Highly sensitive self-mixing measurement of Brillouin scattering with a laser-diode-pumped microchip LiNdP(4)O(12) laser

Brillouin scattering has been measured with a high degree of sensitivity by a system built around a laser-diode-pumped microchip LiNdP(4)O(12) laser. An efficient self-mixing modulation effect that is due to the interference between a lasing field and a weak field fed back from an acousto-optic modulator by means of a phase-conjugate reflection was used. Laser-Doppler velocimetry that can discriminate the direction of motion has been demonstrated.     

Research on micro-vibration measurement by a laser diode self-mixing interferometer

The self-mixing vibration signals are observed in the laser diode when the optical beam is back-scattered into the laser cavity which causes laser output power modulated. Based on these properties, a laser diode self-mixing vibrometer with wide dynamic range is proposed. This current investigation further reports new work to improve the accuracy and range of the measured vibration signals. Numerical simulations and experimental results are given and discussed. The experimental results show that the frequency measurement range can be achieved up to 22 kHz with 0.241% maximum relative error while utilizing the reflecting film. For amplitude measurement utilizing the same reflecting film, the error of measurement result is 4.77 nm which has approached nanometer order of magnitude.     

光纤激光自混合散斑远程测速研究

推导出了等效Fabry-Perot腔输出光强的表达式,结合Labview和Matlab软件编写了自适应噪声抵消器.提出了将自适应噪声抵消器应用到激光散斑信号的去噪处理,并通过计算散斑频谱能量密度推算出了被测目标的速度.基于Labview软件编写了监控程序,通过以太网实现了远程控制激光散斑信号对运动物体速度的实时测量.     

Chaotic oscillations associated with the breakup of polarization entangled coherent states in a microchip solid-state laser

We demonstrate the breakup of spatial-polarization entangled lasing patterns, which possess vector phase singularities, and the resultant dynamic instabilities featuring chaotic oscillations. The frequency splitting between a pair of Ince-Gauss (IG) lasing modes, originally forming a coherent entanglement state, and a self-excited additional nonorthogonal IG mode through a new class of transverse effect of self-injection pattern seeding, is shown to result in modal-interference-induced modulation at the beat frequency, leading to chaotic oscillations.     

Higher-order photon statistics of single-mode laser diodes and microchip solid-state lasers

We examine higher-order photon statisitics of laser diodes (LDs) and microchip solid-state lasers (SSLs). When the lasers are operated above lasing threshold, significantly different features of fluctuations are exhibited, which are the result of the asymmetric non-Gaussian distribution characteristics that are always present in SSLs, whereas, in contrast, Gaussian fluctuation persists in LDs. It is found that the deterministic dynamic trajectory in phase space, which is controlled by the ratio between the fluorescence and the photon lifetimes, is crucial to the corresponding behavior of higher-order statistics.     

Thermal focusing effect in solid-state microchip lasers connected directly with vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser diodes

In this paper, we model and analyze thermal focusing effect in the microchip lasers pumped by vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for a special pump scheme, in which the microchip is axially connected with the VCSEL pump source without a gap between them to form a sort of ultra-compact monolithic micro-lasers. Thus, the thermal effects are related to twofold heating processes in the microchip. One is the common pump beam heating. The other is the heat flux diffusion from VCSEL to microchip through the contact interface between both, the latter leads to different thermo-optic characteristics from that generated only by the pump beam heating in the microchip. The temperature-, the stress- and the expansion-related phase variations and thus the thermal focusing properties of the microchip regarding the twofold heating processes are calculated and discussed for various pump power densities and temperatures of the VCSEL using analytical models. The results show that both heating processes in such a pump configuration can produce comparable thermal effects to each other. The influence of the heat transfer from the VCSEL to the microchip laser performance is discussed as well.     

