Abstract

Semiconductor ring lasers have many capabilities of realizing new functional devices. One interesting application of a semiconductor ring laser is a semiconductor ring laser gyroscope, hereafter called a S-RLG. S. Oku et al. demonstrated the low threshold current cw operation of 50 μm square-shaped ring-resonator-type semiconductor laser[1] which consisted of straight wave guides and four total reflection minors. M. Ikeda et al. proposed self-detection method of lasing characteristics for semiconductor ring lasers without branching optical lasing power[2]. The lasing power and the line width as a function of the injection current have been measured with detecting the RF power by the terminal voltage change of a ring LD. If a semiconductor ring laser operates as an optical inertial rotation sensor, a very small and simple optical gyroscope can be realized. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of a S-RLG.

© 1998 IEEE