1 W tunable near diffraction limited light from a broad area laser diode in an external cavity with a line width of 1.7 MHz

A novel unstable external cavity for a broad area laser diode is presented. The cavity is based on a V-shaped setup that improves the slow axis beam quality by coupling the internal modes of a gain guided laser diode. The novelty here is the compact unstable resonator design without lenses in direction of the slow axis. For frequency stabilisation and to narrow the line width of the laser diode emission a diffraction grating in a Littrow configuration is used. With this setup up to 1 W of near diffraction limited light with a beam quality of M² ? 1.3 and a line width of 1.7 MHz could be achieved. The external cavity laser was tunable over a range of 35 nm (FWHM) around the center wavelength of 976 nm.     

Diode-end-pumped Nd:CaYAlO4 mode locked laser

A diode pumped passively mode locked Nd:CaYAlO₄ (Nd:CYA) laser is demonstrated for the first time to the authors' knowledge. Using a V-shaped cavity and a semiconductor saturable absorbing mirror (SESAM), self-started mode locking of the laser is experimentally achieved. The mode-locked pulses are as short as 3.9 ps at a central wavelength of 1080.2 nm. The mode-locked laser produced a maximum average output power of 2.25 W with a slope efficiency of 23.2%.     

Frequency noise suppression in a diode laser locked to a travelling wave resonator incorporating a Brewster prism

A polarisation locking technique was applied to stabilise an extended cavity diode laser using a travelling wave resonator incorporating a Brewster prism. Despite the fact that the employed unbalanced detection was sensitive to optical power fluctuations, the in-loop photodetector measured 90 dB of noise suppression at 10 Hz in comparison to the free running frequency noise spectrum. Excess intensity noise measured with an out-of-loop detector, indicated the presence of correction-correlated noise in the output of the stabilised diode laser.     

LD end pumped, actively mode locked and passively Q-switched Nd:YAP laser at 1341 nm

An end pumped Nd:YAP laser at 1341 nm is actively mode locked and passively Q-switched. Pumping was done with a pulsed high power laser diode with maximum power 425 W. V³⁺:YAG with 61% initial transmission served as saturable absorber, and an acousto-optic modulator is used for active mode locking. The output pulse train with 69 ns duration has a total energy of 3.2 mJ with ±4% shot-to-shot fluctuation. The peak output energy of a single mode locked pulse is 0.25 mJ. The pulse duration of a single mode locked pulse is less than 800 ps. The output laser beam is nearly diffraction limited with 1.6 mm diameter, and beam propagation factor M² about 1.3.     

An 8.1 W diode pumped solid-state quasi-continuous-wave yellow laser at 589 nm by intracavity sum-frequency mixing generation

We report an L-shaped symmetrical co-folding-arm plane-plane diode pumped solid-state yellow laser at 589 nm by using intracavity sum-frequency mixing. By carefully designing the cavity and employing various techniques to optimize the laser’s specifications, a quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) free-oscillation yellow laser source, which has an average output power of 8.1 W, a beam quality factor of M² = 2.3, and a repetition rate of 1.1 kHz, is developed. The generation of yellow laser at 589 nm is achieved by intracavity sum-frequency mixing between the laser lines at 1319 nm and 1064 nm of an Nd:YAG laser in a KTP crystal. To the best of our knowledge, the 8.1 W output at 589 nm is higher than any other diode pumped solid-state yellow laser generated by intracavity sum-frequency generation so far.     

Highly efficient Nd:GdVO4/BiBO laser at 456 nm under direct 880 nm diode laser pumping

The continuous-wave high-efficiency laser emission of Nd:GdVO₄ at the second-harmonic of 456 nm obtained by intracavity frequency doubling with an BiB₃O₆(BiBO) nonlinear crystal is investigated under pumping by diode laser at 880 nm into emitting level ⁴F_3/2. About 3.8 W at 456 nm with M² = 1.4 was obtained from a 5 mm-thick 0.4 at.% Nd:GdVO₄ laser medium and a 12 mm-long BiBO nonlinear crystal in a Z-type cavity for 13.9 W absorbed pump power. An optical-to-optical efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power was 0.274. Comparative results obtained for the pump with diode laser at 808 nm, into the highly-absorbing ⁴F_5/2 level, are given in order to prove the advantages of the 880 nm wavelength pumping.     

A 729 nm laser with ultra-narrow linewidth for probing 4S1/2-3D5/2 clock transition of Ca

A Coherent Inc. Ti:sapphire laser MBR-110 is locked to a temperature-controlled high finesse Fabry-Perot cavity supported on an isolated platform. The linewidth is measured by locking the laser to another similar super-cavity at the same time and the heterodyne beatnote between two laser beams that locked to different cavities determines the linewidth. The result shows that the laser's linewidth is suppressed to be 41 Hz. The long-term drift is measured with a femtosecond comb and determined to be ~ 0.1 Hz/s. This laser is used to probe the 4S_1/2-3D_5/2 clock transition of a single ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ion. The Zeeman components of the clock transition with a linewidth of 160 Hz have been observed.     

