Wavelength locking multimode diode lasers with fiber Bragg grating in large mode area core

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9673591-B2
Application number	US-201514986545-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 31, 2015
Priority date	May 17, 2013
Publication date	Jun 6, 2017
Grant date	Jun 6, 2017

Abstract

According to another aspect of the present disclosed technology, a diode laser assembly, includes an optical fiber having a cladding and a large mode area (LMA) core, wherein the LMA core comprises a fiber Bragg grating disposed within the LMA core, a plurality of diode lasers configured to emit light, optics configured to receive the light and to couple the light into the LMA core, and one or more features in the optical fiber to couple higher order modes of the light leaving substantially single mode light to propagate in the LMA core wherein a portion of the single mode light propagating in the LMA core is reflected by the fiber Bragg grating and is coupled back through the optics into the plurality of diode lasers to lock the wavelength of light emitted from each diode laser of the plurality.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A diode laser assembly, comprising:
an optical fiber having a cladding and a large mode area (LMA) core, wherein the LMA core comprises a fiber Bragg grating disposed within the LMA core and not in the cladding;
a plurality of diode lasers configured to emit light;
optics configured to receive the light and to couple the light into the LMA core; and
one or more features in the optical fiber to couple higher order modes of the light leaving substantially single mode light to propagate in the LMA core;
wherein a portion of the single mode light propagating in the LMA core is reflected by the fiber Bragg grating and is coupled back through the optics into the plurality of diode lasers to lock the wavelength of light emitted from each diode laser of the plurality.

2. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the portion of light reflected by the fiber Bragg grating is proportional to the ratio of the diameter of the LMA core to the diameter of the optical fiber.

3. The assembly of claim 1 wherein the plurality of diode lasers are wavelength locked at a center wavelength of the fiber Bragg grating and with a full width half maximum of greater than 0 nm and less than 1 nm.

4. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the portion of light that is reflected by the core fiber Bragg grating is between 0.1% and 20% percent of the light coupled into the optical fiber.

5. The assembly of claim 1 wherein the plurality of diode lasers comprises a plurality of single-emitter diode lasers.

6. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the portion of light that is reflected by the LMA core fiber Bragg grating and is coupled into the plurality of diode lasers is not equally distributed among each of the diode lasers.

7. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of diode lasers comprises a bar of diode lasers.

8. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber includes a plurality of fiber Bragg gratings concatenated in the LMA core.

9. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber includes a side core wound in a helix around the LMA core to couple out higher order modes of the light.

10. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber includes holes distributed around the LMA core to couple out higher order modes of the light.

11. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber is tapered to couple out higher order modes of the light.

12. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber is bent to induce higher order mode losses.

13. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber includes a first section comprising a side core wound in a helix around the LMA core to couple higher order modes of the light and a second section comprising a fiber having a LMA core, wherein the fiber Bragg grating is written into the LMA core and not in the LMA core in the first section.

14. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optical fiber includes a first section comprising a tapered portion, wherein the tapered portion is on an input side and tapers from a larger diameter to a smaller diameter to couple out higher order modes of the light and a second section comprising a fiber having a LMA core, wherein the fiber Bragg grating is written into the LMA core and not in the LMA core in the first section.

15. The assembly of claim 1 , wherein the optics includes a fast axis collimator and slow axis collimator optically coupled to each diode laser of the plurality of diode lasers for collimating the laser beams emitted therefrom, and the optics include a Fourier transform lens for receiving the collimated laser beams and coupling the laser beams into an input face of the optical fiber.

16. The assembly of claim 1 wherein the fiber Bragg grating has a reflectivity spectrum of greater than 0 nm and less than or equal to 1 nm.

17. The assembly of claim 1 wherein the optical fiber provides wavelength locking of the plurality of diode lasers without wavelength drift at incident powers.

18. The assembly of claim 1 wherein the core is a single mode or few mode core.

Assignees

• Nlight Photonics Corp
• Nlight Inc

Inventors

• Kanskar Manoj

Classifications

• H01S5/0657

  Mode locking, i.e. generation of pulses at a frequency corresponding to a roundtrip in the cavity · CPC title

• H01S5/0653 Primary

  Mode suppression, e.g. specific multimode · CPC title

• H01S5/4062

  with an external cavity or using internal filters, e.g. Talbot filters · CPC title

• H01S5/4068

  with lateral coupling by axially offset or by merging waveguides, e.g. Y-couplers · CPC title

• H01S5/0287

  Facet reflectivity · CPC title