Red emitting monolithic dual wavelength DBR diode lasers for shifted excitation Raman difference spectroscopy

摘要

Raman lines are often obscured by background light or fluorescence especially when investigating biological samples or samples containing impurities. Shifted excitation Raman difference spectroscopy (SERDS) is a technique to overcome this. By exciting the sample with two slightly shifted wavelengths, it is possible to separate the Raman lines and distortions. In this paper, monolithic dual wavelength DBR diode lasers meeting the demands of Raman spectroscopy and SERDS will be presented. The wavelengths are stabilized and selected by using deeply-etched 10th order surface gratings with different periods manufactured using i-line wafer stepper lithography. Two possible resonator concepts, i.e. a mini-array of two parallel DBR RW-lasers and a Y-branch DBR laser, will be compared. Established excitation wavelengths for Raman spectroscopy at 671 nm and 785 nm are chosen. The total laser length is 3 mm;the ridge width is 2.2 μm for the 785 nm devices and 5 μm for the 671 nm lasers. The length of the DBR gratings is 500 μm. The devices at 671 nm reach output powers up to 100 mW having an emission width smaller than 12 pm (FWHM). The 785 nm lasers show output powers up to 200 mW and a narrow emission below 22 pm. For the dual wavelength lasers the spectral distance between the two excitation lines is about 0.5 nm as targeted. The power consumption at both wavelengths is below 1 W. These data proof that the devices are well suited for their application in portable Raman measurement systems such as handheld devices using SERDS.