Patent ID: 6683895
Filing Date: 2004-01-27
Classification: H01S

Abstract:
An external cavity diode laser comprising:a Fabry-Perot diode laser light source tunable by injection current or temperature; an intracavity optical element collimating light from said source; a feedback mirror; and a diffraction grating receiving light from said optical element, diffracting received light to said mirror in a non-zero order, receiving reflected light from said mirror, and directing reflected light back towards said optical element and Fabry-Perot diode laser to complete the external cavity, said diffraction grating additionally directing a portion of said received light from said optical element toward a target; and wherein output wavelength of said external cavity diode laser is discretely tunable in that said Fabry-Perot diode laser has a characteristic selected from a group consisting of lacking an anti-reflection coating and comprising an anti-reflection coating that does not interfere with residual diode laser Fabry-Perot modes providing sufficient differential gain when tuned by injection current or temperature to allow single frequency operation and single longitudinal mode-hopping within a pass band of said grating.