侧向输出高功率激光光纤传输系统及测试

本文介绍传输100瓦CWYAG激光的侧向输出光纤传输系统，给出光纤系统全景同平均功率激光时的结构设计考虑和实测结果。     

Transmission properties of all-silica fibres for high-power Nd:YAG lasers

The transmission properties of two different types of all-silica fibres, step index and graded-index fibres, are investigated using a multimode high-power cw Nd:YAG rod laser. The reflections from the fibre surface back into the laser cavity affect the laser power and the beam parameters, waist diameter and divergence. A set-up for simultaneously measuring these values in front of and behind a fibre is presented. The maximum laser power transmitted by fibres is dependent upon the beam parameters, the fibre design and the surface conditions. An upper limit for the maximum divergence which can be coupled into a fibre with a certain numerical aperture without loss is given. The beam parameters behind the fibre, related to the input parameters, are presented.     

Holographic fundoscopy with fibre optic illumination

The first lensless in vivo hologram of a rabbit eye is presented in this paper. A new, highly adaptable method of fundus illumination for holography is discussed, in which a fibre optic bundle is used to transmit the 514.5 nm light of a cw argon laser to the fundus. The virtual image formed by the hologram may be viewed through the opthalmic lenses normally used with the indirect opthalmoscope.^1,2 Except for laser speckle, which may be minimized, viewing is much the same as that in monochromatic fundus examination.     

High Power Photonic Crystal Fibre Raman Laser

A cw Raman laser based on a 100-m photonic crystal fibre is demonstrated with up to 3.8 W output power at the incident pump power of 12 W, corresponding to an optical-to-optical efficiency of about 31.6%.. The second order Stokes light, which is firstly reported in a cw photonic crystal fibre Raman laser, is obtained at 1183nm with an output power of 1.6 W and a slope efficiency of about 45.7%.     

Mechanical vibration measurements using a fibre optic laser-Doppler probe

The feasibility of using a fibre optic for transmitting laser light to a vibrating object and scattered light back to a laser-Doppler unit, has been demonstrated. A new mode of operation of laser-Doppler equipment has been devised with marked improvement over the usual Twyman-Green mode. With the aid of this fibre optic laser-Doppler system both frequency and amplitude information can be obtained from otherwise inaccessible machine components.     

Hand-held laser welding of metals using fibre optics

A fibre optic delivery system has for the first time been used in laser welding of metals. The optical fibre is flexible and has a length of 140 cm. It can transmit pulsed energies from a Nd-YAG laser in excess of 25 J with an efficiency of 85%. Potential applications in industry and in dentistry are discussed.     

Self pulsations and self Q-switching in Ho3+, Pr3+:ZBLAN fibre lasers at 2.87 μm

The temporal characteristics of the output of a single-clad Ho³⁺, Pr³⁺-co-doped ZBLAN fibre laser pumped by a Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm has been found to exhibit a range of cw, self pulsation and self Q-switching output dynamics, dependent on the excitation and fibre conditions. An interpretation is considered based on stimulated Brillouin scattering and the effect of the excited state absorption (ESA). For long fibre (∼13 m) and for uni-directional pumping, the output was a continuous wave (cw), but for bi-directional pumping, a significant decrease in the stability of the output is observed and the output displayed well developed self pulsations. A train of self Q-switched pulses with mean pulse duration of 767 ns, a peak pulse power of about 2.8 W and an average power of 183 mW and with more than 80% pulse-to-pulse stability has been observed when pumped with 4.4 W into each end of the fibre. Self pulsation phenomena are also observed in unidirectional pumping for shorter fibre lengths of ∼9.2 m at high pump power and for 1.5 m fibre length at all pumps power. PACS 42.55.Wd; 42.60.Gd; 42.60.Mi     

Extrinsic fibre-optic sensors for remote measurement: Part two

The impact of incorporating fibre optic components into well established optical techniques such as laser Doppler velocimetry, non-contact vibration measurement, holography and light scattering, is discussed in the two sections of this paper. The possibilities range from simply including a fibre ‘optic link’ in a conventional system to facilitate measurements in difficult or remote areas, to the realization of entirely new optical configurations in which virtually all of the conventional optical components have been replaced by their fibre-optic equivalents. In part two laser velocimetry, vibration measurement, holography and scattering are discussed.     

Single-mode fused coupler for undersea optical transmission systems

A single mode 3 dB fused coupler, to be used as a redundant laser combiner in the submerged repeater of an undersea optical fibre transmission system, is described. The fabrication and package design of the component for this high reliability application is discussed, and the results of a wide range of environmental tests are given.     

GHz optical communication experiments using lead-salt laser diodes in the 3.5–5.5μm wavelength region

The modulation performance of lead-salt laser diodes suitable for mid-infrared fibre optic communication systems has been investigated. The electron and photon lifetime for a PbCdS laser have been determined to 3.1 ns and 3.3 ps, respectively. Moreover, an experiment using short lengths of fluoride fibres shows the feasibility of GHz fibre optic communication links in the mid-infrared region using lead-salt lasers if the potential ultra-low loss of mid-infrared optical fibres can be realized.     

