Blue-to-red tunable SHG from a diode-pumped PPKTP waveguide

Summary form only given. Broadly tunable compact visible laser sources in the spectral region of 500-650 nm are valuable in biophotonics, photomedicine and for many applications including spectroscopy, laser projection and confocal microscopy. Unfortunately, commercially available lasers of this spectral range are in practice bulky and inconvenient in use. An attractive method for the realization of portable visible laser sources is the frequency-doubling of the infrared laser diodes in a nonlinear crystal containing a waveguide [1]. Nonlinear crystal waveguides that offer an order-of-magnitude increase in the IR-to-visible conversion efficiency also enable a very different approach to second-harmonic generation (SHG) tunability in periodically-poled crystals, promising order-of-magnitude increase of wavelength range for SHG conversion. This is possible by utilization of a significant difference in the effective refractive indices of the high-order and low-order modes in multimode waveguides [2]. The recent availability of low-cost, good quality semiconductor diode lasers, offering the coverage of a broad spectral range between 1 µ?? and 1.3 µp? [3,4], in combination with well-established techniques to fabricate good quality waveguides in nonlinear crystals, allows compact tunable CW laser sources in the visible spectral region to be realized [2].

Continuous wave ultraviolet light-induced fiber Bragg gratings in few- And single-mode microstructured polymer optical fibers

We report observations and measurements of the inscription of fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) in two different types of microstructured polymer optical fiber: few-mode and an endlessly single mode. Contrary to the FBG inscription in silica microstructured fiber, where high-energy laser pulses are a prerequisite, we have successfully used a low-power cw laser source operating at 325 nm to produce 1 cm long gratings with a reflection peak at 1570 nm. Peak reflectivities of more than 10% have been observed. © 2005 Optical Society of America.

Cross-relaxation dynamics on anomalous saturation processes in low pressure supersonic cw HF chemical laser amplifier

It is assumed that both translational and rotational nonequilibrium cross-relaxations play a role simultaneoulsy in low pressure supersonic cw HF chemical laser amplifier. For two-type models of gas flow medium with laminar and turbulent flow diffusion mixing, the expressions of saturated gain spectrum are derived respectively, and the numerical calculations are performed as well. The numerical results show that turbulent flow diffusion mixing model is in the best agreement with the experimental result.

Characteristics of a CW HF chemical-laser calculated from a simplified two-dimensional model

A two-dimensional simplified model of an HF chemical laser is introduced. Using an implicit finite difference scheme, the solution of two adjacent parallel streams with diffusion mixing and chemical reaction is generated. A contour of mixing and reaction boundary is obtained without presupposition. The distribution of the HF(v) concentrations, gas temperature and the optical small signal gain (alpha sub V, J) on the flowing plane (X, Y) are presented. Compared with the solution solved directly from a set of Navier-Stokes equations, the results of these two methods agree with each other qualitatively. The influences of the different velocity, temperature (T sub 0) and composition of the two streams on the small signal gain after the nozzle exit are investigated. It is interesting that for larger J with a fixed v, the peaks of alpha sub v-T sub 0 profiles move towards higher T sub 0. The computing method is simple and only a short computing time is needed.

Room-temperature cw and pulsed operation of a diode-end-pumped Tm:YAP laser

We report the continuous-wave and acousto-optical Q-switched operation of a diode-end-pumped Tm:YAP laser. Continuous-wave output power of 3.5 W at 1.99 mu m was obtained under the absorbed pump power of 14 W. Under Q-switched laser operation, the average output power increased from 1.57 W to 2.0 W, with an absorbed pump power of 12.6 W, as the repetition rate increased from 1 kHz to 10 kHz. The maximum Q-switched pulse energy was 1.57 mJ with a repetition rate of 1 kHz. The minimum pulse width was measured to be about 80 ns, corresponding to a peak power of 19.6 kW.

Laser-vapour interaction in high-power cw Nd:YAG laser welding

During high-power cw Nd:YAG laser welding a vapour plume is formed containing vaporised material ejected from the keyhole. Spectroscopic studies of the vapour emission have demonstrated that the vapour can be considered as thermally excited gas with a stable temperature (less than 3000K), not as partially ionised plasma. In this paper, a review of temperatures in the vapour plume is presented. The difficulties in the analysis of the plume spectroscopic results are reviewed and explained. It is shown that particles present in the vapour interact with the laser beam, attenuating it. The attenuation can be calculated with Mie scattering theory, however, vaporisation and particle formation also both play a major role in this process. The laser beam is also defocused due to the scattering part of the attenuation mechanism, changing the energy density in the laser beam. Methods for mitigating the effects of the laser beam-vapour interaction, using control gases, are presented together with their advantages and disadvantages. This 'plume control' has two complementary roles: firstly, the gas must divert the vapour plume from out of the laser beam path, preventing the attenuation. Secondly, the gas has to stabilise the front wall of the keyhole, to prevent porosity formation.

Diode-end-pumped passively CW mode-locked Nd : YLF laser by the LT-In0.25Ga0.75As absorber

We have demonstrated a self-staring passively continuous-wave mode-locked diode end-pumped Nd:YLF laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror of single-quantum-well (In0.25Ga0.75As) grown by metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition technique at low temperature. The saturable absorber was used as nonlinear absorber and output coupler simultaneously. Stable pulse duration of 3 ps has been achieved at the repetition rate of 98 MHz. The average output power was 530 mW at 1053 nm under the incident pump power of 10 W, corresponding to the peak power of 1.8 kW and pulse energy of 5.4 nJ.

1 GHz Repetition Rate CW Mode-locked Nd∶YVO_4 Laser

A diode-pumped CW mode-locked Nd

Fiber Optic Coupling of CW Linear Laser Diode Array

Based on a set of microoptics the output radiation from a continuous wave (CW) linear laser diode array is coupled into a multi-mode optical fiber of 400 ptm diameter. The CW linear laser diode array is a 1 cm laser diode bar with 19 stripes with 100 fxm aperture spaced on 500 (xm centers. The coupling system contains packaged laser diode bar, fast axis collimator, slow axis collimation array, beam transformation system and focusing system. The high brightness, high power density and single fiber output of a laser diode bar is achieved. The coupling efficiency is 65% and the power density is up to 1.03 * 10~4 W/cm~2.