Ultra-Stable Miniature Seed Laser for High Power Nd:YAG Lasers

The goal of this effort is to develop a compact, rugged, electrically efficient, tunable semiconductor laser for the purpose of injection seeding Nd:YAG lasers in NASA lidar systems for remote sensing and atmospheric profiling. A highly stable low power seed laser plays a crucial role in these systems by keeping the high power, Q-switched, Nd:YAG laser at a fixed wavelength and single mode. In addition, the seed laser reduces shot-to-shot intensity fluctuations due to mode beating in the YAG laser, which cause damage to internal optics and reduce the laser?s lifetime. Current seed lasers are large, expensive, and suffer under vibration and field use. The proposed miniature seed laser combines optical Bragg waveguide structures and new semiconductor laser technology to create a narrow linewidth laser at the precise wavelength. The entire temperature-stabilized seed laser will be packaged in a robust one-inch-long fiber coupled housing for ultra-stable single frequency output in the face of external vibration and temperature fluctuations.