Autocorrelation of self-mixing speckle in an EDFR laser and velocity measurement

Autocorrelation analysis for a velocity measurement based self-mixing speckle in an erbium-doped fiber ring (EDFR) laser is presented. The expression for the velocity measurement is deduced. Theoretical analysis reveals that the velocity of a random surface is inversely proportional to the autocorrelation time of the self-mixing signal produced in the EDFR laser. In experiments, a linear fit between the velocity and the reciprocal of autocorrelation time (autocorrelation frequency) is obtained for velocity measurement. In a range of velocities from 100 mm/s to 350 mm/s, the measurement errors are evaluated to be less than 5%. The signal length, the measurement distance, and the pump power are experimentally studied for gaining knowledge of the influence on the velocity measurement.     

Simultaneous measurement of vibration amplitude and rotation angle based on a single-channel laser self-mixing interferometer

Based on a single-channel laser self-mixing interferometer,we present a new simultaneous measurement of the vibration amplitude and the rotation angle of objects that both affect the power spectrum containing two peaks of the interferometer signals.The fitted results indicate that the curve of the peak frequency versus the vibration amplitude follows a linear distribution,and the curve of the difference of the two-peak power values versus the angle follows a Gaussian distribution.A vibration amplitude with an error less than 3.0% and a rotation angle with an error less than 11.7% are calculated from the fitted results.     

Displacement measurement method based on laser self-mixing interference in the presence of speckle

In order to achieve the accurate measurement of displacement, this Letter presents a self-mixing interference displacement measurement method suitable for the speckle effect. Because of the speckle effect, the amplitude of the self-mixing interference signal fluctuates greatly, which will affect the measurement accuracy of displacement. The ensemble empirical mode decomposition is used to process the interference signal, which can filter out high-frequency noise and low-frequency noise at the same time. The envelope of the self-mixing interference signal is extracted by Hilbert transform, and it is used to realize the normalization of the signal. Through a series of signal processing, the influence of speckle can be effectively reduced, and the self-mixing interference signal can be transformed into standard form. The displacement can be reconstructed by fringe counting and the interpolation method. The experimental results show that the method is successfully applied to the displacement measurement in the presence of speckle, which verifies the effectiveness and feasibility of the method.     

Airy beams from a microchip laser

It is theoretically shown that an end-pumped microchip laser formed by a thin laser crystal with plane-plane but slightly tilted facets can emit, under appropriate pumping conditions and near a crystal edge, a truncated self-accelerating Airy output beam.     

Terahertz imaging through self-mixing in a quantum cascade laser

We demonstrate terahertz (THz) frequency imaging using a single quantum cascade laser (QCL) device for both generation and sensing of THz radiation. Detection is achieved by utilizing the effect of self-mixing in the THz QCL, and, specifically, by monitoring perturbations to the voltage across the QCL, induced by light reflected from an external object back into the laser cavity. Self-mixing imaging offers high sensitivity, a potentially fast response, and a simple, compact optical design, and we show that it can be used to obtain high-resolution reflection images of exemplar structures.     

Sub-external cavity effect and elimination method in laser self-mixing interference wave plate measurement system

Laser self-mixing interference(SMI) wave plate measurement method is a burgeoning technique for its simplicity and efficiency. But for the non-coated sample, the reflected light from the surface can seriously affect the measurement results.To analyze the reason theoretically, a self-consistent model for laser operation with a sub-external and an external cavity is established, and the sub-external cavity formed by the sample and a cavity mirror is proved to be the main error source.A synchronous tuning method is proposed to eliminate the sub-external cavity effect. Experiments are carried out on the synchronously tuning double external cavities self-mixing interference system, and the error of the system is in the range of -0.435°~0.387° compared with the ellipsometer. The research plays an important role in improving the performance and enlarging the application range of the laser self-mixing interference system.     

A laser pistonphone based on self-mixing interferometry for the absolute calibration of measurement microphones

A laser pistonphone for the absolute calibration of microphones at low frequencies has been developed at UME. The motion of an electro-dynamically driven piston in a small close cavity produces a sound pressure. Accurate measurement of the piston displacement, by self-mixing interferometry, enables this sound pressure to be calculated, and consequently the pressure sensitivity of a microphone, exposed to this sound pressure, to be determined. Absolute calibrations of type LS1P and WS1P microphones have been carried out with an uncertainty of less than 0.15 dB. The performance of the laser pistonphone has been validated by comparing the measured microphone sensitivities with those obtained by the closed coupler reciprocity method.     

