Control of transverse mode pattern in a helium-neon laser using the cat’s eye cavity

This paper introduces an innovative method to control and select transverse mode pattern in a He-Ne laser. The cat’s eye cavity is established by using a cat’s eye reflector as the reflecting mirror. Laser transverse mode pattern varies continuously when the distance between the convex lens and the concave mirror is changed, which form the cat’s eye reflector. By Newton-Cotes method, the numerical solution of two-dimensional diffraction integral equation in the cat’s eye cavity is obtained, the laser operating modes under various parameters are analyzed, and the eigenvalue η_mn and diffraction power loss corresponding with every transverse mode are calculated. The parameters assuring fundamental transverse mode output are figured out, which match the experiment results well. Therefore, a new convenient real-time means for the control and selection of the laser transverse mode is realized.     

Ionization spectrum transformation and compression of powerful femtosecond laser pulses in experiments on the propagation in gas-filled dielectric capillaries

The propagation of an intense (I≤10⁶ W/cm²) femtosecond laser radiation with a duration of ～100 fs through gas-filled dielectric capillaries was studied. The radiation with a power up to 0.2 TW propagates along the paths up to 20 cm with a transmission efficiency of ～45%. The beam transverse structure at the output is close to the capillary fundamental mode under gas-ionization conditions. The transformation of pulse spectrum was studied as a function of input intensity. It is demonstrated experimentally that the pulse is compressed to a duration of ～30 fs due to the compensation of ionization-induced self-phase modulation in a linear dispersive element at the capillary output.     

2.7-W Ho<Superscript>3+</Superscript>-doped silica fibre laser pumped at 1100 nm and operating at 2.1 μm

The basic performance characteristics of a Ho ³⁺-doped silica fibre laser that operates in a single transverse mode at ~2.1 µm and is pumped with the 1100-nm output from a free-running Yb ³⁺-doped silica fibre laser are presented. We measure a maximum slope efficiency (with respect to launched pump power) of 35% and we generate a maximum output power of 2.7 W at an optical-to-optical efficiency of 18% with respect to the incident pump power. The wavelength of the output is length tuned from 2090 nm to 2100 nm when the a _absL product varies from 1.2 to 2.7. The use of the free-running output from a Yb ³⁺-doped silica fibre laser to pump the Ho ³⁺-doped silica fibre laser is very convenient and allows significant scaling of the output power.     

Diode-end-pumped frequency-doubled Nd:YAP/Cr:YAG laser using a KTP crystal

We present a design for a compact laser-diode-end-pumped Nd:YAP/Cr:YAG q-switched laser in a plano?Cconcave cavity configuration. With an optical-to-optical efficiency of 35%, this laser provides an average output of 1.2 W with 13 mJ at 1080 nm. After that, the laser is frequency doubled by replacing the output coupler with a flat KTP crystal to achieve an output of 8 mJ in 8 ns at 540 nm. At a peak power of 1 MW, the laser emits linearly polarized output with an average power of 800 mW. The calculated M² value is 1.3, the output is very stable, and the laser operates in the TEM₀₀ mode.     

Use of induced spatial incoherence for uniform illumination of laser fusion targets

We report a technique to achieve very uniform illumination of laser irradiated targets by inducing a controlled amount of transverse spatial incoherence in the output beam of a broadband laser. The spatial incoherence is created by imposing different optical delays upon different transverse sections of the beam, and choosing the delay increments to be larger than the laser coherence time t_c=1/δν. This technique may allow easy attainment of the pellet illumination uniformity required for laser fusion.     

CW single transverse mode all-fiber Tm3+-doped silica fiber laser

The CW 25.6 W output power with a slope efficiency of 30.6% respected to the pump power from a CW single transverse mode all-fiber Tm³⁺-doped Silica Fiber Laser is reported. The all-fiber laser is made up by progressively splicing the pigtail fiber, matched FBG fiber and Tm fiber. The reflective FBG and Tm³⁺-doped fiber end Fresnel reflection build up the laser resonance cavity. Due to the multi-mode FBG as the reflective mirror, the output laser spectrum is multi-peaks at high output power, but the spectrum width is less than 2 nm at 1.94 μm. We estimate the beam quality to be M ² = 2.39, clearly indicating nearly diffraction-limited beam propagation.     

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.     

