A package for at least one laser diode includes: leads configured to be electrically connected to the at least one laser diode; a base including a mounting surface on which the at least one laser diode is to be mounted and a lateral wall located around the mounting surface so as to surround the at least one laser diode, the lateral wall defining first through-holes and including a light-transmissive part configured to transmit a laser beam emitted from the at least one laser diode; and a lead holding member bonded to the lateral wall of the base and defining second through-holes. The leads are disposed through the first through-holes and the second through-holes. At least a central portion of each of the leads is made of copper.

The invention refers to an optical instrument for determining a wavelength of light generated by a light source, comprising a signal generator for generating a modulation signal, a tunable optical filter device configured to receive the modulation signal, the tunable optical filter device configured to modulate the light generated by the light source based on the modulation signal, an optical detector device configured to detect a degree of modulation of light modulated by the tunable optical filter device, and an analyser configured to determine the wavelength of the light based the degree of modulation.

A laser chip is described which comprises a plurality of gain areas. Each gain area comprises a ridge waveguide and a wavelength locking element, where the wavelength locking element in a gain area defines the output wavelength characteristics of visible light emitted from that gain area and adjacent gain areas comprise different wavelength locking elements.

Described herein are optical sensing devices for photonic integrated circuits (PICs). A PIC may comprise a plurality of waveguides formed in a silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate, and a plurality of heterogeneous lasers, each laser formed from a silicon material of the SOI substrate and to emit an output wavelength comprising an infrared wavelength. Each of these lasers may comprise a resonant cavity included in one of the plurality of waveguides, and a gain material comprising a non-silicon material and adiabatically coupled to the respective waveguide. A light directing element may direct outputs of the plurality of heterogeneous lasers from the PIC towards an object, and one or more detectors may detect light from the plurality of heterogeneous lasers reflected from or transmitted through the object.

An optoelectronic semiconductor laser component may include at least two laser units. The semiconductor laser component may have an output coupling surface configured to generate electromagnetic radiation in the semiconductor laser component. Each laser unit may include a laser resonator having a resonator axis, an output coupling mirror and a first and a second resonator mirror with a primary section of the resonator axis running laterally therebetween. The output coupling mirror may be formed by a partial region of the output coupling surface. Along the primary section of the resonator axis at least one contact strip is arranged on the output coupling surface, and extends to a metallic connection surface. The laser units may be aligned in such a way that the primary sections of the resonator axes run parallel to one another and the output coupling mirrors face one another.

In various embodiments, laser systems or resonators incorporate two separate cooling loops that may be operated at different cooling temperatures. One cooling loop, which may be operated at a lower temperature, cools beam emitters. The other cooling loop, which may be operated at a higher temperature, cools other mechanical and/or optical components, for example optical elements such as lenses and/or reflectors.

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 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 AIGalnAsSb/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 AIGal-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.

It is an aim of the present invention to provide ultra-compact highly-integrated diffraction-grating semiconductor lasers on chips. Various embodiments combined enable the lasers to be compact in size, light weight, mechanically rugged, low in manufacturing cost, and in some cases high in electrical wall-plugged power efficiency or high in optical power output, comparing to typical lasers based on discrete optical components.

A fixed input current is provided to a pump laser of an optical pumping block. Further, a first tuning temperature is provided to the pump laser while providing the fixed input current. The first tuning temperature is based on a target band of a pumping beam and causes the pump laser to generate a light beam having a first frequency band that is dictated by the first tuning temperature and the fixed input current. Further, a second tuning temperature is provided to a temperature dependent optical reflector configured to receive the light beam. The second tuning temperature is based on the target band of the pumping beam and causes the optical reflector to reflect light of the light beam that is within a second frequency band that corresponds to the target frequency band. The reflected light beam is emitted into a transmission optical medium configured to carry an optical signal.