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Definition: a single-frequency laser used for injection locking one or several other lasers
A master laser is a single-frequency laser which is used e.g. for injection locking of one or several slave lasers. Sometimes, the term master laser is also used for a seed laser of a master oscillator power amplifier system.
A master laser often generates an optical power which is well below the output power of the complete laser system; the injection-seeded slave lasers may then be high-power lasers. The modest power requirements for the master laser make it possible to realize a very low level of laser noise, which may be more or less transferred to the whole system. For a master oscillator fiber amplifier (MOFA) system, however, a small linewidth of the master laser may not be desirable, because this could introduce problems with stimulated Brillouin scattering.
See also: injection locking, master oscillator power amplifier
