Tailoring the coherence length of diode lasers

The control of the coherence properties of laser light is a major success factor in many photonic applications – in areas as diverse as spectroscopy and optical pumping of atoms, nonlinear frequency conversion, interferometry, or laser-based imaging. Established diode laser technology has however only covered individual points of the “coherence length spectrum”. Recently developed electronic techniques for laser coherence control help to fill the remaining gaps, enabling a controlled manipulation of the linewidth and thus, coherence length of diode lasers – from the micron range to hundreds of thousands of kilometres.