Experimental electric field visualisation of multi-mode dynamics in a short cavity swept laser designed for OCT applications
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Published version
Date
2019-03-04
Authors
Butler, T. P.
Goulding, David
Slepneva, Svetlana
O'Shaughnessy, Ben
Hegarty, Stephen. P.
Huyet, G.
Kelleher, Bryan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Optical Society of America
Published Version
Abstract
An experimental study into the modal dynamics of a short cavity, fast frequency-swept laser is presented. This commercially available external cavity swept source is designed for use in optical coherence tomography (OCT) applications and displays a number of dynamic lasing regimes during the course of the wavelength sweep. Interferometric full electric field reconstruction is employed, allowing for measurement of the laser operation in a time-resolved, single-shot manner. Recovery of both the phase and intensity of the laser output across the entire sweep enables direct visualization of the laser instantaneous optical spectrum. The electric field reconstruction technique reveals the presence of multi-mode dynamics, including coherent mode-locked pulses. During the main part of the imaging sweep, the laser is found to operate in a second harmonic sliding frequency mode-locking regime. Examination of the modal evolution of this coherent regime reveals evidence of previously unobserved frequency switching dynamics.
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Keywords
Electric field visualisation , Multi-mode dynamics , Optical coherence tomography (OCT) , Fast frequency-swept laser , Wavelength sweep
Citation
Butler, T.P., Goulding, D., Slepneva, S., O’Shaughnessy, B., Hegarty, S.P., Huyet, G. and Kelleher, B. (2019) 'Experimental electric field visualisation of multi-mode dynamics in a short cavity swept laser designed for OCT applications'. Optics express, 27(5), pp. 7307-7318 doi:10.1364/OE.27.007307