Oscillating-amplifying integrated fiber laser (OAIFL) can take into account the advantages of fiber laser oscillators and amplifiers, including well anti-back reflected light ability, high conversion efficiency, good nonlinear suppression capability and compact structure. In this work, based on the steady-state rate equations of the fiber laser, combined with the special boundary conditions of OAIFL, the rate equation model of the OAIFL is established. Based on this model, the effects of the pump configuration, the fiber length ratio of the oscillating section and the amplifying section, and the reflectivity of the output coupler fiber Bragg grating on the output characteristics of the OAIFL are theoretically studied. In addition, experiments are carried out to verify the reliability of the pump control logic of the laser under different pump configurations. The results show that OAIFL can maintain a safe working state when using the pump control sequence that inevitably causes laser burnout in conventional fiber laser amplifiers.
In this paper, a 1 kW fiber laser with phase-change cool storage technique is proposed and demonstrated. The phase change materials (PCMs) containing copper foam are filled into the heat sink of the fiber laser. The waste heat can be quickly diffused into the PCMs due to the high thermal conductivity and enormous surface area of copper foam. The fiber laser has a maximum output power of 1.2kW, an electro-optical efficiency of roughly 38%, a weight of roughly 17kg, and a dimension of 330×370×86 mm3 . The fiber laser can operate at maximum power for more than 5 minutes. The power-to-weight ratio of the fiber laser is around 70W/kg (not include power supply equipment).
Membrane or film gain mediums have attracted great attention for their good thermal performances and light field manipulation properties, which are helpful for the power scaling of a laser. A membrane laser enabled on the waveguide grating structure is proposed and this design is flexible to manipulate optical properties by controlling the photonic density of states. Lasing behavior is theoretically analyzed based on the four-level rate equations. Results show that pump absorption is enhanced by about 35 times, which leads to improved laser efficiency. When the laser mode overlaps the resonant guided mode, the Purcell factor achieves 212, leading to enhanced emission rate, as well as an apparent decrease of relaxation oscillating amplitude and time delay. The present work offers a preliminary design and lasing behavior analysis of the vertical external surface-emission laser enabled on the waveguide grating structure.
The spindle-shaped fiber is a novel fiber with a gradual longitudinal structure. The small size section and large size section have the advantages of controlling the number of modes and reducing the laser power density respectively. Based on the steady-state rate equations and coupled mode theory of fiber lasers, this paper conducts theoretical research and comparative analysis on SRS and mode evolution in fiber lasers based on conventional fibers and spindle-shaped fibers, respectively. The results show that, compared with conventional fibers with the similar core diameter, the spindle-shaped fiber can effectively balance the mitigation of SRS and TMI in fiber lasers, and has great potential for achieving higher power laser with better beam quality.
It is difficult to cut through a transparent material such as polyethylene (PE) film with a continuous-wave (CW) laser of the near-infrared wavelength, because of the low absorption of laser energy. The plasma induced by a pulsed laser, however, can damage the surface of a film, which can change the transparency of the material. In this study, a transparent PE film with a thickness of 0.6 mm was irradiated by various combinations of focused laser pulses and a CW laser. The test conditions and the processes were recorded visually by a Schlieren optics system on the side surface of the film and by a high-speed camera on the front surface. From the results, it can be concluded that, though it is difficult to cut through a transparent material such as PE film with only a pulsed or CW laser alone, once the transparency of the surface has been modified by multiple focused laser pulses, the PE film can be cut through easily by a CW laser with a near-infrared wavelength.
High power fiber laser is of importance for a wide range of scientific and industrial processes but the transmission distance is till restricted because of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). We research here on the mitigation of the SRS in highpower fiber laser systems by long period fiber gratings (LPFGs) for longer laser delivery distance. A broadband and high attenuation LPFG is carefully designed and fabricated by a CO2 based inscription system. It has been proven effective in extending delivery distance due to its filtering effect of Raman signal.
