Superlum's Broadsweepers are widely tunable external cavity lasers specifically designed for applications requiring very fast and precision tuning of laser wavelength with a very high reproducibility of the instantaneous wavelength, like optical coherence tomography, interferometry, spectroscopy, sensing, metrology and others. The key element of a Broadsweeper is a Superlum's semiconductor optical amplifier in the corresponding spectral range. These amplifiers have very broad gain spectrum and high fiber-to-fiber gain, which determines very wide tuning range and high output power of Broadsweepers. Standard sources have a tuning range of 50 nm for an 850-nm band and of 60 nm in a 1060-nm band. The tuning range may be increased to 70 – 80 nm upon request.

A fast and narrow-band acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) is used as a selective intracavity element for tuning and sweeping the laser wavelength. The wavelength of a Broadsweeper is determined merely by the frequency of the RF signal applied to the AOTF, which enables random access to the wavelengths in the entire tuning range. The access time is equal to the tuning time of the AOTF. This time is as short as 7 µs for the fastest Broadsweepers. The wavelength resolution is 0.05 nm. Upon request, the RF signal synthesizer which is used to drive the AOTF can be preprogrammed at the factory to obtain a particular law of variation of wavelength in time. The active temperature control of the AOTF ensures, for the lifetime of the Broadsweeper, excellent stability of the emitted wavelength and very high sweep-to-sweep reproducibility. Moreover, the use of an AOTF ensures excellent sweep linearity.

A specially developed fast and precision power control loop provides very good stability of output power over the full tuning range for a tuning rate of up to 100,000 nm/s. A careful design of external cavity ensures excellent spectral purity with a side-mode suppression of -50 dB over the full tuning range of a Broadsweeper.

The following operation modes are available:

• Operation at any selected wavelength within the full tuning range.
• Linear sweep of wavelength with a given start/stop wavelength and a given rate.
• Alternation of the two desired wavelengths (any two wavelengths from the full tuning range may be chosen).

Features:

• High output power.
• Narrow linewidth.
• Tuning speed of up to 100,000 nm/s
• Stable wavelength during the lifetime of a laser.
• No moving parts in the external cavity.
• All-fiber design (PM-fiber).
• Powered directly from a wall outlet.
• RS-232 remote control capability.
• Easy to customize.

Available models:

Electrical Specifications: 110 V AC or 220 V AC, 15 W.
Operating temperature range: +15 °C to +35 °C.
Physical dimensions: 316 × 257 × 161 mm.
Weight: 6.0 kg.