Spontaneous transverse patterns in a microchip laser with a frequency-degenerate resonator

We experimentally observe the formation of high-order transverse patterns in a microchip laser with a high degree of frequency degeneracy. With a doughnut pump profile the spontaneous transverse patterns are well localized in the Lissajous trajectories. The observed transverse patterns are reconstructed with a high degree of accuracy by use of the coherent state of quantum theory. The accurate reconstruction suggests that laser resonators can be designed to obtain a more thorough understanding of the quantum-classical connection.     

用激光自混合干涉测量扬声器的Q值

用激光自混合干涉方法测量扬声器振动,从扬声器振动引起的自混合干涉信号测量扬声器振动速率.由正弦波激振扬声器测量振速的幅频特性曲线,谐波中包含扬声器谐振频率的方波激振扬声器测量振速衰减曲线,分别按谐振法和衰减法测量得到扬声器的品质因数约13.3和10.2.由于方波激励时扬声器有谐波振动成分,由方波激励获得的衰减曲线测量得...     

Injection locking properties of a microchip laser

An injected microchip laser is theoretically studied, with the use of two models: in the first model, which is traditional, the field is represented by a single frequency component in the slowly-varying envelope approximation. In the second model, referred to as the Fabry-Perot model, two field components are considered which are respectively centered around the frequency of an eigenmode of the injected laser and the frequency of the injected field. Computation of locking ranges, bistability do mains are performed and the results compared. They show not only an improved precision of the second model but also a necessity to use it to describe some effects such as the bistable domains in the limits of the locking domains. Received: 1st April 1998 / Accepted: 21 August 1998     

Sub-nanosecond microchip laser with intracavity Raman conversion

Efficient sub-nanosecond pulse operation of microchip lasers with intracavity Raman conversion and pulse compression is presented for the first time. The microchip lasers were composed of Nd:LSB or Nd:YAG laser crystals, Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber, and Ba(NO₃)₂ Raman medium. The pulse duration obtained at the Stokes wavelength (1196 nm) was as short as 118 ps. Optical conversion efficiency of laser-diode pump power to the Stokes power of 8% was reached. Pulse energy and peak power of Stokes emission were 1.2 μJ and 5.4 kW, correspondingly. Numerical calculations are in good agreement with obtained experimental results. Received: 20 December 2002 / Revised version: 6 March 2003 / Published online: 5 May 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +1-716/645-6945, E-mail: ankuzmin@acsu.buffalo.edu RID="**" ID="**"Present address: University at Buffalo, SUNY, The Institute for Lasers, Photonics, and Biophotonics, 458 NSC, Buffalo, NY 14 260-3000, USA     

Size measurement of nano-particles using self-mixing effect

In this letter, the technique of laser self-mixing effect is employed for nano-particle size analysis. In contrast to the photon correlation spectroscopy （PCS） and photon cross correlation spectroscopy （PCCS）, the main advantages of this technique are sensitive, compact, low-cost, and simple experimental setup etc. An improved Kaczmarz projection method is developed in the inversion problem to extract the particle size distribution. The experimental results prove that nano-particle size can be measured reasonably by using the self-mixing effect technique combined with the improved projection algorithm.     

Self-induced high-speed modulation in microchip solid-state lasers with asymmetric end pumping

We applied laser-diode sheetlike end pumping to a multimode Nd:YVO(4) laser and observed high-speed (>400-MHz) modulation of the intensity of chaotic pulsation near 1 MHz. The frequencies of modulation were the beat frequencies for pairs of closely spaced lasing modes. Asymmetric optical confinement and the resultant modal interference are shown to lead to oval-hollow-mode operation in which modal beat notes induce high-speed modulation, the frequency range of which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than the intrinsic relaxation oscillation frequency. Good numerical reproduction of the observed chaotic pulsations and their high-speed modulation was obtained with model equations in which such effects as nonlinear gain coupling among modes and field interference between pairs of modes were included. High-speed pulsations in nonchaotic lasers were also demonstrated.