The optical vortex (OV) is one type of optical singularity which has a spiral wavefront around a point where the intensity of light is zero and phase is undefined. Exact determination of the OV properties, involving location and sign, are very significant. In this paper, a novel OV detection method using the fractional Fourier system is presented. The fractional Fourier system is employed to provide high-sampling density phase gradient data. The closed form formula for the Hertz potential in terms of phase gradient measurement is given. It is shown that the presence of optical vortices could be visualized as the peaks and valleys of the Hertz potential where peaks correspond to the positive optical vortices and valleys correspond to the negative ones. Therefore it allows the determination of the OV location and sign in a very straightforward way. The validity and reliability are demonstrated through several numerical examples including noisy signals with different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) levels. The outstanding merits possessed by the proposed technique are its low experiment effort and high detection precision.
With the increase of fiber laser output power, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and transverse mode instability (TMI) effects have become the main factors limiting the power boost of high-power, high-brightness fiber lasers. In this work, the TMI effect in different core diameter fiber laser oscillators are studied experimentally. In the 25/400YDF laser oscillator, the TMI threshold is around 1780W, while the TMI threshold of the 30/400YDF is around 1070W. A new type gain fiber (25-30-25YDF) by precisely splicing 25/400YDF with 30/400YDF is employed in the fiber oscillator. When the launched pump power is ~2044W, the maximum average power of the 25-30-25YDF laser oscillator is up to ~1573W without any sign of the TMI. The experimental results show that the larger the efficient core diameter of the gain fiber, the lower TMI threshold of the fiber laser oscillator under the identical experimental structure. By optimizing the length of different core diameter fibers in the cavity and improving the fusion quality of each splice point of the laser, the output average power and beam quality of the fiber laser can be further improved.
In this paper, a novel Modal decomposition (MD) method based on the Wigner representation of fiber modal field is developed. An important distinction between this work and some others is that it can allow either fully or partially spatial coherent modal contents to be decomposed into guided modes. When the Wigner representation is reconstructed, based on the orthogonal property of guided modes and Moyal identity rule, the modal weights and possible relative phases can be obtained in an exact way. Further, the validity and reliability of the method are demonstrated with the numerical simulations.
Ring or conical light beams show great potential in many applications. We report on achievement of multi-ring-shaped conical beams through degenerated optical parametric generation (OPG) with tightly focused Gaussian pump beam in periodic polarized lithium niobate (PPLN) crystal. We observed continuous beam spatial pattern variation from multi to single ring and normal non-hollow beams by crystal temperature tuning. We attributed the experimental results to the effective polarized period changing under tightly focusing. This unique feature would exist in any quasi-phase matching processes and may find applications in optical trapping, manipulation, and even quantum field.
Tapered fiber is expected to effectively suppress nonlinear effects while ensuring excellent beam quality, and may achieve higher power output by breaking through the power limit of ordinary uniform size fiber. Base on the rate equations and the proposed three types of tapered fibers, a nonlinear theoretical model including spectrum, power and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is established. Using this model, the SRS characteristics of the three tapered fiber amplifiers are numerically simulated in the condition of keeping same total absorption coefficient of different fibers guaranteed. The simulation results show that the type I fiber has the worst suppression effect on SRS, and the convex type III fiber has the best suppression effect on SRS. When using the backward pumping method, the convex type II fiber can reach almost consistent suppression effect of the convex type III fiber. Theoretical studies show that the use of tapered ytterbium-doped fiber to build fiber amplifiers has a certain suppression effect on SRS in fiber amplifiers, and provides a reference for the selection of fibers in high-power fiber amplifiers.
Detailed experimental investigations are presented on suppressing mode instability and stimulated Raman scattering by varying the pumping power distribution in a large mode area all-fiber amplifier with fiber core diameter of 20μm using bi-directional configuration. Results reveal that compared to employing co-directional pumping scheme, the fiber amplifier employing counter-directional pumping scheme can enhance the MI threshold power from 1250W to 1447W. Optimizing the pumping power distribution can further strength the mitigation of mode instability, such as the ratio of 57% and 66%, the threshold power is 2176W (highest output power) and 2150W respectively. For the ratio of 49%, which means almost identical scale of co-pumped light and counter-pumped light, the threshold power is 1934W. On the other hand, raising the proportion of backward pumping power can also mitigate the stimulated Raman scattering. 66% of backward pumping power can acquire 2150W output power and 20dB signal-to-noise ratio of the Raman peak, which indicates that optimizing the pumping power ratio can suppress mode instability and stimulated Raman scattering simultaneously.