Spectral and temporal study of picosecond-pulse propagation in a single-mode optical fibre

The power-dependent pulsewidth variations for input 85 ps pulses from a cw mode-locked Nd: YAG laser propagating through 125 m of single-mode optical fibre have been examined using a Synchroscan streak camera. Simultaneous spectral and temporal measurements provide information as to the optimum parameters for pulse compression in fibres.     

Sinusoidal modulation of a CW GaAs laser from 9 MHz to 1.1 GHz

Sinusoidal modulation and its detection of a room-temperature cw GaAs laser from 9 Mhz to 1.1 GHz is reported. A 25 dB signal-to-noise ratio with 20 dB harmonic rejection is obtained at 35 mA bias above threshold with a useful power output for optical fibre measurements. Possible extension of the frequency range and the application to sweep-frequency measurements in optical fibre waveguides are discussed.     

Lock-in stabilised externak cavity cw spin-flip Raman laser

A lock-in stabilised cw external-cavity spin-flip Raman laser has been operated in which a cavity mode resonant frequency is servo-controlled to the peak of the spontaneous gain as the magnetic field is swept. The design of the optical system eliminated additional undesired cavity interactions.     

Observation of the optoacoustic effect in an optical fibre

The rediationless absorption of light propagating in optical fibres induces both stress waves and thermal waves in the fibre medium. Detection of such waves is termed the optoacoustic effect. Successful detection in optical fibres is easily obscured by scattered light impinging on the detector. We have obtained a signal of 2 mV on a piezoceramic transducer attached to a commercial step-index optical fibre after passage of a 1 J ruby laser light pulse along the fibre axis. No signal was, however, produced when the transducer was not in contact with the fibre. Similar results were obtained using chopped cw laser radiation but then more care had to be taken since the transducers used had a measureable sensitivity to the low frequency chopped radiation emitted perpendicular to the optical fibre axis.     

Development of multi-wavelength microsphere fibre laser system for potential sensor applications

A multi-wavelength microsphere laser system, using a chirped fibre Bragg grating and a microsphere resonator as wavelength-selective elements and a high dopant erbium doped fibre as the gain material, has been successfully demonstrated. The multi-wavelength generation of the laser system arises from both the microsphere whispering gallery mode selection and from the additional Raman scattering inside the microsphere cavity when the erbium laser is operating at resonance with the whispering gallery modes. Through an appropriate design and fabrication of a microsphere and of a fibre taper, a selective multi-wavelength fibre laser has been realized when the pump power is above threshold required. The laser output lines created have shown much narrower linewidths than those from conventional fibre lasers and these characteristics are particularly suitable for the range of sensor applications envisaged in the work.     

Theory and experiment of CW dye laser injection locking and its application to second harmonic generation

High-power single-mode operation of a cw ring dye laser has been obtained by injection of cw single-mode radiation. The intracavity power of this system was used to generate tunable single-mode uv radiation by frequency doubling in a temperature phase-matched ADA crystal: up to 45 W intracavity fundamental power and up to 70 mW extracted uv power have been observed. A theoretical treatment of the injection locked cw ring dye laser system is given for the stationary state. Expressions for the intracavity intensities as a function of the small-signal gain and the saturation intensity are derived.     

Use of optical fibres in Raman spectroscopy

A detailed study of the parameters governing the design of an optical fibre system for use in Raman spectroscopy is described. The results have led to the design and construction of a flexible fibre optic remote sampling system which is easily adaptable for use on most commercial instruments. A variety of samples were used to evaluate the performance of the system and have been classified in terms of the efficiency of the new technique relative to more conventional methods of excitation and collection.     

Fiber Raman laser pumped by a Nd:YAG laser

We have pumped a fiber Raman laser with a cw mode-locked Nd:YAG laser operating at 1319 nm and generated pulses as short as 160 fsec using soliton pulse shaping in the fiber. We have also constructed a completely integrated oscillator loop using a fiber optic coupler and fusion splicing.     

A long-pulse xenon ion laser as a pumping source for dye lasers

A simple xenon ion laser that is either sealed or has a gas flow mode is described. The laser delivered long pulses ( 15 μs) of almost 1 kW peak power. It has been used to pump a dye laser employing the same configuration as cw dye lasers. The system is inexpensive and can be mode-locked, enabling it to yield ultrashort pulses comparable in duration to those delivered by cw argon laser-pumped dye lasers but with much higher peak powers.     

All-optical logic gates with bacteriorhodopsin

All-optical logic gates with bacteriorhodopsin (bR) protein molecules have been demonstrated based on all-optical switching of a cw probe laser beam by multiple pulsed pump laser beams due to nonlinear intensity-induced excited-state absorption. A cw probe laser beam at 640 nm corresponding to the peak absorption of O-state in the bR photocycle is switched by a pulsed pump laser beam at 570 nm corresponding to the maximum initial B state absorption, at relatively low powers. The switching characteristics have been used to design all-optical NOT and the universal NOR and NAND logic gates and the effect of various parameters such as variation in pump pulse width, pump intensity, lifetime of O state and absorption cross-section of the B state at probe wavelength on the switching characteristics has been analyzed.