Injection locking of gain switched diodes for spectral narrowing and jitter stabilization

摘要

Pulse power can be stabilized by applying spectrally narrow pulses to a laser diode during gain switching. An injection locking laser with a narrow emission bandwidth is tuned to a gain bandwidth of a laser diode to be gain switched. The injection locking emission is pulsed to provide locking pulses that are attenuated and then coupled to a laser diode. A gain switching pulse drive is applied to the laser diode in the presence of the attenuated locking pulses. The gain switched output is then stabilized with respect to pulse energy and pulse amplitude, and is suitable as a seed pulse for lasers to be used in materials processing.

主权项

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a primary laser system that includes a primary laser diode that emits primary laser pulses; a first optical system configured to attenuate the primary laser pulses; a secondary laser system that includes a secondary laser diode configured to receive the attenuated primary laser pulses from the first optical system and produce secondary laser pulses; a control system comprising a first temperature control system coupled to the primary laser diode and configured to set a wavelength associated with the primary laser pulses, based on a temperature of the primary laser diode, to correspond to a wavelength associated with the secondary laser diode, and to establish an optical pulse delay so that primary laser pulses are received at the secondary laser diode as respective secondary laser pulses are produced; a substrate stage; and a beam forming optical system configured to receive the secondary laser pulses and form a shaped optical beam, wherein the substrate stage and the beam forming optical system are configured to scan the shaped optical beam with respect to a substrate, and the shaped optical beam is scanned so that selected secondary laser pulses overlap at the substrate by less than one half of a shaped beam diameter.