We have demonstrated here, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time the suppression of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a monolithic fiber laser oscillator using chirped and tilted fiber Bragg gratings (CTFBGs). We designed and inscribed CTFBGs in large-mode-area (LMA) fibers according to the operating wavelength of the fiber laser oscillator. A maximum suppression ratio nearly 19 dB or 23 dB is achieved CTFBG insert before the OC grating or after the HR grating. By reducing the insertion loss and improving the transmission spectrum of the CTFBG, a promotion in laser efficiency could be achieved. This work provides a novel idea for SRS suppression in a high-power all-fiber oscillator system, which is very useful for the output power increasing of fiber oscillators.
We have demonstrated here, to the best of our knowledge, for the first time the suppression of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a monolithic fiber laser oscillator using chirped and tilted fiber Bragg gratings (CTFBGs). We designed and inscribed CTFBGs in large-mode-area (LMA) fibers according to the operating wavelength of the fiber laser oscillator. A maximum suppression ratio nearly 19 dB or 23 dB is achieved CTFBG insert before the OC grating or after the HR grating. By reducing the insertion loss and improving the transmission spectrum of the CTFBG, a promotion in laser efficiency could be achieved. This work provides a novel idea for SRS suppression in a high-power all-fiber oscillator system, which is very useful for the output power increasing of fiber oscillators.
Quadriwave lateral shearing interferometry (QWLSI) could acquire the phase and intensity distribution of laser beam with remarkable resolution in only one measurement. It’s a potential method to measure the phase step of multimode laser. However, the discontinuity point of intensity will reduce the quality of interferogram and lead to wrong wavefront retrieve result. In this paper, analysis and simulations have been conducted on the measuring ability of the QWLSI for the higher-order modes (HOM) in large mode area (LMA) fiber. A set of interferogram image of ideal linearly polarized (LP) mode are calculated and analyzed by a commercial retrieve software. The results show that the proper ratio of the shearing distance to the gap size between HOM petals is the critical parameter to retrieve wavefront correctly. To study the influence of coherence on wavefront retrieving, we calculated the interferogram of multimode laser with different modal phase fluctuation. The results indicate that the partially coherent beam will introduce significant ambiguity into the retrieved wavefront. Finally, the feasibility of wavefront correction of multimode laser with LSI and spatial light modulator is demonstrated with simulations.
Thermal effect of the gain fiber is one of the main factors which limit the power improvement of high power fiber lasers. Using traditional temperature measurement methods, we can only obtain the surface temperature of fiber while the core temperature cannot be detected. In this paper, the temperature of the gain fiber core in all-fiber laser is measured by optical frequency domain reflectometry(OFDR). The fiber laser is operating at 1080nm and the wavelength of detecting light emitted by OFDR is approximately 1550nm. The different wavelength of the two lasers has ensured the proper operating of fiber laser without effecting the operating lasers at 1080nm. The maximum output power of the fiber laser is 58.95W and results show that OFDR is a practical way to monitor the temperature of fiber laser system.
In this paper, a four-wavelength continuous-wave mid-infrared optical parametric oscillator was demonstrated for the first time. The pump source was a home-built linearly polarized Yb-doped fiber laser and the maximum output power was 72.5 W. The pump source had three central wavelengths locating at 1060 nm, 1065 nm and 1080 nm. Four idler emissions with different wavelengths were generated which were 3132 nm, 3171 nm, 3310 nm and 3349 nm under the maximum pump power. The maximum idler output reached 8.7 W, indicating a 15% pump-to-idler slope efficiency. The signal wave generated in the experiment had two wavelengths which were 1595 nm and 1603 nm under the maximum pump power. It was analyzed that four nonlinear progresses occurred in the experiment, two of them being optical parametric oscillation and the rest two being intracavity difference frequency generation.
