A supporting member supports a peeled end portion formed at an end portion in longitudinal direction representing first direction of an optical fiber, the optical fiber including: a core wire including a core and a cladding; and a jacket configured to enclose the core wire, the jacket being removed at the peeled end portion to expose the core wire. The supporting member includes: a first member; a second member fixed to the first member; a housing portion provided between the first member and the second member, the housing portion extending along the peeled end portion and being configured to house the peeled end portion; and a processed member housed in the housing portion and provided around the peeled end portion, the processed member being configured to cause transmission or scattering of light leaking from the peeled end portion.

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including medium-encoded computer program products, for a universal laser system including a laser operable to produce an infrared laser beam for a range of wavelengths, an optics assembly operable to focus and direct the laser beam, and electronics communicatively coupled with the laser and the optics assembly, the electronics being configured to control the laser and the optics assembly, where the laser is configured to produce the infrared laser beam at wavelengths in the range of wavelengths that overlap with absorption peaks due to higher-order, non-linear oscillations of molecular bonds of each polymeric material of at least ten different polymeric materials, thereby generating heat from absorption of photon energy from the infrared laser beam.

A multi-wavelength multi-port laser and router. By arranging a reflective facet at one end of the port-selection semiconductor optical amplifier and a partial reflector at one end of the wavelength-selection semiconductor optical amplifier, and cooperating with the intra-cavity wavelength router to form N×N optical resonant cavities, so that each optical resonant cavity can only emit the wavelength corresponding to the lowest round-trip loss between input and output ports. The extra-cavity wavelength router is mirrored with respect to the intra-cavity wavelength router, so that one or more wavelengths of light excited by any port-selection semiconductor optical amplifier can be transmitted from the corresponding output port of the extra-cavity wavelength router. The switching of the wavelength and output ports of the router is performed by on-off switching of the port-selection semiconductor optical amplifier and wavelength-selection semiconductor optical amplifier, and the switching time can be less than 1 ns.

A monolithic edge emitting semiconductor laser comprising multiple laser diodes using aluminum indium gallium arsenide phosphide AlInGaAs/InGaAsP/InP material system, emitting in long wavelengths (1250 nm to 1720 nm). Each laser diode contains an active region comprising aluminium indium gallium arsenide quantum wells (AlInGaAs QW) and aluminum indium gallium arsenide (AlInGaAs) barriers and is connected to the subsequent monolithic laser diode by highly doped, low bandgap and low resistive indium gallium arsenide junction called tunnel junction.

In various embodiments, multiple laser emitters are arranged in one or more linear stacks and emit beams to one or more linear stacks of interleaving mirrors. The interleaving mirrors direct the beams to a shared exit point, thereby forming an output beam stack. The optical distances traversed by each beam from its emitter to the shared exit point are all equal to each other.

A laser device includes a laser configured to generate laser light and a laser control module configured to receive at least a portion of the laser light generated by the laser, to generate a control signal and to feed the control signal back to the laser for stabilizing the frequency, wherein the laser control module includes a tunable frequency discriminating element which is preferably continuously frequency tunable, and where the laser control module is placed outside the laser cavity.

A spectroscopic laser sensor based on hybrid III-V/IV system-on-a-chip technology. The laser sensor is configured to either (i) be used with a fiber-optic probe connected to an intravenous/intra-arterial optical catheter for direct invasive blood analyte concentration level measurement or (ii) be used to measure blood analyte concentration level non-invasively through an optical interface attached, e.g., to the skin or fingernail bed of a human. The sensor includes a III-V gain-chip, e.g., an AlGaInAsSb/GaSb based gain-chip, and a photonic integrated circuit, with laser wavelength filtering, laser wavelength tuning, laser wavelength monitoring, laser signal monitoring and signal output sections realized on a chip by combining IV-based semiconductor substrates and flip-chip AlGa1-nAsSb/GaSb based photodetectors and embedded electronics for signal processing. Embodiments of the invention may be applied for real-time monitoring of critical blood analyte concentration levels such as lactates, urea, glucose, ammonia, albumin, etc.

Building blocks are provided for on-chip chemical sensors and other highly-compact photonic integrated circuits combining interband or quantum cascade lasers and detectors with passive waveguides and other components integrated on a III-V or silicon. A MWIR or LWIR laser source is evanescently coupled into a passive extended or resonant-cavity waveguide that provides evanescent coupling to a sample gas (or liquid) for spectroscopic chemical sensing. In the case of an ICL, the uppermost layer of this passive waveguide has a relatively high index of refraction that enables it to form the core of the waveguide, while the ambient air, consisting of the sample gas, functions as the top cladding layer. A fraction of the propagating light beam is absorbed by the sample gas if it contains a chemical species having a fingerprint absorption feature within the spectral linewidth of the laser emission.

A discrete wavelength tunable laser having an optical cavity which comprises: a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA); a demultiplexer (Demux) having a single input and a plurality of outputs, the Demux configured to receive the output of the SOA and to produce a plurality of fixed spectral passbands within the gain bandwidth of the SOA; one or more tunable distributed Bragg reflector(s) (DBR(s)) arranged to receive the outputs of the Demux, each tunable DBR configured to select a reflective spectral band within the gain bandwidth of the SOA upon application of a bias current; wherein the SOA forms the back end mirror of the optical cavity; the one or more tunable DBRs form the front end mirror of the optical cavity; and wherein the lasing channel of the discrete wavelength tunable laser is chosen by the overlap of the selected reflective spectral band of one of the one or more tunable DBRs with a fixed spectral passband of the Demux.

A symmetric distributed feedback (DFB) laser that is integrated in a silicon based photonic integrated circuit can output light from both sides of the symmetric DFB laser onto waveguides. The light in the waveguides can be phase adjusted and combined using an optical coupler. The symmetric DFB laser can generate light and symmetrically output light onto different lanes of a multi-lane transmitter.