Continuously grating-tuned external cavity laser with automatic suppression of source spontaneous emission and amplified spontaneous emission

摘要

Disclosed is an external cavity diode laser system comprising a dispersive unit having a proximal and distal end; a gain element, located proximally from the dispersive unit, and that produces coherent light incident upon the dispersive unit, and the dispersive unit dispersing the incident coherent light into dispersed light, the dispersed light comprising a reflected diffraction beam and at least one of angularly-separated source spontaneous emission or angularly-separated amplified spontaneous emission; a guiding unit, located proximally from the dispersive unit, that guides the dispersed light diffracted upon it from the dispersive unit while maintaining an angular separation between the reflected diffraction beam and at least one of angularly-separated source spontaneous emission or angularly-separated amplified spontaneous emission; and a physical filtering device that physically filters the reflected diffraction beam from the spatially separated at least one angularly-separated source spontaneous emission or angularly-separated amplified spontaneous emission guided to the physical filtering device by the guiding unit to produce a low-noise laser beam. Also disclosed are methods relating to producing a low-noise laser beam.