Passively mode-locked 2-μm Tm：YAP laser with a double-wall carbon nanotube absorber

We report on a diode-pumped passively continuous wave(cw) mode-locked Tm:YAP laser with a double-wall carbon nanotube(DWCNT) absorber operating at a wavelength of 2023 nm for the first time,to the best our knowledge.The DWCNT absorber is fabricated on a hydrophilic quartz substrate by using the vertical evaporation technique.The output power is as high as 375 mW.A stable pulse train with a repetition rate of 72.26 MHz is generated with a highest single pulse energy of 5.2 μJ.     

Study on incident laser modulation using surface micro-defects on KH2PO4 crystal

KH2PO4 crystal is a crucial optical component of inertial confinement fusion. Modulation of an incident laser by surface micro-defects will induce the growth of surface damage, which largely restricts the enhancement of the laser induced damage threshold. The modulation of an incident laser by using different kinds of surface defects are simulated by employing the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. The results indicate that after the modulation of surface defects, the light intensity distribution inside the crystal is badly distorted, with the light intensity enhanced symmetrically. The relations between modulation properties and defect geometries （e.g., width, morphology, and depth of defects） are quite different for different defects. The modulation action is most obvious when the width of surface defects reaches 1.064 p-m. For defects with smooth morphology, such as spherical pits, the degree of modulation is the smallest and the light intensity distribution seems relatively uniform. The degree of modulation increases rapidly with the increase of the depth of surface defects and becomes stable when the depth reaches a critical value. The critical depth is 1.064 μm for cuboid pits and radial cracks, while for ellipsoidal pits the value depends on both the width and the length of the defects.