External cavity tunable laser with provisions for intracavity optical reflection suppression
First Claim
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1. An external cavity laser system, comprising:
- a laser cavity;
a light source that provides light to said laser cavity;
an in-line optical filter, within said laser cavity, which filters said light within said laser cavity; and
a reflection suppressor, within said laser cavity, which suppresses back-reflected light within said laser cavity while allowing light to resonate within said laser cavity.
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Abstract
An external cavity laser system includes an in-line optical filter and a reflection suppressor that efficiently suppresses back-reflected light while allowing light to resonate within the laser cavity. The reflection suppressor may include a polarizer that polarizes light within the cavity and polarization rotators that rotate the polarization state of the polarized light such that back-reflected light is suppressed by the polarizer. Because back-reflected light is suppressed, use of an in-line filter becomes viable in an external cavity laser system.
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Citations
21 Claims
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1. An external cavity laser system, comprising:
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a laser cavity;
a light source that provides light to said laser cavity;
an in-line optical filter, within said laser cavity, which filters said light within said laser cavity; and
a reflection suppressor, within said laser cavity, which suppresses back-reflected light within said laser cavity while allowing light to resonate within said laser cavity. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A method for operating an external cavity laser, comprising:
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providing light in a laser cavity;
filtering the light; and
suppressing back-reflected light while allowing the filtered light to resonate within the laser cavity. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. An external cavity tunable laser system, comprising:
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a laser cavity including a first mirror and a second mirror;
an in-line optical filter, within said laser cavity, for filtering light to set an optical frequency for the system;
an optical amplifier, between said first mirror and said in-line optical filter, which provides light to said in-line optical filter;
a polarizer, between said in-line optical filter and said optical amplifier, for polarizing light with said laser cavity;
a first polarization rotator, between said in-line optical filter and said polarizer, for rotating the polarization state of light;
a second polarization rotator, between said in-line optical filter and said second mirror, for rotating the polarization state of light, wherein back-reflected light is suppressed by the polarizer. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21)
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Specification