Investigation on mode matching including thermal effects in LD end-pumped passively mode-locked Nd：YVO_4 laser

We design a laser diode （LD） end-pumped passively mode-locked solid-state laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. Mode-matching efficiency in the active medium including the thermal effect is analyzed, and the optimum mode-matching coefficient is obtained by optimizing the pump mode. In the experiment, a total power of 4.2 W stable pulse sequences without multipulse at 1064 nm is obtained with a pulse repetition rate of 86 MHz and a pulse width of 13 ps, corresponding to a high optical to optical efficiency of 44%.     

Testifying experiment of the multi-pulse phenomena of capillary discharge soft-X-ray laser

In a capillary discharge experiment for the neon-like argon lazing,we have proposed an experimental scheme to verify that the multi-spike of X-ray diode (XRD) signal is a multi-pulse laser or is a reflection of the laser pulse in the XRD.The ceramic capillary has an inner diameter of 3 mm and a length of 200 mm.At the gas pressure of 28 Pa and discharge current of 27 kA,stable lasing has been realized.The experimental results prove that the multi-spike of XRD signal is a reflection of the electromagnetic signal produced by the laser pulse in the XRD.The improved electrocircuit scheme of the XRD to minimize the reflection phenomena is also found.     

Passively Q-switched Nd~(3+):YAG laser with corner cube

A passively Q-switched Nd3 :YAG laser with corner cube is theoretically and experimentally studied. We analyze the polarization variation in cavity and simulate the peak power, pulse energy and pulse width changed with the rotation angle of corner cube numerically. An experiment is made to verify the theoretical results. With rotating the angle of corner cube about the axis the variation range of peak power is 1.77 MW (from 10.36 to 8.59 MW), and that of pulse energy is 14.9 mJ (from 159.5 to 174.4 mJ), the fluctuation of pulse width is 2.95 ns. The experimental results agree with the theoretical analysis to the extent of variation rules. The most dynamic to static energy ratio of 62.5% is achieved.     

Nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulse in a plasma channel

The nonlinear propagation of an intense Laguerre–Gaussian(LG) laser pulse in a parabolic preformed plasma channel is analyzed by means of the variational method. The evolution equation of the spot size is derived including the effects of relativistic self-focusing, preformed channel focusing, and ponderomotive self-channeling. The parametric conditions of the LG laser pulse and plasma channel for propagating with constant spot size, periodically focusing and defocusing oscillation,catastrophic focusing, and solitary waves are obtained. Compared with the laser pulse with fundamental Gaussian(FG)mode, it is found that the effect of vacuum diffraction is reduced by half and the effects of relativistic and wakefield focusing are decreased by a quarter due to the hollow transverse intensity profile of the LG laser pulse, while the effect of channel focusing is the same order of magnitude with that of the FG laser pulse. Thus, the matched condition for the intense LG laser pulse with constant spot size is released obviously, while the parameters of the laser and plasma for the existence of solitary waves nearly coincide with those of the FG laser pulse.     

Dual sub-picosecond and sub-nanosecond laser system

A high power laser system delivering a 20-TW, 0.5-0.8 ps ultra-short laser pulse and a 20-J, 500-ps long pulse simultaneously in one shot is completed. This two-beam laser operates at the wavelength of 1053 nm and uses Nd doped glass as the gain media of the main amplification chain. The chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) technology is used to compress the stretched laser pulse. After compression, the ultra-short laser pulse is measured: energy above 16.0 J, S/N contrast ratio-10~5 : 1, filling factor->52.7%. Another long pulse beam is a non-compressed chirped laser pulse, which is measured: energy-20 J, pulse duration 500 ps. The two beams are directed onto the target surface at an angle of 15°.     

Conductively cooled all-solid-state zigzag slab laser

A diode pumped,Q-switched Nd:YAG zigzag slab laser is developed using passive conduction cooling. Flat-flat and unstable resonators are adopted in this experiment.The 150-mJ multi-mode and 100-mJ single-mode laser outputs with pulse width of 10 ns are achieved,corresponding to optical efficiencies of 19% and 13%,respectively.The experimental result demonstrates that the laser has the property of compact structure,high efficiency,reliability,and high beam quality.The design of laser has a potential application in space environment.     

