Review on diode-pumped alkali vapor laser

Diode-pumped alkali vapor lasers (DPAL) are attracted much attention during recent years for its numerous potential applications. Development of DPAL is reviewed in this paper. The key techniques of DPAL are summarized and analyzed in detail, including the interactions between buffer gas and alkali vapor, pumping structure and power scaling magnification. Novel techniques used in DPAL are discussed, such as hydrocarbon-free DPAL and unstable cavity with transverse pumping. Blue-violet lasers by frequency doubling of DPAL are also introduced specifically. In addition, potential applications and the prospects of DPAL are concluded briefly.     

Modeling of an alkali vapor laser MOPA system

A physical model is established to describe the kinetic processes and the laser amplification in an alkali vapor laser MOPA system. The good agreement between the simulation and the experiment result shows the validation of the model. Influences of some parameters such as the working temperature, the pump power and the cell length on the output performance are calculated and analyzed. A better set of working parameters is achieved for improving the output characteristics of an optically pumped alkali laser MOPA system.     

双光子吸收碱金属蒸气激光器研究进展

蓝紫激光和中红外激光在基础研究和国防工程中有重要的应用前景。单光子吸收的碱金属蒸气激光器具有量子效率高、受激发射截面大和热管理性能好等优点,近些年来已成为激光领域中研究热点之一,目前已实现k W量级的输出。双光子吸收的碱金属蒸气激光器可实现蓝紫激光和中红外激光级联输出的特性,也引起越来越多的关注。本文从碱金属原子密度、泵浦光功率、偏振和频率失调量以及调控激光等几种影响因素出发,综述了双光子吸收碱金属蒸气激光的研究进展,在此基础上分析了影响激光输出特性的原因,最后对双光子吸收碱金属蒸气激光器的发展趋势进行了展望。     

Enhancement of electromagnetically induced transparency in room temperature alkali metal vapor

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has led to several quantum optics effects such as lasing without inversion or squeezed light generation. More recently quantum memories based on EIT have been experimentally implemented in different systems such as alkali metal atoms. In this system the excited state of the optical transition splits into several sublevels due to the hyperfine interaction. However, most of the theoretical models used to describe the experimental results are based on a Λ-system with only one excited state. In this article, we present a theoretical model for the Λ-type interaction of two light, fields and an atomic system with multiple excited state. In particular we show that if the control and probe fields are orthogonally circularly polarized the EIT effect in an alkali-metal vapor can almost disappears. We also identify the reasons of this reduction and propose a method to recover the transparency via velocity selective optical pumping.     

碱蒸气激光半导体泵浦源谱宽压窄

笑脸效应严重制约大功率半导体激光器输出谱宽压窄。为避免笑脸效应,以中心波长780 nm单宽面源大功率半导体激光器为研究对象,利用利特曼外腔结构,优化外腔参数,在激光器自由运转19 W时,获得11.5 W、外腔效率达61%的窄线宽输出。将窄线宽输出激光通过长25 cm, 80 kPa乙烷、110 ℃的铷池,96.7%的泵浦光被吸收,通过与理论模型对比,推断半导体激光器的输出谱宽为15 GHz(0.03 nm)。     

碱蒸气激光半导体泵浦源谱宽压窄

 笑脸效应严重制约大功率半导体激光器输出谱宽压窄。为避免笑脸效应,以中心波长780 nm单宽面源大功率半导体激光器为研究对象,利用利特曼外腔结构,优化外腔参数,在激光器自由运转19 W时,获得11.5 W、外腔效率达61%的窄线宽输出。将窄线宽输出激光通过长25 cm, 80 kPa乙烷、110 ℃的铷池,96.7%的泵浦光被吸收,通过与理论模型对比,推断半导体激光器的输出谱宽为15 GHz(0.03 nm)。     

Efficient diode pumped cesium vapor amplifier

An efficient diode laser pumped Cs vapor amplifier has been demonstrated. Using a 2 cm long Cs vapor cell pumped by an 18 W laser diode array, an amplification factor of 145 for low power Cs laser radiation was achieved. Such an amplifier or chain of amplifiers can significantly simplify the use of multiple pump sources for scaling the output power of alkali lasers.     