A monolithic widely wavelength-tunable TDFL mode-locked by SESAM is experimentally demonstrated in our contribution. The laser features a broad wavelength tuning range of 121 nm (1862 - 1983 nm). The central wavelength is tuned by a grating-based tunable filter in the ring laser cavity. To the best of our knowledge, this is so far the most widely wavelength-tunable TDFL mode-locked by SESAM.
Dissipative soliton resonance (DSR) exists in a dissipative system with narrow cavity parameter space in mode-locked fiber lasers. In this work, DSR generation with >800ns pulse width and >84% duty cycle is demonstrated in a mode-locked TDFL. To the best of our knowledge, this result presents the longest DSR pulse duration for 2μm fiber lasers, and the highest pulse duty cycle that has been achieved for any fiber laser operating in the DSR regime.
In this paper, we propose and demonstrate an improvement of plenoptic imaging configuration for high resolution imaging with wide field of view in turbulent atmosphere. For the improvement, the plenoptic imaging configuration is equipped with a high resolution conventional imaging system. Plenoptic imaging system is only used for measuring the wavefront distortion of imaging beams. Based on wavefront distortions measured by plenoptic imaging system and blurred images captured by the conventional imaging system, high resolution images can be achieved by the deconvolution of blurred images. Numerical simulations and experimental results show that the improved plenoptic imaging configuration can be used for restoration of near-diffraction-limited images of objects, successfully. Compared with conventional imaging system and plenoptic imaging system, the improved plenoptic imaging configuration combines advantages of wavefront distortion correction, high resolution imaging, wide field of view. The technology proposed in this paper can have wide applications in photo-electric theodolite and large telescopes.
We demonstrated photodarkening induced core laser leakage phenomenon in the long term operation of a 3 kW copumping fiber amplifier. Output power perturbation of 4~6 minutes period was observed in the 6 hours maximum power operation. Despite the perturbation, the maximum power also drops from 3 kW to 2.65 kW due to the leakage of the core laser. This indicates that the co-pumping scheme may not be suitable to achieve high power fiber laser with long term output stability. We also provide a solution by adopting the counter-pumping scheme that shows very stable output power in the 1-hour maximum power operation test.
Fused silica optics were treated by dynamic etching using buffered hydrofluoric acid (BHF) with different etching depths. The transmissivity of fused silica slightly increases in deep UV (DUV) range after dynamic etching. Surface qualities of fused silica were characterized in terms of surface roughness, surface profile and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The results show that dynamic etching has a slight impact on surface RMS roughness.PL defects gradually reduces by dynamic etching, and laser damage resistance of fused silica continuously increases with etching depth extending. When removal depth increases to ~12μm, the damage threshold is the double that of the unetched surface. However, surface profile continuously deteriorates with etching depth increasing. Appropriate etching amount is very important for improving damage resistance and mitigating surface profile deteriorating of fused silica during etching process simultaneously. The study is expected to contribute to the practical application of dynamic etching for mitigating laser induced degradation of fused silica optics under UV laser irradiation.
Atmospheric turbulence induces laser guide star (LGS) spot wandering in the sodium layer, which introduces trouble to adaptive optics systems. Experimental study of LGS spot wandering usually needs on-sky test. However, the on-sky test of LGS spot wandering is expensive and complicated. Since spatial light modulators (SLMs) are able to simulate atmospheric turbulence, we have designed and set up a SLMs based LGS simulator to study LGS spot wandering. This LGS simulator is prominent to build a bridge between theoretical study and on-sky test. Its performance is tested for vortex beam generated annular LGS which was proposed to reduce the LGS spot wandering in our former paper.
The excitation and emission properties of optical materials can be adjusted by nanostructures and to achieve high optical efficiency in the optically pump laser with short absorption length and high threshold pump power, we present and theoretically investigate a Yb-doped thin film on a 1D grating structure in this paper. High reflectivity at the pump and emission wavelength are realized simultaneously and in terms of the guided-mode resonance theory, the local field of high reflected light is enhanced which will increase the absorption of associated laser wavelength. we analyze parameters of the nanostructure in detail based on rigorous coupled-wave theory and an appropriate structure is decided. We set up a simple quasi-three-level model and demonstrate that this designed structure can effectively improve the optical efficiency of optically pump solid state laser.