Injection-seeded Tm:YAG laser at room temperature

The solid-state, tunable, narrowband, high pulse energy and high reliability lasers are attractive source for LIDAR system. In this paper, we demonstrated a diode pumped injection-seeded 2 μm Tm:YAG laser. By inserting two F-P etalons into the laser cavity, linear-polarized single-frequency seed-laser was achieved at a wavelength of 2013 nm, with a maximum output power of 60 mW. Long-term and short-term frequency stability for the seed-laser were 1.27 × 10^− 7 and 97 Hz/μs, respectively. High power Q-switched laser was operated using a bowtie cavity, the bidirectional output of which was favorable for the injection-seeded. After injecting the seed-laser to the power-laser, single-frequency, nearly transform-limited pulsed 2 μm laser was obtained. As much as 2.0 mJ output energy was achieved at an operating repetition rate of 15 Hz, with a pulse width of 356.2 ns.     

Generation of 25 ps pulses by self induced mode locking of a single broad area diode laser with 300 mW average output power

Detailed investigations of the spatiotemporal and spectral emission properties of a high power diode laser are presented. The AR coated laser diode with design wavelength of 940 nm is driven in an external resonator. The laser generates up to 340 mW average output power in a train of picosecond pulses with durations of 25 ps and repetition rates of 2.6 GHz. The mechanism of mode locking is discussed as self pulsation because of the strong correlation between round trip time and repetition rate. The double-sided exponential pulses suggest saturable absorber action.     

Efficient and high-power intracavity frequency doubled diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG/KTP continuous wave (CW) green laser

Highly efficient continuous wave (CW) green beam generation by intracavity frequency doubling of a diode side-pumped Nd:YAG laser using a single pump head based on a copper-coated flow tube in a V-shaped cavity geometry has been demonstrated. A maximum 30.5 W of CW green power was obtained at a total diode pumping power of 260 W corresponding to 11.7% conversion efficiency of diode pump power to CW green power and 4.7% conversion efficiency of electrical power to CW green power. The performance of the laser by considering the pump power induced thermal lensing effect and the M²-parameter at the fundamental wavelength has been analyzed.     

1097 nm Nd:YVO4 self-Raman laser

An acousto-optically Q-switched self-Raman laser emitting at 1097 nm is demonstrated with a c-cut Nd:YVO₄ crystal, using a fiber-coupled 880 nm diode laser as the pumping source. Raman laser performances in concave-plane and plane-plane oscillating cavities are studied and compared. With an absorbed diode power of 12.4 W and a pulse repetition rate of 50 kHz, the highest output power of 1.45 W is obtained from the plane-plane cavity, corresponding to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 11.7%.     

Characterization of 60 GHz Multi Quantum well passively mode-locked laser under optical self-injection locking

The quality and pulse compression of the 60 GHz millimeter wave signals generated by 750 μm long InAlGaAs Multi Quantum Well (MQW) passively mode locked laser under free running and optical self-injection locked conditions are experimentally characterized in terms of longitudinal modes under certain bias currents that range from 24 mA to 90 mA. Initially, the MQW laser is characterized in free running condition with no external injection. The measurements reflect that the free spectral range of laser under test is around 61 GHz and exhibit more than 22 lasing modes. The laser is then integrated into low phase noise self-injection locking oscillator by feeding a part of output RF signal back into the laser cavity to enhance passive mode locking. By doing so the microwave line width of our laser is reduced from 900 kHz to 24 kHz with significant increase in output of resultant beat tones which exhibits strong passive mode locking. This is the first time that the free running microwave line width of MQW laser is reduced up to this level. It is evident from our experimental investigation that as we increase the power and phase correlation between different longitudinal modes inside laser cavity through optical self-injection, the strength of the passively mode locked mechanism is significantly increased and the phase noise of radio frequency signal is drastically reduced.     

High-power continuous wave green beam generation by use of simple linear cavity with side-pumped module

High-power continuous wave green radiation has been generated by means of type-II phase-matched frequency doubling in a KTP crystal located in a simple linear cavity incorporating a diode side-pumped Nd:YAG laser module. The cavity was designed to make the fundamental beam radius at the KTP crystal smaller than that at the gain medium, as is required for obtaining large mode volume in Nd:YAG crystal and realizing efficient CW intracavity frequency doubling. Output power of 51.2 W is obtained in the experiment with a diode-to-green optical conversion efficiency of 10.3%. The M²-parameters of the laser are measured at different output powers. For the output power of about 47 W, the power fluctuation is measured less than 1%. The experimental results show that the continuous wave green laser system using this simple linear cavity offers good laser performance and output stability.     

