An ion laser is described having an etalon incorporated therein so as to provide maximum mechanical and thermal stability of the etalon position, as well as enable the etalon to be tuned by temperature control without contamination of the laser optical cavity by the etalon heating element. The laser includes a resonator structure made up of a pair of reference plates positioned adjacent the ends of the laser optical cavity and maintained in a set, spaced-apart position and orientation by a plura...

A multi-wavelength etalon comprises at least two regions with different indices of refraction. The change in refractive index alters the wavelengths of incident light, and thus the number of wavelengths between the reflective surfaces of the etalon, and therefore the etalon's transmission characteristics. By selecting specific indices of refraction, an etalon can be provided which produces peaks and troughs at preselected wavelengths in each region. The transition between two adjacent regions wi...

A double pass etalon based spectrometer. Spectral components of a diffused beam are angularly separated as they are transmitted through an etalon. A retroreflector reflects the transmitted components back through the etalon. Twice transmitted spectral components are focused onto a light detector which in a preferred embodiment is a photo diode array. The spectrometer is very compact producing precise fringe data permitting bandwidth measurements with precision needed for microlithography for bot...

A micro-etalon having non-beveled outer edges may be mass-produced without suffering from expected breakage problems. Such a configuration allows etalons to be mass-produced, i.e., on a wafer level. The mass-production preferably includes aligning spacer block strips to be diced with two reflective surfaces to form the etalon.

A wavelength locker includes a first beam splitter positioned in a beam path of an output beam produced by a laser. The first beam splitter splits the output beam into a first beam and a second beam. An interferometric optical element is optically contacted to the first beam splitter. The interferometric optical element receives the second beam from the first beam splitter and generates a third beam with an optical power that varies periodically with wavelength. A second beam splitter is positio...

A multi-wavelength etalon comprises at least two regions with different indices of refraction. The change in refractive index alters the wavelengths of incident light, and thus the number of wavelengths between the reflective surfaces of the etalon, and therefore the etalon's transmission characteristics. By selecting specific indices of refraction, an etalon can be provided which produces peaks and troughs at preselected wavelengths in each region. The transition between two adjacent regions wi...

A multi-wavelength etalon suitable for tuning and maintaining the operating frequency of a laser used in an optical communication system is disclosed. The communication system has a representative channel wavelength and a channel spacing. The etalon has a plurality of steps on one of the sides with a step size that is a fraction of the channel spacing. The nominal thickness of the etalon is chosen so that a transmission peak occurs at a wavelength substantially equal to the representative channe...

A multi-pass Fabry-Perot etalon, or bandpass, filter, has a Fabry-Perot cavity defined by two partially reflective mirrors with a gap therebetween and a third reflecting mirror positioned adjacent said two mirrors and arranged to reflect substantially any light eliting said cavity back into it. The filter can replace two single-pass Fabry-Perot etalon filters and can provide lower signal loss and simpler wavelength control.

The present invention provides a relatively simple etalon testing system and process for measuring cavity error of etalons to high precision. It works equally well on solid and air-spaced designs. This invention should be a great aid in the manufacture of high performance etalons, separating out the geometric and reflectivity finesses. The present invention permits measurement of etalon spacings to an accuracy of better than .lamda./1000 (i.e., about 63 picometers [6.3.times.10.sup.-11 m] when u...

Apparatus is described for achieving wavelength selection. Furthermore, the apparatus exhibits very high wavelength resolution, stable operation and rapid returning. A bundle of multi-wavelength light, entering the device, is acoustooptically deflected. This is done by driving two orthogonal acoustic transducrs of the deflector with two suitable frequencies fx and fy. The light so deflected passes first through a wedge etalon having a taper along the X-axis and then through a second wedge etalon...