover the complete laser output are discussed.     

Influence of laser diode wavelength tunability on the range, resolution and repeatability of interferometric distance measurement

The coherence length of a single mode laser diode (LD) can reach more than 10 m. It allows the application of this source of light to interferometric distance measurement, with a measurement range of several meters. However, the LD's wavelength tunability, which is a result of the dependence of the lasing wavelength on the injection current, prevents the realization of the theoretically possible metrological parameters of the interferometer. In this study, we analyze the influence of a low-frequency signal disturbance, e.g., noise or disturbing modulation inherent to the injection current of the LD, on the repeatability and measurement range of an LD interferometer used for displacement measurements. Both the measurement range and the resolution of the interferometer are found to be highly limited by this factor.