ULTRASTABLE, NARROW LINEWIDTH, HIGH RELIABILITY MOPA SOURCES ARE NEEDED FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE LIDARS IN NASA…

Public award description

ULTRASTABLE, NARROW LINEWIDTH, HIGH RELIABILITY MOPA SOURCES ARE NEEDED FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE LIDARS IN NASA FOR, WIND SPEED MEASUREMENT, SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY AND EARTH AND PLANETARY ATMOSPHERE COMPOSITION MEASUREMENTS. PRINCETON OPTRONICS IS DEVELOPING A MOPA LASER SOURCE FOR THESE APPLICATIONS. PHASE I EXPERIMENTS CONCLUDED THAT THE OPTIMUM APPROACH WILL USE A DPSS MICROCHIP LASER WITH THE SOA. THIS WOULD PROVIDE A MOPA SOURCE WITH NARROW LINEWIDTH,<10KHZ, AND AN OUTPUT POWER OF 1W. THE PHASE II PROGRAM WOULD DEVELOP THE MOPA LASER TECHNOLOGY AND BUILD PROTOTYPES FOR TESTING IN NASA. THESE PROTOTYPES WOULD BE READY FOR FINAL ENGINEERING TEST AND MANUFACTURE. THE MICROCHIP LASER WILL BE UPGRADED TO INCORPORATE OUR PATENTED NOISE REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPRESS RIN. THIS REDUCES NOISE>55DB IN OUR TELECOM TUNABLE LASERS. THIS WOULD PROVIDE A SEED LASER WITH 1KHZ LINEWIDTH, LOW RIN AND>10MW POWER. THE SOA DESIGNED IN PHASE I WOULD BE DEVELOPED FOR 1W OUTPUT POWER IN THE 1550NM BAND. FILTERING WILL BE INCORPORATED TO MINIMIZE NOISE AND LINEWIDTH BROADENING. BENCH EXPERIMENTS WILL BE PERFORMED TO DETERMINE OPTICAL CONFIGURATION FOR THE FINAL RUGGED PACKAGE DESIGN. PACKAGED PROTOTYPES WILL BE BUILT AND TESTED. FINAL PROTOTYPES WILL BE BUILT AND AVAILABLE TO NASA LABORATORY FOR TESTING.