Premium
Fundamental characteristics of semiconductor ring laser gyroscopes
Author(s) -
Taguchi Kozo,
Fukushima Kaname,
Ishitani Atsuyuki,
Ikeda Masahiro
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
electrical engineering in japan
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.136
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1520-6416
pISSN - 0424-7760
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6416(200009)132:4<73::aid-eej9>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - ring laser gyroscope , gyroscope , ring laser , sagnac effect , semiconductor , physics , laser , rotation (mathematics) , inertial navigation system , beat (acoustics) , optics , semiconductor laser theory , optical rotation , inertial frame of reference , optoelectronics , computer science , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
Semiconductor ring lasers have many capabilities of realizing new functional devices. In this paper, we propose a novel optical inertial rotation sensor using a semiconductor ring laser. 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 semiconductor ring laser gyroscope (S‐RLG). Experimental results are as follows. (1) The Sagnac frequency shift can be detected as a beat note by the terminal voltage change of the semiconductor ring laser without branching the circulating optical power. Therefore, the S‐RLG system can be constructed very simply as compared with already proposed optical gyroscopes. (2) The detected beat frequency between two counterpropagating lasers in the S‐RLG is directly proportional to the applied rotation rate. (3) Furthermore, we present data demonstrating the injection locking phenomenon around low rotation rate. These results verify that the proposed S‐RLG operates as an optical inertial rotation sensor based on the Sagnac effect. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 132(4): 73–78, 2000