Patent ID: 8179933

Claim:
A method of evaluating a visible light source comprising a semiconductor laser optically coupled to a wavelength conversion device, the semiconductor laser comprising a gain section, a wavelength selective section, and a phase section, and the method comprising: applying a gain drive signal to the gain section of the semiconductor laser at a gain modulation frequency; applying a triangular wave drive signal to the wavelength selective section of the semiconductor laser at a wavelength selective modulation frequency that is greater than the gain modulation frequency, wherein the visible light source emits a plurality of optical output pulses in response to the gain drive signal and the triangular wave drive signal; detecting an output power value of individual ones of the plurality of optical output pulses at a selected wavelength; and comparing an output power value of one or more selected output pulses with an output power threshold value to generate an indication of whether the visible light source satisfies an output power specification by a computing device.