A single mode flashlamp-pumped dye laser

A flashlamp-pumped dye laser capable of single transverse and longitudinal mode operation is described. The maximum untuned power output is 2 MW cm^-2, TEM₀₀ mode. By employing three intracavity Fabry—Pérot etalons, a minimum spectral width of 4 MHz, stable to within 12 MHz, has been obtained.     

Gain requirement for a gamma-ray laser

A simple expression for gain saturation is presented for a laser filament emitting in a single transverse mode. Values of the gain exponent in the range 20 ? αl ? 30 are found, giving a maximum increase of ～ 10¹¹ in axial intensity.     

Study on a broad-area laser diode with external cavity feedback

The external cavity feedback of a broad-area laser diode is investigated. In Fourier optic methods, the inserted prism in an external cavity can be interpreted as a spatial filter in the Fourier plane of the laser diode. The transverse mode can be selected by changing the position of the filter. As the result of a self-consistency theoretical analysis, the output beam of the external cavity has a single-lobed far-field profile. It agrees well with the experiment result. The beam times-diffraction-limit-factor M² is measured to be 1.16.     

19-cores Yb-fiber laser with mode selection for improved beam brightness

We propose a new method to control the mode combination at the output of a 19-core fiber laser in order to produce a bright beam with uniform phase. The technique is based on both the selective excitation of the amplifying multicore fiber and on an intra-cavity angular filtering at the output. The excitation of the fundamental in-phase supermode of the 19-core fiber was demonstrated, resulting in the emission of a single-mode beam with M ² limited to 1.21.     

High-power Er:YAG laser with quasi-top-hat output beam

A simple method for simultaneously exciting the fundamental (TEM00) transverse mode and first order Laguerre-Gaussian (LG01) donut mode in an end-pumped solid-state laser to yield a quasi-top-hat output beam is reported. This approach has been applied to an Er:YAG laser, in-band pumped by an Er,Yb fiber laser, yielding 9.6 W of continuous-wave output at 1645 nm in a top-hat-like beam with beam propagation factor (M2)<2.1 for 24 W of incident pump power at 1532 nm. The corresponding slope efficiency with respect to incident pump power was 49%. The prospects of further scaling of output power and improved overall efficiency are considered.     

Degradation of beam quality and depolarization of the laser beam in a step-index multimode optical fiber

The characteristics of a laser beam are altered during propagating through large-core multimode optical fibers. The distribution of modes excited by the input laser beam is modified by means of mode coupling on transmission through the fiber, leading to the degradation of beam quality and the depolarization of the delivered beam. The relationship between the beam quality factor (M²) of output beam from a large-core multimode fiber and the fiber length, as well as the relationship between the degree of polarization (V) of output beam from such a fiber and the fiber length, are introduced in this paper. When a laser beam was well launched into a large-core step-index multimode fiber, M² of the output beam was a compound tanh function of the fiber length. A linear polarization beam that well launched into such fiber suffered depolarization. The V of the output beam was an exponent function of fiber length. And the misalignment between beam axis and fiber axis made the beam quality degrade faster but made no difference of the utmost M² in the aligned and misaligned conditions. Also, the misalignment condition made the polarization of output beam degrade faster.     

High-power continuous-wave doubly resonant all-intracavity sum-frequency mixing deep blue laser at 447 nm

In this paper, a high-power continuous-wave deep blue laser at 447 nm with intracavity tripling was achieved. The deep blue laser at 447 nm is obtained by using a doubly cavity, and type-II critical phase matching KTP crystal for intracavity sum-frequency mixing. Through designing of the cavity, the optimum matching of modes and gains for the two wavelengths was obtained. With incident pump power of 30 W for the Nd:YVO₄ crystal and 16 W for the other Nd:YVO₄ crystal, the deep blue laser output of 3.5 W at 447 nm with TEM₀₀ mode was obtained, the beam quality M² value was equal to 1.8 in both horizontal and vertical directions at the maximum output power, and the power stability is better than 3% at the maximum output power during half an hour. The experimental results show that the intracavity sum-frequency mixing by doubly resonant is an effective method for high-power blue laser.     

