Injection seeder

Injection seeders are devices that direct the output of small "seed" lasers into the cavity of a much larger laser to stabilize the latter's output. Most seed lasers are stable, single-frequency lasers that emit within the linewidth of the larger laser's gain medium. The single frequency encourages the larger laser to lase in a single longitudinal mode, and the seed laser can also improve the laser's spatial profile and improve the M² parameter. Seed lasers can be continuous or pulsed. Seeding a pulsed laser can reduce variations in the output energy and timing (jitter) from pulse to pulse, and smooth out temporal variations within the pulse. Many commercial lasers use a laser diode as a seeding source.

See also

• Laser construction
• Q-switching
• Mode locking

References

• Spotlight: Injection Seeding, Technical University of Darmstadt

Bibliography

• Boichenko, V.L.; Zasavitskii, I.I.; Kosichkin, Yu.V.; Tarasevich, A.P.; Tunkin, V.G.; Shotov, A.P. (1984). "A picosecond optical parametric oscillator with amplification of the tunable semiconductor laser radiation". Sov. J. Quant. Electronics. 11 (1): 141–143. 
• Magnitskii, S.A.; Malakhova, V.I.; Tarasevich, A.P.; Tunkin, V.G.; Yakubovich, S.D. (1986). "Generation of bandwidth-limited tunable picosecond pulses by injection-locked optical parametric oscillator". Optics Letters. 11 (1): 18–20. Bibcode:1986OptL...11...18M. doi:10.1364/ol.11.000018.