Longitudinal Mode Number Estimation of External Cavity Diode Laser Using Dual Periodic Grating for Optical Profiler System

Abstract

The concept of an optical profiler based on optical resonance was proposed, highlighting the initial requirements for mode number estimation. We proposed a method for estimating the longitudinal mode number of a laser propagating in an external cavity diode laser with high accuracy, utilizing dual-periodic diffraction gratings. These gratings were fabricated using interference lithography. To estimate the mode number, the wavelengths of two different modes are compared. Therefore, the greater the difference between the wavelengths, the higher the accuracy of the mode number determination. While the mode number difference was approximately 35 when using a conventional diffraction grating, this could be increased by a factor of 20 to around 700 using the dual-periodic grating. The relative accuracy achieved was 1.4 × 10−5.