The hybrid gas phase and solid state laser shows its inherent advantages in heat management and high efficiency and compactness, with DPAL becoming a perfect example. However, this kind of laser is limited by concern, for example, narrow absorption linewidth and a series of problems resulting from chemical reactions. As a matter of fact, Prof. Krupke proposed some hybrid gas phase and solid state lasers before DPAL, while they were chemically unfavored. As a newest type of hybrid gas phase and solid state laser, diode pumped nanoparticle gas laser (DPNGL) is a potential candidate in high power laser field. We put forward a rate equation model for Yb3+ doped nanoparticle gas laser, and scattering of nanoparticles at the nano scale is included in this model. In addition, modifications of fluorescence lifetime and laser emission and pump absorption cross section are coupled into this model. Some vital factors are simulated and discussed. The results obtained from the modeling show that the influence of scattering is weak, and the Yb3+ concentration is not necessarily high to achieve a good laser performance. The results are sufficiently positive for DPNGL to be a promising high power laser.
Recently, the concept of random fiber lasers has attracted a great deal of attention for its feature to generate incoherent light without a traditional laser resonator, which is free of mode competition and insure the stationary narrow-band continuous modeless spectrum. In this Letter, we reported the first, to the best of our knowledge, optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped by an amplified 1070 nm random fiber laser (RFL), in order to generate stationary mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser. The experiment realized a watt-level laser output in the mid-IR range and operated relatively stable. The use of the RFL seed source allowed us to take advantage of its respective stable time-domain characteristics. The beam profile, spectrum and time-domain properties of the signal light were measured to analyze the process of frequency down-conversion process under this new pumping condition. The results suggested that the near-infrared (near-IR) signal light ‘inherited’ good beam performances from the pump light. Those would be benefit for further develop about optical parametric process based on different pumping circumstances.
The hollow beam has a variety of special physical properties and can be applied to the optical catheter, optical trap, generation of the light trap and many other important fields. In this paper the light-field conversion of the Gaussian beam passing through double axicons and generating the hollow beam is theoretical derived and simulated using the light-field propagation method. The influence of several parameters on the near and far field intensity distribution of the hollow beam is discussed. We find that the hollow beam with different light-field can be generated by controlling these parameters and this has a great potential in terms of micro manipulation, optical trap and other fields.
Limited by the thermal effects and the laser-induced damage characteristics of the non-linear crystals, mid-infrared (MIR) output power of single optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is hard to get further promoted with excellent beam quality. An alternative solution is the multiple-beams combination technology, which exactly provided an effective approach for decreasing the thermal effects and the damage risk of the OPO system under high power operation. In this letter, the experimental study on the spectral beam combination of three idler MIR lasers was carried out for the first time. An optical parametric system with MIR output power of 30 W at 3130nm, 3352nm, and 3670nm was finally obtained. Experimental results indicated that the beam quality M2 factors of the combined laser were measured to be ~1.76 and ~2.42 in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, which confirmed the feasibility of the schematic design.
The near and far field intensity distribution as well as the beam quality of the combination between the hollow beam generated by double axicons and the Gaussian beam were simulated in this paper. The simulation results revealed that several parameters like the interval between two axicons and the phase difference between the two beams would influence the intensity distribution of the combined beam, especially the phase difference between the hollow beam and Gaussian beam which could transforms the far-field intensity distribution into quasi-hollow distribution or peak shaped distribution and was of great potentiality in the industry application.
The experimental results of a temporally stable, continuous wave, midinfrared (MIR), singly resonant optical parametric oscillator pumped by an all-fiberized master oscillator power-amplifier structured random fiber laser (RFL) is presented. The maximal idler output power of 4.35 W was achieved at 3271 nm with good beam quality, and the corresponding pump-to-idler slope efficiency was up to 17.1%. The idler output power exhibited a peak-to-peak fluctuation better than 3.2% RMS at the maximum output power over 20 min. Meanwhile, other characteristics of the generated idler MIR laser had been discussed in details, which offered effective guidance on the research of the frequency downconversion process in the case of temporally incoherent light and broadened the range of RFL applications.
