Résumé
Summary form only given. Laser technology is finding applications in areas such as high resolution spectroscopy, radar-lidar, velocimetry, and more recently in the THz domain such as imaging or spectroscopy, where highly coherent tunable high power light sources are required. The Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VECSEL) technology [1] has been identified for years as a good candidate to reach high power high coherence and broad tunability while covering a wide emission wavelength range exploiting III-V semiconductor technologies. Offering such performances in the Near- and Middle-IR range, GaAs- and Sb-based VECSEL technologies seem to be a well suited path to meet the required specifications of demanding applications. Our expertise built up in this field allows the realization of compact and low power consumption marketable products, with performances that do not exist on the market today in the 0.8-1.1 μm and 2-2.5 μm spectral range.Here we demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge, highly coherent broadly tunable single frequency micro-chip, intra-cavity element free, patented VECSEL technology, integrated into a compact module with driving electronics. Work is in progress for the development of compact highly coherent dual frequency VECSELs for THz emission. Laser devices emitting in the Near and Middle-IR developed in the frame of this work [2] exhibit exciting features compared to diode-pumped solid-state lasers and DFB diode lasers; they combine high power (>100mW) high coherence with a low divergence diffraction limited beam, class A dynamics with Relative Intensity Noise as low as -140dB/Hz and at shot noise level above 200MHz RF frequency (up to 160GHz), free running narrow linewidth at sub MHz level (fundamental limit at Hz level) with high spectral purity (SMSR >55dB), linear polarization (50dB suppression ratio), and broadband continuous tunability greater than 400GHz (30V piezo, 6kHz cut off frequency) with total tunability up to 3THz.