| There is demand for a robust, compact and sensitive gyroscope which can be utilized as a navigational tool for modern commercial and military applications, as well as there is a need of constant improvement in performance and reduction in bulk and weight of the gyroscope at the same time. A compact integrated design based on semiconductor materials has the highest hope of meeting the measurement conditions for military and commercial applications as well as providing the potential for low cost, high volume manufacturing.;To this end, my work focuses on fabrication and characterization of one of the key elements of a GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor ring laser (SRL) gyroscope, SRL. The goal of the thesis is to fabricate a SRL with characteristics required for its use in a SRL gyroscope. In this thesis, I first describe the working principle of the SRL gyroscope. The lock-in in the SRL is explained and an approach to break the lock-in is described. Then the effort put into the fabrication of SRL, problems faced and methods used to rectify them is described in detail. Afterwards, I explain the test setup built to characterize the fabricated SRLs. Finally, I quantify the results obtained by characterizing the fabricated structures and research to follow in the future. |
