1 MHz Akinetic Dispersive Ring Cavity Swept Source at 850 nm

A fast dual mode-locked akinetic optical swept source at 850-nm central wavelength is presented using a dispersive cavity. We demonstrate that single mode fiber can be successfully used as dispersive element to induce mode locking. A first locking condition is imposed by driving the optical gain at a high frequency, to induce mode locking, while a second locking condition involves sweeping at a rate close to resonance value. In this regime, using the same fiber length in the loop, sweeping rates of 0.5 and 1 MHz are demonstrated with proportional reduction in the tuning bandwidth. The axial range of the swept source was evaluated by scanning through the channeled spectrum of a Michelson interferometer.