We present an annular laser guide star (LGS) concept for large ground-based telescopes in this paper. The more stable annular LGS is generated by turbulence-resisted vortex beam. In the uplink, a vortex beam tends to wander more slightly than a Gaussian beam does in atmospheric turbulence. This may enable an annular LGS to wander more slightly than a traditional Gaussian beam generated LGS does, which would ease the burden of uplink tip-tilt mirror and benefit a dynamical closed-loop adaptive optics system. We conducted numerical simulation to validate the feasibility of this concept. And we have gotten 31% reduced variance of spot wandering of annular LGS. Besides, we set up a spatial light modulator based laser guide star simulator for beam propagation in turbulent atmosphere to experimentally test the annular LGS concept. Preliminary experimental results are given. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time this concept is formulated.
We demonstrated a new phenomenon, namely, thermally induced core laser leakage in single trench fiber (STF), for the first time. The STF provides very high loss and power delocalization of higher order mode (HOM) and maintain the effective single mode operation. However these properties are chartered only under low power situations. In this paper we established a 976nm directly pumped high power co-pumping fiber amplifier based on the STF. The maximum output power was 1022W with a slope efficiency of 76%. Further increase the pump power will leads to the output power decrease. Meanwhile a micro second Level noise like power fluctuation was observed. No resonance frequency was observed in frequency domain indicating the mode instability is not triggered. We believe that it is the thermally induced waveguide index profile change due to the excessively heat load in the front section of STF that leads to the failure of HOM suppression and the power of FM was coupled into the HOM. However the heat load in the rear section of STF was relatively low and the HOM leaked into the cladding due to the bending loss. We provide a mitigating method by pumping with pump light of smaller absorption. A maximum power of 1330W was achieved without power decrease via pumping the STF with 905nm and 976nm pump light (same amplifier). To our best knowledge, this is the first demonstration of thermally induced core laser leakage in STF and the pertinent results can provide significant reference for future optimization.
Thermal effect in the gain fiber is one of the main factors which restrict the power improvement of high power fiber amplifiers. Previous studies have shown that the thermal effect is closely related to the doping concentration in the gain fiber. In order to reduce the temperature at the fusion point and the maximum temperature of the gain fiber, we propose to use doping concentration varying along the gain fiber as a method to disperse the thermal effect of the gain fiber. A two stage single frequency all-fiber-integrated MOPA is demonstrated, the second stage of which has a hybrid gain fiber composed of high-doped and low-doped Yb fibers. The temperature of the gain fiber is measured by a thermal imaging camera. It is shown that compared with the constant doping fiber, temperature in the gradient doping fiber is greatly reduced when the output powers are approximately the same. Results indicate that the gradient doping of the gain fiber is an effective way to alleviate the thermal effect in high power fiber lasers.
In this paper, a novel criterion for evaluating the beam quality of high energy laser is proposed, which is called “power outside the large bucket”, POLB for short. The novel criterion does not demonstrate the divergence of the beam but focuses on the high spatial frequency wavefront aberration of the beam. The POLB values of the laser beams with various aberrations are calculated. It shows that the more high spatial frequency components in the aberration the larger POLB value is. Moreover, it is theoretically analyzed that the laser beams with various aberrations are corrected by ideal adaptive optics (AO) systems with different deformation mirror (DM) actuator numbers. It is shown that the residual error of the corrected wavefront aberration with many high spatial frequency components is quite large. Finally, the dependence of the residual wavefront error on the POLB value is investigated. Only if the POLB is smaller than 3.8/3.4/2.5/1.7 the residual error of the wavefront may be smaller than λ/10, which is corrected by an ideal AO system with 127/61/37/19 actuators. It is necessary to employ a complicated AO system for improving the laser beam of which the POLB value is large. The novel evaluating criterion POLB is able to demonstrate the amount of high spatial frequency aberration and the residual wavefront error corrected by AO system. It is an accessible and useful criterion for evaluating the beam quality of high energy lasers.