High-repetition-rate 1.5 μm passively Q-switched Er:Yb:YAl_3(BO_3)_4 microchip laser

End-pumped by a 976 nm diode laser,a high-repetition-rate Er:Yb:YAl_3(BO_3)_4 microchip laser passively Q-switched by a Co~(2+):MgAl_2 O_4 crystal is reported.At a quasi-continuous-wave pump power of 20 W,a 1553 nm passively Q-switched laser with the repetition rate of 544 kHz,pulse duration of 8.3 ns,and pulse energy of 3.9 μJ was obtained.To the best of our knowledge,the 544 kHz is the highest reported value for the 1.5 μm passively Q-switched pulse laser.In the continuous-wave pumping experiment,the maximum repetition rate of 144 kHz with the pulse duration of 8.0 ns and pulse energy of 1.7 μJ was obtained at the incident pump power of 6.3 W.     

Precise measurement of the micron-scale spot of ultrashort laser pulse based on film scanning

A novel and precise micron-scale nanosecond laser spot measurement based on film-scanning method is presented.The method can be used to measure the spot size,beam profile,and intensity distribution of the pulse.The central spot radius of the pulsed Bessel beams with pulse width of 25 ns is measured to be 94.86±5μm in our experiment through the analysis of the digital image by film scanning,and the result is consistent with the theoretical value of 92.33μm.Compared with charge-coupled device/complementary metal oxide semiconductor(CCD/CMOS)laser beam profilers,the film-scanning method shows higher measurement accuracy,single shot ultrashort pulse measurable,larger measurable size,and wider measur- able wavelength range.     

Diode-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:YVO_4 laser with GaAs saturable absorber

The intracavity photon density is assumed to be of Gaussian spatial distributions and its longitudinal variation is also considered in the rate equations for a laser diode (LD) end-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser with GaAs saturable absorber. These space-dependent rate equations are solved numerically. The dependences of pulse width, pulse repetition rate, single-pulse energy, and peak power on incident pump power are obtained. In the experiment, the LD end-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser with GaAs saturable absorber is realized and the experimental results are consistent with the numerical solutions.     

Controllable optical delay line using a Brillouin optical fiber ring laser

A controllable optical delay line using a Brillouin optical fiber ring laser is demonstrated and a large time delay is obtained by cascading two optical fiber segments. In experiment, a single-mode Brillouin optical fiber ring laser is used to provide Stokes wave as probe wave. We achieve a maximum tunable time delay of 61 ns using two cascading optical fiber segments, about 1.5 times of the input probe pulse width of 40 ns. In the meantime, a considerable pulse broadening is observed, which agrees well with the theoretical prediction based on linear theory.     

Air-breathing mode a long-pulse laser propulsion with TE CO2 laser

Air-breathing mode laser propulsion experiment with a long-pulse transversely excited （TE） CO2 laser is carried out, and its ignition problem is solved with the ignition needle of lightcraft. Owing to the ignition needle, an order of magnitude reduction in the ignition threshold is demonstrated. The result is compared with previous study. The momentum coupling coefficient is also measured in the experiment and its dependence upon laser pulse energy （6 14 J） and pulse width （20, 32, and 40 μs） is discussed.     

Suppression of multi-pulse formation in all-polarization-maintaining figure-9 erbium-doped fiber mode-locked laser

We report on a novel architecture to suppress the multi-pulse formation in an all-polarization-maintaining figure-9 erbium-doped fiber laser under high pump power. A 2×2 fiber coupler is introduced into the phase-biased nonlinear amplifying loop mirror to extract part of intracavity laser power as a laser output, and the dependence of output couple ratio of fiber coupler on the mode-locking state is experimentally investigated. The intracavity nonlinear effect is mitigated by lowering the intracavity laser power, which is conducive to avoiding the multi-pulse formation. In the meantime, the loss-imbalance induced by fiber coupler is helpful in improving the self-starting ability. With the proposed laser structure,the multiple pulse formation can be suppressed and high power single pulse train can be obtained. The laser emits three pulse trains which is convenient for some applications. Finally, the output power values of three ports are 5.3 m W, 51.3 m W,and 13.2 m W, respectively. The total single pulse output power is 69.8 m W, which is more than 10 times the result without OC2. The total slope efficiency is about 10.1%. The repetition rate of three pulse trains is 21.17 MHz, and the pulse widths are 2.8 ps, 2.63 ps, and 6.66 ps, respectively.     

Air-breathing mode laser propulsion with a long-pulse TE CO_2 laser

Air-breathing mode laser propulsion experiment with a long-pulse transversely excited(TE) CO2 laser is carried out,and its ignition problem is solved with the ignition needle of lightcraft.Owing to the ignition needle,an order of magnitude reduction in the ignition threshold is demonstrated.The result is compared with previous study.The momentum coupling coefficient is also measured in the experiment and its dependence upon laser pulse energy(6-14 J) and pulse width(20,32,and 40μs) is discussed.     

