Study on Frequency Coherence Properties of Light Beams

This paper presents a new concept of frequency coherence in the frequency-time domain to describe the field correlations between two lightwaves with different frequencies. The coherence properties of the modulated beams from lightwave sources with different spectral widths and the modes of Fabry-Per...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of quantum electronics 2009-05, Vol.45 (5), p.514-522
Main Authors: Zhu, Ning Hua, Li, Wei, Wang, Li Xian, Chen, Shuo Fu, Ke, Jian Hong, Zhang, Ya Li, Wen, Ji Min, Liu, Yu, Wang, Xin, Yan, Hai Qing, Xie, Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beams (radiation)
Coherence
Exact sciences and technology
Fabry-Perot
Fabry-PÉrot (FP) laser
Filled plastics
Frequency measurement
Frequency ranges
Frequency shift
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
heterodyne technique
Instruments
Intensity modulation
Laser beams
Laser modes
Lasers
linewidth
Modulation
Optical mixing
Optical modulation
Optics
Physics
Sidebands
Studies
Temperature
Wave optics
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Summary:This paper presents a new concept of frequency coherence in the frequency-time domain to describe the field correlations between two lightwaves with different frequencies. The coherence properties of the modulated beams from lightwave sources with different spectral widths and the modes of Fabry-Perot (FP) laser are investigated. It is shown that the lightwave and its corresponding sidebands produced by the optical intensity modulation are perfectly coherent. The measured linewidth of the beat signal is narrow and almost identical no matter how wide the spectral width of the beam is. The frequency spacing of the adjacent FP modes is beyond the operation frequency range of the measurement instruments. In our experiment, optical heterodyne technique is used to investigate the frequency coherence of the modes of FP laser by means of the frequency shift induced by the optical intensity modulation. Experiments show that the FP modes are partially coherent and the mode spacing is relatively fixed even when the wavelength changes with ambient temperature, bias current and other factors. Therefore, it is possible to generate stable and narrow-linewidth signals at frequencies corresponding to several mode intervals of the laser.
ISSN:0018-9197
1558-1713
DOI:10.1109/JQE.2009.2013102