The laser induced damage is a troublesome issue in the application of optical mirrors, which is related to the robustness of the whole laser system. There are two types of mechanisms about the damage of optical mirrors: thermal effect and field effect, which are responsible for the high energy continuous wave (cw) laser induced damage and the high power pulsed laser induced damage, respectively. Under the irradiation of high energy laser, the contaminant on the mirror surface absorbs the laser energy and converts the laser energy to heat. With the heat accumulating, the optical mirror is likely to fuse and even be totally destroyed. The temperature of the contaminant was measured when it was irradiated by a cw high energy laser with power intensity 3.3kW/cm2. It is found that the contaminant achieves thermal equilibrium in a few seconds and then the temperature stays at ~1700K. A physical model was established to describe the process of the thermal equilibrium. The influence of the contaminant size on the thermal damage of the optical mirror was studied theoretically. The results show that the contaminant size plays an important role in the thermal damage of the optical mirror. Only when the contaminant size is smaller than a critical size (~10μm), the contaminant may reach thermal equilibrium and the optical mirror works well in the high energy laser system. If the contaminant size is quite large (<~100μm), the optical mirror will damage under the irradiation of high energy laser.
Sodium laser guide star (LGS) is the key for the success of modern adaptive optics (AO) supported large ground based telescopes, however, for many field applications, Sodium LGS’s brightness is still a limited factor. Large amounts of theoretical efforts have been paid to optimize Sodium LGS exciting parameters, that is, to fully discover potential of harsh environment surrounding mesospheric extreme thin sodium atoms under resonant excitation, whether quantum or Monte Carlo based. But till to now, only limited proposals are demonstrated with on-sky test due to the high cost and engineering complexities. To bridge the gap between theoretical modeling and on-sky test, we built a magnetic field controllable sodium cell based lab-bench, which includes a small scale sum-frequency single mode 589nm laser, with added amplitude, polarization, and phase modulators. We could perform quantitative resonant fluorescence study under single, multi-frequency, side-band optical re-pumping exciting with different polarization, also we could perform optical field modulation to study Larmor precession which is considered as one of devils of Sodium LGS, and we have the ability to generate beams contain orbital angular moment. Our preliminary sodium cell based optical re-pumping experiments have shown excellent consistence with Bloch equation predicted results, other experimental results will also be presented in the report, and these results will give a direct support that sodium cell based lab-bench study could help a Sodium LGS scientists a lot before their on-sky test.
We report an experiment of incoherent beam combining based on a 7×1 all-fiber signal combiner with output power up to 6.08 kW. Properties of transmission efficiency and beam quality are analyzed by beam propagation method. Based on the calculative results, a 7×1 all-fiber signal combiner is fabricated. The handle power capacity is tested with average transmission efficiency of 98.9% and beam quality of M2≈10.
To take advantage of the large-diameter telescope for high-resolution imaging of extended targets, it is necessary to detect and compensate the wave-front aberrations induced by atmospheric turbulence. Data recorded by Plenoptic cameras can be used to extract the wave-front phases associated to the atmospheric turbulence in an astronomical observation. In order to recover the wave-front phase tomographically, a method of completing the large Field Of View (FOV), multi-perspective wave-front detection simultaneously is urgently demanded, and it is plenoptic camera that possesses this unique advantage. Our paper focuses more on the capability of plenoptic camera to extract the wave-front from different perspectives simultaneously. In this paper, we built up the corresponding theoretical model and simulation system to discuss wave-front measurement characteristics utilizing plenoptic camera as wave-front sensor. And we evaluated the performance of plenoptic camera with different types of wave-front aberration corresponding to the occasions of applications. In the last, we performed the multi-perspective wave-front sensing employing plenoptic camera as wave-front sensor in the simulation. Our research of wave-front measurement characteristics employing plenoptic camera is helpful to select and design the parameters of a plenoptic camera, when utilizing which as multi-perspective and large FOV wave-front sensor, which is expected to solve the problem of large FOV wave-front detection, and can be used for AO in giant telescopes.
