Narrow Wavelength, Frequency Modulated Source at 1.5 Wavelength

Ultrastable, narrow linewidth, tunable, high reliability sources at 1.5 or 2mm are needed for high performance LIDARs for several NASA applications, including wind speed measurement, surface topography, earth and planetary atmosphere composition measurements. Princeton Optronics proposes to develop a low noise, narrow linewidth, 10W output MOPA source at 1500nm using a tunable, low noise, narrow linewidth, FM modulated seed laser as a master oscillator coupled to a fiber amplifier. The technology developed in this SBIR could be applied to develop a Thulium MOPA at 2mm. The proposed program will develop a MOPA laser system assembled in a small robust package for field applications.The optical design of the system comprises the FM solid-state microchip seed laser in which a FM source drives the piezo tuning actuator in the microchip laser to provide>5GHz frequency modulation at 1kHz rates. The microchip laser is designed for output power of>20mW in single frequency, linear polarized, single transverse mode. This is coupled into the fiber amplifier to produce 10W output with the same narrow linewidth and FM modulation as the seed laser. Isolators are used between the seed and fiber amplifier to prevent ASE and reflections causing noise and lasing of the amplifier.