Effect of polarization properties on Doppler velocimetry with Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting lasers

Abstract This paper presents experimental results and numerical analysis of polarization properties of Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting lasers used for Doppler velocimetry. A good match is found between the numerical results and the experimental results. It include that generating symmetric self-mixing waveforms of the VCSELs must be operated in the bistable region and the frequency difference between the two linear polarization modes must be equal to one of several certain values. We also show that we can select VCSELs that have a frequency difference between the linear polarization modes that is a multiple of ±3 GHz in order to obtain an asymmetric self-mixing waveform.