Abstract. The frame of a laser diode transmitter for intersatellite communication is concisely introduced. A simple, novel and visual method for measuring the diffraction-limited wavefront of the transmitter by a Jamin double-shearing interferometer is proposed. To verify the validity of the measurement, the far-field divergence of beam is additionally rigorously analysed in terms of the Fraunhofer diffraction. The measurement, the necessary analyses and discussion are given in detail. By directly measuring the fringe widths and quantitatively interpreting the interference fringes, the minimum detectable wavefront height (DWH) of the wavefront is only 0.2λ (the distance between the perfect plane wavefront and the actual wavefront at the transmitting aperture) and the corresponding divergence is only 65.84 µrad. This indicates that the wavefront approaches the diffraction-limited condition. The results show that this interferometer is a powerful tool for testing the semiconductor laser beam's wavefront, especially the diffraction-limited wavefront.

Keywords: semiconductor laser diode, double-shearing interferometer, divergence, diffraction-limited

Print publication: Issue 3 (March 2005)
Received 9 October 2004, accepted for publication 26 January 2005
Published 3 February 2005