A laser diode's junction voltage is a sensitive measure of its temperature and can be used in a thermal control feedback loop. To compensate for the temperature dependence of the laser's internal resistance, we have measured the dynamic resistance, ∂V/∂I, by modulating the injection current and measuring the demodulated voltage. The junction voltage was thus controlled while operating at fixed DC injection current. Over an external temperature range of 15°C to 35°C, this stabilised the centre frequency (wavelength) of a 1651 nm DFB laser diode with a residual mean frequency shift of 60 MHz (0.5pm), less than the uncertainty on the centre frequency of 80 MHz (0.7 pm). Under the same conditions, conventional thermistor control gave a systematic wavelength shift of -8.4 GHz (-76 pm), and control of the uncompensated forward voltage gave a shift of 9.9 GHz (90 pm).

Laser diode wavelength stability is vital for applications such as spectroscopy and data communication, and the emitted wavelength is a function of temperature. In a conventional system, the laser diode temperature is controlled using a Peltier element with a temperature-sensing thermistor, the latter placed at a short distance from the laser diode chip. Despite the use of good thermal design and a case, a change in ambient temperature may cause a change to internal thermal gradients, resulting in a systematic error in the laser diode wavelength. In this paper we describe a novel system to measure the temperature of the laser diode junction via measurement of the junction voltage. The method has been applied to a 1651 nm DFB laser diode for use in tunable diode laser spectroscopy (TDLS) of methane. The wavelength stability of both thermistor-and voltage-control systems are compared over a period of 30 minutes and with different ambient temperatures. Over 30 min at constant ambient temperature, thermistor control provided a precision of ± 0.4 pm (40 MHz) and junction voltage control gave a similar ± 0.6 pm (70 MHz). For an ambient temperature change of 20°C, conventional thermistor control suffered a wavelength change of 76 pm (8.4 GHz), whereas junction voltage control reduced this to 0.6 pm (70 MHz), at or below the level of long-term wavelength precision.