Finely tunable laser based on a bulk silicon wafer for gas sensing applications

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Abstract

In this work a very simple continuously tunable laser based on an erbium ring cavity and a silicon wafer is presented. This laser can be tuned with very fine steps, which is a compulsory characteristic for gas sensing applications. Moreover the laser is free of mode hopping within a spectral range sufficiently wide to match one of the ro-vibrational lines of a target molecule. Here the proposed laser reached, at ∼1530 nm, a continuous tuning range of around 950 pm (>100 GHz) before mode hopping occurred, when a silicon wafer of 355 μm thickness was used. Additionally, the laser can be finely tuned with small tuning steps of <12 pm, achieving a resolution of 84.6 pm °C-1 and by using a thermo-electric cooler (TEC) the laser showed a high wavelength stability over time. These tuning characteristics are sufficient to detect molecules such as acetylene in which the mean separation between two ro-vibrational lines is around 600 pm. Finally, it is shown that the tuning range can be modified by using wafers with different thickness.

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Gallegos-Arellano, E., Vargas-Rodriguez, E., Guzman-Chavez, A. D., Cano-Contreras, M., Cruz, J. L., & Raja-Ibrahim, R. K. (2016). Finely tunable laser based on a bulk silicon wafer for gas sensing applications. Laser Physics Letters, 13(6). https://doi.org/10.1088/1612-2011/13/6/065102

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