We propose an innovative miniaturized calibration stimulus, based on a hybrid tunable laser, combining a semiconductor optical source and a highly integrated photonics chip. This enabling technology allows the fabrication of calibration stimuli of extremely small size and high spectral resolution, in the Visible (VIS), Near Infrared (NIR) and Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) ranges. We developed a calibrator breadboard, based on a tunable laser, with a central wavelength of 850 nm and a tunability range of approximately 50 nm. The breadboard integrates an electronics system, which drives the laser and provides the calibrator with electrical and data interfaces, and a back-end optical system, which shapes the calibrator output optical beam and defines its polarization. The breadboard passed performance and environmental testing. Results exhibit a linewidth of less than 0.1 pm, a tuning accuracy of less than 1 pm, an absolute wavelength drift of less than 1 pm/h, and continuous tunability over the full spectral range from 825 to 875 nm. Peak output power is higher than 2 mW. The obtained results are extremely promising and open a wide range of applications of the proposed system as on-board calibrator for both small and large optical instruments.
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