A ring laser gyroscope without lock-in phenomenon

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that rotating ring lasers can exhibit Sagnac effect frequency shifts without lock-in phenomenon when backscattering exceeds a certain threshold, supported by theoretical, numerical, and experimental evidence.

Contribution

It introduces a method to observe Sagnac frequency shifts without lock-in in ring lasers by controlling backscattering strength, combining theory, simulation, and experiment.

Findings

Frequency shifts observed without lock-in when backscattering is strong enough.

Theoretical and numerical results align with experimental data.

Semiconductor fiber-optic ring laser gyroscope confirms the phenomenon.

Abstract

We theoretically and numerically study the effect of backscattering on rotating ring lasers by employing the Maxwell-Bloch equations. We show that frequency shifts due to the Sagnac effect incorporating the effect of backscattering can be observed without lock-in phenomenon, if the strength of backscattering originating in the bumps of the refractive index is larger than a certain value. It is also shown that the experimental results corresponding to the theoretical ones can actually be obtained by using a semiconductor fiber-optic ring laser gyroscope.