A three-level model for alkali metal vapor lasers. Part II: broadband optical pumping

The effects of pump laser spectral bandwidth on the performance of longitudinally pumped diode-pumped alkali lasers is explored by extending the analytic, three-level model using longitudinally averaged number densities. By assuming a statistical distribution between the upper two levels, the limiting solution for the quasi-two level system is achieved. A second limiting solution is identified for strongly bleached conditions where the atom recycle rate, limited by spin–orbit relaxation, fully specifies the output power. Performance in the intermediate regime depends significantly on the pump bandwidth relative to the atomic absorption line width and requires numerical simulation. The ratio of populations for the two excited, ²P_3/2,1/2 states completes an analytic solution and depends primarily on pump laser bandwidth, threshold, and alkali concentration. Absorption well into the wings on the atomic profile can be utilized by increasing alkali concentration, but imposes increased pump intensity threshold.     

Investigation of the kinetics of a metal vapor laser by an interferometric method

The strong visible transition at 553.5 nm was used to study the ground state depletion of Ba I by a discharge pulse at different temperatures. At all temperatures the depletion was found to be larger than 70%.     

Thin layer dye laser amplifier

A simple method to amplify laser radiation is proposed: the divergence is nearly diffraction limited and the intensity distribution profile is gaussian (independent of the spatial parameters of the input signal). The amplification of the laser radiation is achieved using the quasi-waveguide laser of a solution of rhodamin 6G with a concentration of 10^-2 mol/$\text{l}$. A hundred fold intensity amplification with a divergence of 6 × 10^-4 rad is achieved, the latter being only 1.4 times more than the diffraction limited divergence of the system.     

Ultrafast laser and amplifier sources

Received: 28 April 1997/Revised version: 15 May 1997     

Dye laser multipass amplifier system

A system is described for producing high power, narrow bandwidth pulses by injecting electro-optically a dye laser pulse to a multipass flashlamp pumped amplifier cavity. Pulses of 280 MHz bandwidth have been generated with peak powers of 100 kW at 5 Hz repetition rate. A simple modification allows 300 ns long pulse trains to be obtained with pulse separations determined by the round trip time of the cavity.     

半导体泵浦铷蒸气激光器国内首次出光北大核心CSCD

采用体光栅对商用线阵半导体激光器进行线宽压缩,得到线宽0.1nm、中心波长780.2nm、最高连续输出功率80W的泵浦激光输出。为了降低热效应,通过外加斩波器将泵浦光转化为脉冲模式,脉宽440μs,占空比为1∶5。采用长度为5mm的铷金属饱和蒸气作为增益介质,并在常温下充入33kPa乙烷和47kPa氦气,进行了出光实验。在泵浦峰值功率35.4W,铷吸收池温度120℃时,得到峰值功率600mW的795nm铷激光输出,斜率效率为1.7%。     

半导体泵浦铷蒸气激光器国内首次出光

采用体光栅对商用线阵半导体激光器进行线宽压缩,得到线宽0.1 nm、中心波长780.2 nm、最高连续输出功率80 W的泵浦激光输出。为了降低热效应,通过外加斩波器将泵浦光转化为脉冲模式,脉宽440 μs,占空比为1∶5。采用长度为5 mm的铷金属饱和蒸气作为增益介质,并在常温下充入33 kPa乙烷和47 kPa氦气,进行了出光实验。在泵浦峰值功率35.4 W,铷吸收池温度120 ℃时,得到峰值功率600 mW的795 nm铷激光输出,斜率效率为1.7%。     

Transverse Bragg resonance laser amplifier

We propose and analyze a new type of optical amplifier that is formed by addition of gain in the periodic cladding of a transverse Bragg resonance waveguide [Opt. Lett. 27, 936 (2002)]. Using the coupled-wave formalism, we calculate the mode profiles, the exponential gain constant, and, for comparison, the gain enhancement compared with those of conventional semiconductor optical amplifiers. In contrast with coupled-mode theory, in one-dimensional structures (e.g., the distributed-feedback laser) the exponential gain constant in the longitudinal direction is involved in both longitudinal and transverse confinement, and its solution has to be achieved self-consistently, together with the quantized guiding channel width.