High-peak-power passively Q-switched 1.3 μm Nd:YAG/V~(3+):YAG laser pumped by a pulsed laser diode

We demonstrate a high-pulse-energy, short-pulse-width passively Q-switched(PQS) Nd:YAG∕V3t:YAG laser at 1.3 μm, which is end-pumped by a pulsed laser diode. During the PQS regime, a maximum total output pulse energy of 3.3 m J is obtained under an absorbed pump pulse energy of 21.9 m J. Up to 400 μJ single-pulse energy is realized with the shortest pulse width of 6.16 ns and a pulse repetition frequency of 34.1 k Hz,corresponding to a peak power of 64.9 k W. The high-energy laser pulse is operated in the dual wavelengths of 1319 and 1338 nm, which is a potential laser source for THz generation.     

Generation of 7-fs laser pulse directly from a compact Ti:sapphire laser with chirped mirrors

A compact femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser resonator consisting of three chirped mirrors and one output coupler was designed. By accurately balancing the intra- cavity dispersions between Ti:sapphire crystal, air and chirped mirrors, we directly generated the laser pulse shorter than 7 fs at the average power of 340 mW with 3.1 W pump. The repetition rate of the laser oscillator is 173 MHz at the centre wavelength of 791 nm, and the ultrabroaden spectrum covers from 600 nm to 1000 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the simplest laser resonator capable of generating sub-10 fs laser pulse.     

Er~(3+),Yb~(3+):glass-Co~(2+):MgAl_2O_4 diffusion bonded passively Q-switched laser

A Co~(2+):spinel passively Q-switched erbium-ytterbium-phosphate glass bonded laser pumped at 940 nm is reported.A pulse energy of 210 μJ, a peak power over 70 kW, and beam quality M~2 parameter of 1.2 are obtained under a pump power of 235 mW. An unbonded laser output experiment with the same dimension of the active material and the saturable absorber as the bonded laser output experiment is carried out. The reason why the output in the bonded laser is improved is determined.     

Dual-wavelength stable nanosecond pulses generation from cladding-pumped fiber laser

In this paper, the generation of dual-wavelength stable nanosecond pulses by a laser diode pumped Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser is presented. In the experiment, the fiber laser with two-mirror cavity is approved which operates in a self-Q-switching regime. The Q-switching mechanism is based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). When the pump power achieves the SBS threshold, the fiber laser changes from the start resonator to the SBS resonator. With different reflectivities of the second mirror, stable dual-wavelength pulses with the pulse width range from 10 ns to less than 2 ns are obtained. The result was explained theoretically by birefringency (including stochastic birefringency and bend birefringency).     

Calculation of LET in SEE simulation by pulsed laser

A key point in SEE (Single Event Effect) simulation experiment is how to calculate the equivalent LET (Linear Energy Transfer) for laser pulse. In this paper, the calculation method considering the influences of nonlinear absorption in semiconductor, reflection and refraction on device surface and other factors is presented. Simultaneously an instance of calculation is provided, with the result in good agreement with the SEU (Single Event Upset) threshold measured by heavy ions.     

An acousto-optic Q-switched fiber laser using China-made double-cladding fiber

A simple laser-diode pumped acoustic-optic Q-switched fiber laser is reported by using China-made large- mode-area ytterbium-doped fiber.Q-switched pulses with a beam quality factor of M~2≈2 and several hundred nanoseconds pulse duration are achieved at the repetition rate of 1-50 kHz.When the repetition rate is 1 kHz,the pulse energy is 0.93 mJ with the pulse duration of 132 ns.Meanwhile,the profile of laser pulses shows some mode-locking phenomena,the mechanism of the phenomena is discussed.     

Angular distributions of CH3I fragment ions under the irradiation of a single pulse and trains of ultrashort laser pulses

The angular distribution of CH3I is investigated experimentally using a single Fourier transform-limited laser pulse and a pulse train, where a 90-fs 800-nm linearly polarized laser field with a moderate intensity of 2.8×1013 W/cm2 is used. The dynamic alignment is demonstrated in a single pulse experiment. Moreover, a pulse train is used to optimize the molecular alignment, and the alignment degree is almost identical to that with the single pulse. The results are analysed by using chirped femtosecond laser pulses, and it demonstrates that the structure of pulse train rather than its effective duration is crucial to the molecular alignment.