Tunable lasers

• A tunable laser is a laser whose wavelength of operation can be altered in a

controlled manner.
• There are many types and categories of tunable lasers. They exist in the gas, liquid,
and solid state.
• Various types of tunable lasers are excimer lasers, CO2 lasers, dye lasers(liquid and
solid state), transition metal solid-state lasers, semiconductor diode lasers,
and free electron lasers.
 Why we need tunable lasers??
• Have wide applications in wave length division multiplexing(WDM) in optical
communication systems.
• Applications in advanced sensors.
• Applications in optical sensors and measurement systems.
 Diode lasers
Most widely used single mode tunable lasers are :

• DFB LASER
• DBR LASER
 DBR

Consists of three section a center active region surrounded on both sides by

reflecting grating regions.
Active region provides the gain.
Grating functions as wave length selectivity.
A distributed Bragg reflector laser is a laser, where the laser resonator is made with at
least one distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) outside the gain medium (the active
region).

A DBR is a Bragg mirror, i.e., a light-reflecting device (a mirror) based on Bragg

reflection at a periodic structure.
A DBR laser diode contains some corrugated waveguide structure (a grating section)
providing wavelength-dependent feedback to define the emission wavelength.
Another section of the laser waveguide acts as the amplifying medium (active
region), and the other end of the resonator may have another DBR.
• A laser requires a laser resonator(or laser cavity), in which the laser radiation can
circulate and pass a gain medium which compensates the optical losses. Exceptions
are only exotic cases where a medium with very high gain is used, so that amplified
spontaneous emission extracts significant power in a single pass through the gain
medium.
• In the reflection region a grating is etched on to the surface of the waveguide.
• The optical field in the waveguide thus sees a periodic variation in the refractive
index which gives rise to the reflection of a portion of the optical field
• Grating is placed close to the active region for good coupling.
• Active region(pumped region):200-500 Um long.
• The length of at least one of the grating section must be shorter to provide
suffcient reflection to allow laser resonance.
• Grating: are periodically repeating structures with spatial periods on the order of
the wavelength.
 DFB LASER
• Combines active and grating regions.
• Grating is placed directly on the active region and fed back is generated throughout
the laser.
• Laser length is of the order of 300-600 Um.
• The periodic spatial distribution of the index of refraction with the gain medium
can be written as:

• Where q is any integer value, A is the pitch of the periodic thickness change,n0 is
the effective refractive index of the structure without gating.
• DFB uses braggs reflection to suppress undiserable modes.
• Light reflection occurs not at a single point but a portion of the light is reflected at
each slope of the corrugated grating.
• When the period of the corrugation
l is the integer order of the grating
Is the Braggs wavelength.
Is the effective refractive index of the wave guide.
Then only one wavelength near the Braggs wavelength is reflected constructively.
The period of the periodic structure determines the wavelength of the single mode light
output.
• 3 configurations to achieve tunable diode lasers.
 DBR laser with Bragg wavelength control control.
 DBR laser with phase control
 DBR laser with Bragg wavelength and phase control.