The relative intensity noise of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with a fiber Bragg grating external cavity

Abstract

The research deals with the topical problem of stabilizing the optical parameters of a single-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. A solution to the problem is proposed by forming an external cavity based on a Bragg grating induced into an optical polarization-maintaining fiber. In this experimental research, the authors estimated the contribution of an external cavity to the relative intensity noise of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser. The stability of the laser generation with a varying phase of back reflections at various pump currents is investigated. The relative intensity noise of laser radiation in the pump current range of 1.1–6.3 mA is estimated using a photodetector with a bandwidth of 8.5 MHz. The phase change of the back reflections was carried out by shifting the optical fiber end with a 100 nm step. As a result of the research, it was obtained that the vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with such an external cavity shows a stable emission in the current range of 1.8–3.2 mA. However, one can observe instability with constant switching between adjacent longitudinal modes outside this range. The most stable laser operation mode with an external cavity against a change in the phase of back reflections is registered at a pump current of 2.78 mA. Utilizing an external cavity with the fiber Bragg grating made it possible to reduce the relative intensity noise from 7.2∙10–10 1/Hz to 1.5∙10–11 1/Hz in the currents range 1.86–3.2 mA. The study can be useful in applications that require an optical radiation coherent source with a low relative intensity noise level (such as coherent optical communication or fiber-optic sensors).