Recent Development of Fourier Domain Mode-Locked Laser
Lu Chen,
Hongcui Zhang,
Song Yu,
Bin Luo,
Tianwei Jiang
Affiliations
Lu Chen
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing 100876, China
Hongcui Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing 100876, China
Song Yu
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing 100876, China
Bin Luo
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing 100876, China
Tianwei Jiang
State Key Laboratory of Information Photonics and Optical Communications, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10 Xitucheng Road, Beijing 100876, China
Since the advent of Fourier Domain Mode-Locked (FDML) lasers, they have demonstrated outstanding performance in several fields. They achieve high-speed, narrow-linewidth laser output with the new mode-locking mechanism, which has been intensively researched in the past decades. Compared with conventional wavelength-scanning light sources, FDML lasers have successfully increased the scanning rate of frequency-sweeping lasers from kHz to MHz. They are widely used in optical coherence tomography, spectral analysis, microscopy, and microwave photonics. With the deepening research on FDML lasers, several performance metrics have been optimized and improved, offering superior performance for FDML laser-based applications. This paper reviews the principles and key performance indicators of FDML lasers, as well as the recent progress made in some important applications, and highlights further research directions for FDML lasers in the future.
