A comparison of Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometers for laser linewidth measurements

Author

Canagasabey, Albert ; Michie, Andrew ; Canning, John ; Holdsworth, John ; Fleming, Simon ; Wang, Hsiao-Chuan ; Åslund, Mattias L.

Author_Institution

Interdiscipl. Photonics Labs. (iPL), Univ. of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

fYear

2011

fDate

Aug. 28 2011-Sept. 1 2011

Firstpage

1392

Lastpage

1394

Abstract

The performances of the Michelson (MI) and Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZI) are compared for laser linewidth measurement with the delayed self-heterodyne technique. Voigt fitting is used to extract the Lorentzian and Gaussian components for the MZI and MI with faraday mirrors and also standard gold mirrors. The MI with Faraday mirrors provides a measurement with significantly lower error, owing to the elimination of noise associated with random polarisation drifts.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; Michelson interferometers; laser mirrors; laser variables measurement; spectral line breadth; Gaussian components; Lorentzian components; Mach-Zehnder interferometer; Michelson interferometer; Voigt fitting; delayed self-heterodyne technique; faraday mirrors; laser linewidth measurements; standard gold mirrors; Distributed feedback devices; Fiber lasers; Laser noise; Measurement by laser beam; Mirrors; Semiconductor lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Quantum Electronics Conference & Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO/IQEC/PACIFIC RIM), 2011

Conference_Location

Sydney, NSW

Print_ISBN

978-1-4577-1939-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IQEC-CLEO.2011.6193813

Filename

6193813