Spectroscopic investigations of femtosecond laser irradiated polystyrene and fabrication of microstructures

We report microfabrication of structures in bulk and thin films of polystyrene (PS) using femtosecond (fs) laser pulses. For the first time to our knowledge, we report emission from the fs laser modified regions of bulk and thin films of PS when excited at 458, 488, and 514 nm. Moreover, we report the existence of peroxide type free radicals, for the first time, in fs laser irradiated bulk PS. We observed the suppression of Raman modes in case of structures fabricated at higher energies and the same effect was noticed in central portion of the structures fabricated. No appreciable broadening was observed in the case of structures fabricated at low energies. Possible applications resulting from such structures are discussed briefly.     

Design and construction of a 110 W green laser for medical application

In this paper, the design and the construction of a high-power side-diode-pumped Nd:YAG solid-state laser at repetition rates of 6 and 10 kHz has been presented. Second harmonic of the Nd:YAG laser with green light at 532 nm, with an average power of 111.5 W at 10 kHz repetition rate, and with 90 ns pulse duration, has been obtained by the nonlinear crystal of KTP with 59% conversion efficiency and 12% diode-to-green optical–optical efficiency in the linear resonator. Beam spot size and divergence is 4 mm and 8 mrad, respectively. The laser stability is about 97%. As a medical application of this laser, investigation of degree of effectiveness and penetration depth of laser on adenomas of resected prostate after open prostatectomy has been done.     

Remote fiber sensor based on cascaded Fourier domain mode-locked laser

We propose a high-speed remote fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor interrogation system based on a 1.3-μm cascaded Fourier-domain mode-locked (FDML) laser. It consists of multiple FBGs connected to an optical circulator in the laser cavity. The cascaded FDML laser with these multiple FBGs is operational when the scanning frequency of the fiber Fabry-Perot tunable filter matches the fundamental frequency of the laser cavity. Each FBG provides a separate laser cavity for the FDML laser. The scanning frequencies of each laser cavity are 30.5314, 31.5393, 32.7108, and 33.8023 kHz. Using the cascaded FDML laser, we measure the performance of the long-distance static strain FBG sensor interrogation system in both the time and spectral domains. The slope coefficients of the measured relative wavelength difference and the relative time delay from the static strain are found to be 0.95 pm/μstrain and 0.15 ns/μstrain, respectively. We also demonstrate the dynamic response of the interrogation system with 80-Hz modulation strain using the cascaded FDML laser. Thus, an FBG sensor interrogation system for high-speed and high-sensitivity long-distance monitoring systems can be realized using a cascaded FDML laser.     

Simultaneous measurements of multiple flow velocity components using frequency modulated lasers and a single molecular absorption cell

Since unsteady, complex flow phenomena play an important role, optical measurements techniques are required for flow investigations, which provide simultaneous measurements of multiple velocity components. Doppler global velocimetry has this potential. It is a flow measurement technique, where the Doppler shift of scattered light is measured by a molecular absorption cell for frequency-to-intensity conversion. However, novel Doppler global velocimeters with laser frequency modulation were only used for single component measurements yet. In order to enhance such a system for the simultaneous measurement of multiple components, a concept based on frequency division multiplexing is introduced for the first time. Besides multiple lasers, only a single molecular absorption cell and a single detector unit is required. Two-component measurements of velocity profiles from nozzle flows are presented as a proof of principle. The designed measurement system provides high measurement rates of up to 20 kHz, which is three orders of magnitude higher than for typical Doppler global velocimetry setups.     

The effect of an axial external magnetic field on the output power of a small-bore CuBr laser

In this work, the effect of an axial external moveable magnetic field on the output power of a CuBr laser with small-bore tube has been investigated. In all experiments, by applying an EMF along the tube axis, the laser output power has been decreased and by moving the EMF toward the cathode region, more substantial decrease of output power has been observed. The effect is more significant at a magnetic field intensity of 1100 G, Ne gas pressure of 35 Torr, frequency of 19 kHz and voltage of 3.8 kV, such that there was no laser emission when the EMF was placed around the cathode.     

Multi-wavelength operation of LD side-pumped Nd:YAG laser

A dual-wavelength laser at 1064 nm and 1319 nm is obtained by a single Nd:YAG crystal rod. On the basis of 1064 nm and 1319 nm dual-wavelength laser installation, the second harmonic waves at 532 nm and 660 nm can be achieved by using non-linear frequency conversion technology. When 1064 nm and 1319 nm lasers oscillate simultaneously, the maximum output power is 30.5 W and 8.78 W, respectively. When the 1319 nm laser is restrained, we obtain a 35.6 W maximum output power at 1064 nm and by contrary 11.2 W at 1319 nm. The maximum output powers of 532 nm and 660 nm lasers are 5.34 W and 1.353 W when oscillating simultaneously. With one of them restrained, the maximum output power is 6.72 W at 532 nm and 1.90 W at 660 nm. The optimum repetition rate of the acousto-optic Q-switch is 10.5 KHz and 20.5 KHz for 532 nm and 660 nm lasers, respectively. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency from the fundamental waves to the harmonic waves is 17.5% and 15.4%. The instability is less than 2%.     

Rotational symmetry breaking in small-area circular vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

We investigate theoretically the dynamics of three low-order transverse modes in a small-area vertical cavity surface emitting laser. We demonstrate the spontaneous breaking of axial symmetry of the transverse field distribution in such a device. In particular, we show that if the linewidth enhancement factor is sufficiently large dynamical regimes with broken axial symmetry can exist up to very high diffusion coefficients ~ 10 μm²/ns.     

The nonlinear refraction sign turned to reverse by intercalating cresyl violent dye into layered titanate nanosheets

Solid-state dye-doped materials are an attractive alternative to conventional liquid dye solution. In this study, the spectral characteristics of dye cresyl violet before and after intercalating into layered titanate nanosheets and forming a nanohybrid thin film were investigated by measuring absorption and fluorescence spectra. In addition, their nonlinear optical properties were studied using single beam z-scan technique under irradiation of low power continuous wave (CW) produced by DPSS laser with a wavelength of 532 nm. The nonlinear studying results reveal that the dye cresyl violet in solution has a negative nonlinear refractive index, but it reverses to positive after the dye is intercalated into layered titanate nanosheets with a negative nonlinear refractive index forming CV/HTO nanohybrid thin film. This method can provide a way to turn to reverse nonlinear refraction sign of the materials.     

Numerical analysis of the output power of the injection-locked cw Ti:sapphire lasers

The optimization analysis of the output power of the injection-locked cw Ti:sapphire lasers is presented based on the fact that the injection-locked and free-running lasers almost have the same maximum output power. With the modified Ti:sapphire laser model, the dependences of the threshold and slope efficiency on the ring cavity and crystal parameters are studied through the numerical calculations, which clarify the roles of various parameters in affecting the output power. Our calculated results are in good agreement with the reported experimental data for the laser at 756 nm. Therefore our numerically calculated results could be used as a guideline for designing and optimizing such kind of the lasers.     

Mid-infrared radiation transmission through fluoride glass multimode optical fibers

Measurement of the transmission laser radiation from Q-switched and free-running Er:YAG lasers operating at 2.94 μm through fluoride glass multimode optical fibers of 448, 465 and 620 μm core diameter were performed. Attenuation measurements were obtained as a function of the laser energy input, of the bending angle and of the radius of curvature. The fibers exhibited low attenuation under straight and bent conditions. The output beam quality was also studied using the appropriate beam profiler. The output beam profiles showed a central multi-spiked energy distribution.