26 mJ Total Output from a Gain-Switched Single-Mode Er3+-Doped Zblan Fiber Laser Operating at 2.8 $$ \mu $$m

We demonstrate a laser-diode-pumped gain-switched Er³⁺-doped ZrF₄-BaF₂-LaF₃-AlF₃-NaF (ZBLAN) fiber laser operating in a single transverse mode at 2.8 \( \mu \)m. The laser pulses produced offer high-pulse energies, with repetition rates ranging from 50 Hz to 10 kHz and a slope efficiency of approximately 14.3% with respect to the launched pump power. The average power at the 50 Hz repetition rate is 1.33 W, giving a maximum total output pulse energy of 26.6 mJ per pump pulse. The fiber laser operates in a single mode, with beam quality factor M² less than 1.2.     

Prospects for improving energy parameters of radiation of a Cu laser excited by a transverse discharge

The production of copper vapors by an electric explosion and their excitation by a transverse discharge are considered. The results of the study are used for determining the optimal explosion regime for a copper conductor. Maximum specific parameters of a Cu laser are obtained. In an active volume of 0.5 cm³, a radiation energy of 0.92 mJ corresponding to an efficiencyη=0.25 % is obtained. For an active volume of 0.25 cm³, the specific radiation energy corresponded to 2.4 mJ/cm³. The specific power was equal to 120 kW/cm³ forη=0.16 %. An analysis of studies devoted to the given excitation method is performed that shows the possibility of further improvement of the efficiency of the laser under study.     

Mode polarization of a single mode gas laser in transverse magnetic fields

The polarizing effect of transverse dc magnetic fields applied to fractions of an isotropic single mode gas laser is theoretically investigated. A method is proposed to obtain prescribed orientations of the polarization plane in relatively weak external fields (He-Ne, 1.153 μ: about 3x10^-3 Wb/m²).     

铬原子束横向一维激光冷却的蒙特卡罗方法仿真

激光汇聚铬原子沉积实验中,铬原子束准直度的好坏非常重要.利用蒙特卡罗随机思想选取原子轨迹初始条件,将⁵²Cr原子以外的其他同位素、纵向速度分布和横向发散角等因素综合考虑,对铬原子束横向一维激光冷却进行了优化分析.经过与均匀取值法比较,这种方法能够更好地体现原子运动的不确定性,挑选出不参与冷却过程的同位素,使考察界面内原子束的横向位置分布更好的符合实验结果.结果显示,冷却过程中其他同位素的存在使原子束横向位置分布的中心最大值减小9.3%,半高宽增加11%,并且增加轮廓曲线的基底. 关键词： 激光冷却 蒙特卡罗方法 铬原子束     

Interference method of measuring the extinction coefficient of birefringent optical fibers

The extinction coefficient of a birefringent optical fiber (the ratio between the radiation power output of the polarization mode and the radiation power transferred from this mode to another one) characterizes the capability of a birefringent fiber to retain the polarization state of the radiation. In relatively short birefringent fibers (1–100 m), the extinction coefficient may reach 10⁴–10⁶. Such high values of the extinction coefficient are difficult to measure by standard techniques (excitation of one polarization mode by an incoherent source with subsequent recording of the light intensity at the output of the analyzer). An interference method of measuring the extinction coefficient of birefringent fibers is suggested. It is based on using a coherent source and measuring interference oscillations caused by an additional phase modulation at the input of the fiber. This method does not require precise polarization matching between the laser source and fiber and considerably loosens requirements for the polarizer-analyzer extinction and resolution of the photodetector. As a result, using simple standard components (semiconductor laser, film polarizer, and photodetector), one can measure extinction coefficient as high as 10⁶. The suggested interference method of measuring the extinction coefficient of birefringent fibers receives a theoretical analysis, and experimental data obtained for 2- to 1000-m-long fibers are presented.     

Theoretical calculation of beam quality factor of large-mode-area fiber amplifiers

In order to evaluate a fiber amplifier’s output beam quality, we have explored the beam quality factor calculation. A theoretical beam quality factor calculation method is presented in this paper. The method bases on modal power decomposition, laser rate equations and Fourier diffraction theory. Through the rate equations, each modal power weight factor at the fiber output facet is obtained. By the modal power decomposition, the optical field at the fiber output facet is established. Finally, running Fourier transformation, the beam diverging state in free space and corresponding M ² parameter are obtained. The calculation process is verified with applying it to working out the beam M ² parameters of large-mode-area (LMA) fiber amplifier system under different conditions. The numerical results help us well know and predict the out beam property. Some obtained results are also accord with other reporting outcomes.