Anomalously wide continuous tuning range of the emission frequency of an injection laser with an external selective resonator

A study was made of an anomalously wide continuous tuning range of the emission frequency of an injection laser with an external resonator operating under conditions of self-stabilized single-frequency lasing. The self-stabilization was observed for a large number of lasers with different structures, both at room and liquid nitrogen temperatures. A study was made of the influence of the power, degree of coupling with the external part of the laser, resonator length, and pass band of a selective component on the continuous tuning range. In the self-stabilization regime this range was 10-30 times greater than the corresponding range for a laser operating under conventional conditions. A nontrivial feature of hopping between longitudinal laser modes at the limit of the tuning range was observed. This feature was explained on the basis of a theory proposed by Bogatov, Eliseev, Okhotnikov, Rakhval'skii, and Khairetdinov [Sov. J. Quantum Electron. 13 , 1221 (1983)].