I ADAMS. A.R.

: Band structure enghxring for low-threshold high with the phase factor
__
efficiency semiconductor lasers, Electron. Left.. 1986.22, DO. 249-
250 (3)
2 RING, w.s., A D M ( S . ~ R . , mus, P.J.A., and VAN WNGEN,T.:
Elimination of intervalence band absorption in compressively
strained InGsAsLlnP 1 . 5 MQW ~ lams o b 4 by hydrostatic The phase difference A@(?, r) = Yt)- Wt-r) contains the phase
pressure measurements, Electron. Lcff.. 1992,28, pp. 56%570 noise of the lam and is characterised by its variance [SI.
3 FUCHS, G., HORER, I., HANGLEITER, A., -LE. v., and SCHOU, F.:
Intewalence band absorption in unstrained InGaAs multiple
quantum well structures, Appl. Phys. Lett.. 1992, 60, (Z), pp. 231-
233
4 EPPENGA, R., SCHUURMANS, M.F.H.,and COWC, S.: New k.p. theory
for GaAs/Ga,&I& quantum wells, Phys. Rev. E, 1987, 36, (3),
pp. 15541564
5 ZAWADZKI, w : Intraband and interband magneto-optical
transitions in semiconductors, in LAWHR. G., and RASHBA, E.I.
(Eds).: Landau level spectroscopy (North Holland, Amsterdam,
1991). Chap. 9, pp. 483-512

FMCW-LIDAR with tunable twin-guide laser generator

diode a
f
A. Dieckmann

I d X i n g term: Optical radur, Semiconductor lasers, LIDAR

The realisation of a coherent frequency modulated continuous

wave LIDAR used for the aceuntie mcgsurcment 0f short
distances employing a tunable twin-guide laser diode is
demonstrated for the fmt time. A relative accuracy of distance
measurement of 4 x l O has hen achieved at adistaoce of some
antimetm.
b
Introduction: For noncontact distance measurement as used for EmI
example in automation, robotics and testing equipment, the coher- Fig* FMCW-LIDAR vsfem
ent frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar tech- Experimental setup
nique using semiconductor laser diodes as light sources has b Instantanwus fquencies of two interferometer anns
recently gained particular interest [141. This is due to the high
accuracy, which is to be expected for wideIy tunable laser diodes.
In this Letter we present far the fm time a light detaction and With a given fiequency tuning range Af the time delay 7 can be
raoginS (LIDAR)systan which uses a tunable twin-guideW G ) calculated by eqn. I after measuring the intermediate frequency&
laser diode. Among the e k c t r o d y tunabk laser diodes, the with the frequency cuunter C1 (Fig. la). This however requiresAJ
TTG lascr diode exhibits by far the largest oontinuous tuning to he determined precisely. The Mach-Zehndex interferometer
n
range Afaf JKX)GHz[qto 1.4TIh for the emision fresuency. eliminates the need to measure Afdirectly. Instead, the distance R
Owing to its inverse pmportianality to U,the accuracy in distance can be easily reiated to the reference frequency& by
measnrement should be optimised using TTG lasers as light
so- A further decisive advantage of the l T G laser diode is in - fir R e f
(4)
its simple tuning scheme requiring only a single fresuency control fwf 2
current [al. In spite afexcess linewidth broadening by shot noise in for A@(f,d = 0.
the tuning region [9] the theory predicts that the accuracy of the For A@ # 0 the relative accuracy is given by
LIDAR system is not degraded up to distances of lOcm [5].
Expertnenr: The setup of the experimental LlDAR system is R
&MM in la. The lTG diode is fquwy-mOdulated where @@and@,<,denote the total phases of the interferometer sig-

-
by applying a current ramp 1, to the tuning section While the Cur- nals during T,. A@, and A@d are the phase emom of both interfer-
rent into the active section is kept mmbmt. The ramp generator ometer sign& d t i n g from the phase noise of the laser.
triggers two freSuenCY axmters c1 and c2. The laser output The reference hterfemmtu also to comFnsae for the
~~~~~~~~o~ 2
The
~~~r~~~
entering the MicheIson i n ~ e x - ~ is~ divided and
nonlinearities of the frequency against
time (or current) relation-
ship of typical ITG laser diodes [q.Therefore a strict time-linear