Efficient quasi-three-level Nd:YAG laser at 946 nm pumped by a tunable external cavity tapered diode laser

Using a tunable external cavity tapered diode laser (ECDL) pumped quasi-three-level Nd:YAG laser, a fivefold reduction in threshold and twofold increase in slope efficiency is demonstrated when compared to a traditional broad area diode laser pump source. A TEM₀₀ power of 800 mW with 65% slope efficiency is obtained, the highest reported TEM₀₀ power from any 946 nm Nd:YAG laser pumped by a single emitter diode laser pump source. A quantum efficiency of 0.85 has been estimated from experimental data using a simple quasi-three-level model. The reported value is in good agreement with published values, suggesting that the model is adequate. Improvement of the 946 nm laser due to the ECDL's narrow spectrum proves to be less significant when compared to its spatial quality, inferring a broad spectrum tapered diode laser pump source may be most practical. Experimental confirmation of such setup is given.     

Doppler-limited CW infrared cavity ringdown spectroscopy of the ν1+ν3 OH + CH stretch combination band of jet-cooled methanol

A high resolution cavity ringdown spectrometer (CRDS) has been constructed using a 1.5 μm continuous-wave external-cavity tunable diode laser, a mode-matched near-confocal ringdown cavity, and 2 cm pulsed slit jet. Without signal averaging, the RMS noise in the absorption signal is 1.7 × 10⁻⁹ cm⁻¹. The rotationally resolved overtone spectrum of the OH(ν₁) + CH(ν₃) stretch combination band of methanol between 6510 and 6550 cm⁻¹ has been observed for J^′=0-8 and K^′=0-3 at sub-Doppler resolution. In total, 418 lines are assigned and global fits yield molecular torsion-rotation parameters for the upper state. Four K^′-localized perturbations are analyzed and the pattern of residuals is discussed.     

High-resolution laser spectroscopy of ultracold ytterbium atoms using spin-forbidden electric quadrupole transition

We have successfully observed high-resolution spectra of spin-forbidden electric quadrupole transition (¹ S ₀→³ D ₂) in ytterbium (¹⁷⁴Yb) atoms. The differential light shifts between the ¹ S ₀ and the ³ D ₂ states in a far-off resonant trap at 532 nm are also measured. For the spectroscopy, we developed simple, narrow-linewidth, and long-term frequency stabilized violet diode laser systems. Long-term drifts of the excitation laser (404 nm) is suppressed by locking the laser to a length stabilized optical cavity. The optical path length of the cavity is stabilized to another diode laser whose frequency is locked to a strong ¹ S ₀→¹ P ₁ transition (399 nm) of Yb. Both lasers are standard extended-cavity diode lasers (ECDLs) in the Littrow configuration. Since the linewidth of a violet ECDL (～10 MHz) is broader than a typical value of a red or near infra-red ECDL (<1 MHz), we employ optical feedback from a narrow-band Fabry–Perot cavity to reduce the linewidth. The linewidth is expected to be <20 kHz for 1 ms averaging time, and the long-term frequency stability is estimated to be ～200 kHz/h.     

40K-87Rb原子冷却的半导体激光系统

对⁴⁰K-⁸⁷Rb原子冷却的半导体激光系统提出了一种实验方案，并进行了初步实验.采用三台外腔光栅反馈半导体激光器(ECDL)、四台注入锁定从激光器和一台半导体激光放大器组成激光系统.三台ECDL通过声光调制器产生四束光，分别作为⁴⁰K和⁸⁷Rb原子的冷却光和再抽运光，四束不同频率成分的激光分别注入锁定四台从激光器，然后Rb 冷却光、K冷却光和K再抽运光再同时注入半导体激光放大器进行放大.该装置可同时产生冷却⁴⁰K和⁸⁷Rb原子的冷却光和再抽运光，结构紧凑、工作稳定. 关键词： 简并费米气体 激光器系统 外腔光栅反馈半导体激光器 半导体激光放大器     

Tunable erbium-doped fiber ring laser for applications of infrared absorption spectroscopy

We fabricate a low noise erbium-doped fiber ring laser that can be continuously tuned over 102 nm by insertion of the fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter (FFP-TF) in the ring cavity with a novel cavity structure and the optimal gain medium length. As an application of this fiber ring laser, we performed the absorption spectroscopy of acetylene (¹³C₂H₂) and hydrogen cyanide (H¹³C¹⁴N) and measure the absorption spectra of more than 50 transition lines of these gases with an excellent signal to noise ratio (SNR). The pressure broadening coefficients of four acetylene transition lines are obtained using this fiber ring laser and an external cavity laser diode.     

Line strengths and self-broadening coefficients of carbon dioxide isotopologues (CO2 and OCO) near 2.04 μm for the in situ laser sensing of the Martian atmosphere

A diode laser spectrometer was used in the laboratory to study ¹³CO₂ and ¹⁸O¹²C¹⁶O line intensities and self-broadening coefficients near 2.04 μm. The spectral region ranging from 4896 to 4903 cm⁻¹, which is suitable for in situ laser sensing of both isotopologues in the lower Martian atmosphere, was investigated using a distributed feedback GaInSb diode laser. Five lines of the (2 0⁰ 1)_II←(0 0 0) band of ¹³CO₂ and seven lines of the (2 0⁰ 1)_II←(0 0 0) band of ¹⁸O¹²C¹⁶O were carefully revisited. The measured intensities and self-broadening coefficients were thoroughly compared with relevant molecular databases.