to the nearly constant breakthrough voltage, which yields a heat generation proportional to the tuning current. The thermal wavelength shift roughly corresponds to a temperature increase of 40K indicating a thermal resistance of -120K/W. As with the forward bias, the maximum wavelength shift is determined by the extinction of the laser operation. Under both biasing conditions the tuning behavio...

A record wide continuous wavelength tuning range of IO.lnm is demonstrated in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with monolithically integrated thin-film metal heaters. Single longitudinal mode and single transverse mode are maintained throughout the tuning range. The thin-film heater can stand higher temperatures over a wider tuning range. It is also separated and electrically is...

Spectrally-isolated narrowband Cherenkov radiation from commercial nonlinear photonic crystal fibers is demonstrated as an ultrafast optical source with a visible tuning range of 485-690 nm, which complementarily extends the near-infrared tuning range of 690-1020 nm from the corresponding femtosecond Ti:sapphire pump laser. Pump-tosignal conversion efficiency routinely surpasses 10%, enabling m...

WAVELENGTH MODULATION SPECTROSCOPIC CHEMICAL SENSING USING A PIEZO-ELECTRIC TUNABLE FIBER BRAGG GRATING LASER Michael Buric, M.S. University of Pittsburgh, 2005 Real time gas sensing is paramount to numerous applications in industry as well as in the consumer sector. Many gas sensing applications such as fossil energy production require lowcost, multi-species sensors that are able to operate in...

Tunable laser radiation with megahertz linewidth is generated with a simple, inexpensive, and compact laser system that uses two common microscope slides as the only intracavity tuning elements. The laser emits two radiation modes whose frequencies are separated by 1.2 GHz, corresponding to the free spectral range of the laser resonator. The frequencies may be rapidly varied over a range of 1.5...

We demonstrate electrically pumped large-area edge-emitting InGaAsP/InP two-dimensional photonic crystal lasers with angled facets at room temperature. The laser uses a weak index perturbation surface photonic crystal structure to control optical modes in the wafer plane. Measurements of the laser spectra show that the modal selection is due to satisfying the Bragg resonance conditions in both ...

A new optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the mid-infrared wavelength region of 3-3.8mum with an idler output power of up to 1.5 W has been developed. The singly resonant OPO is pumped by a single-mode, 10-W, continuous-wave Nd:YAG laser and consists of a bow-tie ring cavity with a fan-out periodically poled lithium niobate crystal and a low-finesse intracavity air-spaced etalon. The single...

Commercially available GaN-based laser diodes were antireflection coated in our laboratory and operated in an external cavity in a Littrow configuration. A total tuning range of typically 4 nm and an optical output power of up to 30 mW were observed after optimization of the external cavity. The linewidth was measured with a beterodyne technique, and 0.8 MHz at a sweep time of 50 ms was obtaine...