Narrow Linewidth External Cavity Laser Capable of High Repetition Frequency Tuning for FMCW LiDAR

A light source with well-rounded performance including the narrow linewidth, wide frequency tuning range, high repetition rate and good linearity, is highly sought-after for frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) light detection and ranging (LiDAR). In this work, we report a directly frequency modulated external cavity laser with the linewidth of 5.06 kHz. The frequency tuning range of 1.1 GHz, 445.5 MHz, 228.9 MHz are demonstrated at the repetition rate of 1 kHz, 10 kHz and 100 kHz, respectively. The frequency sweep linearization is achieved by iterative learning pre-distortion. The ranging performance with the repetition rate up to 100 kHz is investigated. The signal-to-noise ratio is still higher than 35 dB while the length of delay fiber is 156 m, corresponding to a target 110 m away in free space. These results indicate that the proposed swept-frequency laser has great potential for autonomous driving applications.