As of now I have been searching for about 2 hours for a suitable laser diode, not too much time but I figured I'd post here and see if anyone has found anything as I continue my search.
After going through the manual these are the required characteristics of a laser diode such that the functionality of the system is preserved:
10 MHz pulse capability
173 mA max drive current, so threshold current should be less than this
< 10 ns response time
Typically, high speed pulsed laser diodes require duty cycles < 2% to eliminate thermal factors. What is the duty cycle of the CLK signal of the OPT3103? I briefly found in Figure 4 and 5 that duty cycle is proportional to register values (NUM_AVG_SUB_FRAMEs + 1)/(NUM_SUB_FRAMEs+1), since each of those registers are 12 bit wide generating the specific duty cycle required by the laser diode should be possible. Can someone confirm that this is indeed the way to control the CLK duty cycle? This complicates things as the SNR is also proportional to (NUM_AVG_SUB_FRAMEs + 1) and so is current output. According to Figure 4 a 2% duty cycle results in 0.02 "supply current ratio" can someone explain what is meant by this?
While finding laser diodes with the appropriate response time has been straightforward, it has been difficult to find laser diodes that can be pulsed at 10 MHz and function at currents below the 173 mA limit. Additionally, trying to figure out if the appropriate duty cycle can be generated while mainlining the required current has been challenging.
Has anyone found a suitable laser diode for this system?
