Orthogonally linear polarized lasers (I) — principle and devices

Two kinds of orthogonally polarized lasers, i.e. Zeeman dual-frequency lasers and four-frequency ring lasers (laser gyros) have been developed since the invention of lasers, in which circularly polarized lights oscillate. This paper summarizes recent progress of the study on orthogonally linear polarized lasers with the standing wave cavity. Firstly, the expression of producing orthogonally linear polarized lights in standing wave cavity, i.e. laser frequency splitting, is given. Almost all the birefringence effects made in laser cavity are used to produce orthogonally linear polarized lights. The effect includes quartz crystal birefringence effect, calcite birefringence effect, stress (photo-elastic) birefringence effect and electro-optical birefringence effect. Secondly, several physical phenomena of orthogonally linear polarized lasers are discovered such as aberrance of frequency splitting curves caused by optical activity of quartz crystal, order-passing of longitudinal modes with frequency splitting and strong modes competition. Finally, because the traditional Zeeman dual frequency laser cannot output frequency difference larger than 3 MHz, the approaches of obtaining larger frequency difference are studied. The sequential results, several kinds of orthogonally polarized lasers, are described, such as birefringence dual frequency lasers outputting a frequency difference from 40 MHz to hundreds of megahertz, birefringence-Zeeman dual frequency lasers outputting a frequency difference from 1 MHz to hundreds of megahertz, the LD pumped YAG birefringence dual frequency laser outputting frequency difference of several gigahertz, and the lasers whose longitudinal mode spacing is c4L instead of c2L.