Patent ID: 7526005

Claim:
A VECSEL (Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser) system comprising: a laser device including an active layer in which laser light is generated by pumping and a reflector reflecting the laser light generated in the active layer; an optical element that forms a cavity together with the reflector of the laser device and reduces a linewidth of laser light; a SHG (Second Harmonic Generation) device that is disposed between the laser device and the optical element and doubles the frequency of laser light; a polarization control plate that is disposed in an optical path between the SHG device and the laser device at a Brewster's angle to the laser light from the laser device and is transparent to the light generated by the laser device, and the polarization control plate is any one of a Brewster's angle plate and a Brewster's angle etalon, wherein the optical element is a reflective VBG (Volume Bragg Grating) that reflects greater than 90% of laser light generated by the laser device and incident thereon toward the SHG device by reducing the linewidth of the laser light to a FWHM (Full-Width at Half Maximum) of less than approximately 0.2 nm, and wherein the polarization control plate is formed of a material selected from the group consisting of GaAs, lnP, SiC and Al 2 O 3 .