-
supposed in Fig. Ib is no longer n e w .
used both ps a oscilktor Bs a probe signal. a probe tuning characteristic
Results md ctirnrsrion.. The first measurements were carried out
signal from the target (at is mixed with the with a TI% laser &Ode in a Its
local m a a t o r signal in the photodet&or pD1, As illustrated in
Fig. Ib the round trip time &hy r = 2R/c (with c the light veloc- linewidth loMHz Over a f q u e n c y tuning Of 230GHz

ity) between both is in pDI into an RF [IO]. For test reasons only a limited tuning mge of -80GHz WBS
with an intermediate frequency &. Assuming a linear frequency Fis. shows a sia (upper and the
ramp, the following equation holds forf,: applied c w e n t ramp (lower trace) displayed on an oscilloscope.
Apart from a stable interference a frequency chirp can be noticed
AI = ?Af U), which results from the nonlinear AI,)-characteristic of the laser
T S diode. The relative accuracy AR/R according to eqn. 5 is calcn-
where T, denotes the sweep duration time of the c u m t ramp. lated to be 1.6 x IO3. F.xperimmtaUy, a relative accuracy of -4 x
The corresponding photocurrent of PDI is proportional to Ib3has been achieved with this system for distances up to 3cm
3(3a ELECTRONICS LETTERS 17th February 1994 Vol. 30 No. 4
using R,, = 5m.
Fig. 1 Photograph of heterodyne signal a d applied current ramp
Upper trace: heterodyne signal
Lower trace: current ramp
The next step will be to insert a TTG laser diode with a buried
heterostructure (BH) having a frequency tuning range of 600-
900GHz and an overall linewidth of 30MHz. As mentioned
above, the gain in accuracy resulting from the enlarged tuning
range is not cancelled out by the excess linewidth broadening for
distances up to lOcm [5]. Accordingly with a BH-TTG laser diode
the accuracy is expected to be improved by an order of magnitude
compared to the results presented above.
Conclusion: An FMCW-LIDAR with a TTG laser diode was dem-
onstrated for the first time. Measurements with this system yielded
a relative accuracy of 4 x IO- for distance measurements with the
prospect of being improved by an order of magnitude. Together
with its simple tuning scheme the TTG laser diode proves to be a
promising light source for highly accurate distance measurement
applications using the FMCW-LIDAR technique.
Acknowledgment: The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful
discussions with M.C. Amann, W. Harth, M. Claassen, B.
Borchert, T.Wolf and A. Ebberg.
0 IEE 1994 13 December 1993
Electronics Letters Online No: 19940206
A. Dieckmann (Siemens AG, Corporate Research and Development
Otto-Hahn-Ring 6. 81739 Munich. Germany)
References
STRZELECKI, E.M.,COHEN, D.A.,and COLDREN. L.A.: Investigation of
tunable single frequency diode lasers for sensor applications, IEEE
J. Lightwave Technol., 1988, LT4, (IO), pp. 161&1618
SLOTWINSKI, A.R., GOODWIN. F.E., and SIMONSON, D.L.: Utilizing
AlGaAs laser diodes as a source for frequency modulated
continuous wave (FMCW) coherent laser radars, SPIE Proc.
Laser Diode Technology and Applications, 1989, 1043, pp. 245-251
BEHElM. G., and FRITSCH, K.: Remote displacement measurements
using a laser diode, Electron. Lett., 1983, 21, (3). pp. 93-94
BURROWS, E.c., and LIOU, K.-Y.: High resolution laser LIDAR using
two-section distributed feedback semiconductor laser as a coherent
source, Electron. Lett.. WO,%, (9), pp. 577-579
AMANN, M.-C.: Phase noise limited resolution of coherent LIDAR
using widely tunable laser diodes, Electron. Lett., 1992, 28, (18).
pp. 169&1696
ILLEK.~., THULKE, w., SCHANEN,~., L A N G . ~ . , and AMANN, M.c.:
Over 7nm (875GHz) continuous wavelength tuning by tunable
twin-guide (TTG) laser diode, Electron. Lett., 1990, 26, pp. 4647
WOLF. T., ILLEK, s., RIEGER. J., BORCHERT, 8.. and AMANN, M.C:
Tunable twin-guide (TTG) distributed feedback (DFB) laser with
over lOnm continuous tuning range, Electron. Lett., 1993, 29, (24),
pp. 21242125
SCHANEN. c.F.J., ILLEK, s., LANG, H., THULKE, w., and AMANN, MX.:
Fabrication and lasing characteristics of A = 1 . 5 6 tunable
~ twin-
guide (TTG) DFB lasers, IEEE Proc. J., 1990, 137, (I), pp. 69-73
AMANN, M . C . , and XHIMPE.R.: EXceSS linewidth broadening in
wavelength tunable laser diodes, Electron. Lett.. 1990, 26, (5), pp.
279-280
IO ILLEK, s., WOLF, I., BORCHERT, B., VEUHOFF. E., and RIEGER. J.:
Leakage current reduction in buried heterostructure tunable twin-
guide laser diodes, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys., 1992,31, pp. L689-L691
ELECTRONICS LE77ERS 17th February 1994 Vol. 30
I 7 -
Generation of 110GHz train of
subpicosecond pulses in 1.535 pm s ectral
re ion by a d v d y modelocked In&AsPI
In? lawr #odes
A.G. Deryagin, D.V.Kuksenkov, V.I. Kuchinskii,
E.L. Portnoi and I.Yu. Khrushchev
Indexiqg terms: Semiconductor lasers, Pulse generation
Subpicowand optical pulses are generated by passive
modelocking in bulk active layer InGaAsP semiconductor IWIY
under CW pumping. The saturable absorber regions arc formed
by deep implantation of heavy ions into the diode fads. Optical
pulses with 0.64~8width are realised at llOGHz repetition rate
without using any external AC SOII~FCS. No chmgss in spectra
and autocorrelation trace8 were observed aRer 5Oh of CW
operation.
Introrfucrion: Passively modelocked semiconductor lasers are very
promising as clock generators for ultrahigh bit rate optical trans-
mission and data processing systems due to their ability to p e r -
ate picosecond and subpicosecond optical pulses at high repstition
rates [I-31. The saturable absorber inside the laser diode cavity
which is required for passive modelocking can be formed by deep
implantation of heavy ions into the cleaved facets. Reviously this
method was used for passive modelocking in single quantum well
AlGaAs laser diodes [3]. Q-switching [4] and a complex regime
displaying a modelocked substructure within a gain-switching
envelope pulse [5] in InGaAsP/InP (k=I.5-1.6pm) diode lasers
under pulse pumping were also reported.
We report here the first observation of passive modelocking
under CW pumping in bulk InGaAsFVInP implanted laser diodes.
Structure and preparation of experimental samples: The objects
under study were bulk InGaAsPIInP diode lasers. The separate
confinement laser structures with active layer thickness of 0.1 ~ I I
and total waveguide thickness of 0.4p11 were grown on p-InP
(100) substrates by the standard LPE technique. Wet chemically
etched 3 . 5 width
~ mesastripes were regrown by current blocking
InPFe layers by MOCVD. Cleaved laser diode chips with a reso-
~ mounted on copper heatsinks with In
nator length of 4 0 0 were
solder.
After fabrication of laser samples, O3+ ion implantation into
mi
both facets was performed. The ion energy used was 17MeV, cor-
responding to an average penetration length of l o p . The implan-
tation dosage was gradually increased and the threshold current
value was controlled at every step. The dosage values and corre-
sponding values of the threshold current are given in Table I.
Table 1: Dosage values and corresponding values of threshold
current
0.5~10~~
0.8~10~~ 105
1. ~ X I O ~ ~ 115
5~10~ 120
The increase of threshold current with implantation dosage @,
initially fast, was found to sufficiently slow down when 4 exceeded
a value of @m=1012cn-2. We may suppose that for the mini-
mum value of nonequilibrium carriers lifetime ?, is reached and
with further increase of the dosage the value of T,, does not
decrease significantly. The implantation was stopped when the
dosage had reached a value of 5 ~ 1 0 ~ * c r n - ~ .
The presence of the absorbtion saturation effect was checked in
the Q-switching regime of the investigated samples. For this pur-
pose, the samples were pumped by zp=2ns current pulses and the
signal was registrated by a streak camera with a time resolution of
. measured width of the optical pulses was varying
- 1 . 5 ~ ~The
between 30 and 70ps. Pulse modulation with period equal to the
No. 4 309