Broadband Optical Chaos Generation for Ranging Applications

Description

Generation of chaos by the nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers has recently attracted much attention. While optical chaos was mainly applied in secure communications, the broadband nature was recently considered for other applications. Chaotic lasers give broadband spectra that correspond to narrow autocorrelation peaks. This enables high-precision range measurements in lidar systems. These signals were typically obtained from perturbations such as constant optical injections. Recently, the researchers investigated a new alternative approach using strongly modulated optical injections. The resultant maximum chaotic bandwidth is broader than that generated by constant optical injections. This research will explore the feasibility of harnessing the signal to improve the precision of chaotic lidar systems. Since the generated spectra contain residual narrowband peaks at the modulation frequencies, the capability of simultaneously performing Doppler measurements will be explored. Furthermore, by incorporating frequency-domain measurements, the requirements of high-speed time-domain recording can be eliminated in the proposed investigation.