Broadband mid-infrared lasers are desirable for pretty important applications in fields of environmental protection, medical treatment, military applications, scientific, and other domains. Recently, super-continuum laser sources have achieved striking development. However, limited by the substrate materials, the output power scaling of the broadband mid-infrared fiber laser sources could not be increased drastically, especially for the long wavelength region. In this paper, we reported an experimental study about the broadband mid-infrared lasers based on Cr2+ doped II-VI ceramic materials, by using of a super-continuum laser source developed by our groups operating at 1550~2130nm with 200mW output power. The result suggested that the near-infrared spectral component of the super-continuum source was deeply absorbed by transition metal doped zinc chalcogenides ceramic materials, meanwhile the mid-infrared part, however, had been enhanced significantly by this new "power amplifier." Actually single-pass amplification efficiency was very limited. The best way to solve this problem was multi-pass amplification systems. We had shown an initial proof of this assumption by a double-pass experiments, the result was consistent with expected effect. Above all, the spectrum shaping from short wavelength to long wavelength was obtained. The innovative discovery had laid a solid foundation for high power, high efficiency, broadly tunable mid-infrared solid state lasers.
The fiber laser has very obvious advantages and broad applications in remote welding, 3D cutting and national defense compared with the traditional solid laser. But influenced by heat effect of gain medium, nonlinear effect, stress birefringence effect and other negative factors, it’s very difficult to get high power linearly polarized laser just using a single laser. For these limitations a polarization-converting system is designed using beam shaping and combination technique which is able to transform naturally polarized laser to linearly polarized laser at real time to resolve difficulties of generating high-power linearly polarized laser from fiber lasers in this paper. The principle of the Gaussian beam changing into the hollow beam passing through two axicons and the combination of the Gaussian beam and the hollow beam is discussed. In the experimental verification the energy conversion efficiency reached 93.1% with a remarkable enhancement of the extinction ratio from 3% to 98% benefited from the high conversion efficiency of axicons and the system worked fine under high power conditions. The system also kept excellent far field divergence. The experiment phenomenon also agreed with the simulation quite well. The experiment proves that this polarization-converting system will not affect laser structure which controls easily and needs no feedback and controlling system with stable and reliable properties at the same time. It can absolutely be applied to the polarization-conversion of high power laser.
KEYWORDS: Axicons, Second-harmonic generation, Gaussian beams, Fiber lasers, Energy efficiency, Polarization, Mirrors, Laser applications, High power lasers, Control systems
A polarization-converting system is designed by using axicons and wave plate transforming naturally polarized laser to linearly polarized laser at real time to resolve difficulties of generating high-power linearly polarized laser. The energy conversion efficiency reaches 96.9% with an enhancement of extinction ratio from 29.7% to 98%. The system also keeps excellent far field divergence. In the one-way SHG experiment the double frequency efficiency reached 4.32% using the generated linearly polarized laser, much higher than that of the naturally polarized laser but lower than that of the linearly polarized laser from PBS. And the phenomenon of the SHG experiment satisfies the principle of phase matching. The experiment proves that this polarization-converting system will not affect laser structure which controls easily and needs no feedback and controlling system with stable and reliable properties at the same time. It can absolutely be applied to the polarization-conversion of high power laser and enhance the SHG efficiency and the energy efficiency.
KEYWORDS: Adaptive optics, Wavefront sensors, Sensors, Distortion, Mirrors, Data fusion, High power lasers, Detection and tracking algorithms, Beam splitters, Wavefronts
In a high-power laser system, a beam splitter refers to the mirror which locates at the cross point of the path of highpower beam and the weak light section. Because of the thermo-optic effect and elasto-optic effect, a beam splitter deforms under intense laser radiation. This deformation adds extra phase on the incident waves and deliveries inaccurate information to the wavefront sensor. Consequently, the output laser focuses at finite distance and gets divergent when arrives at the target. To settle the above problem, this paper presents a new method for real-time correction of the thermal distortion of beam splitter, based on algorithm of the data fusion of two Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensors (SH-WFS). Different from the traditional AO system, which contains a wavefront sensor, a corrector and a servo controller, two extra Shack-Hartmann wavefront detectors are adopted in our AO system, to detect the transmitted and reflected aberrations of beam splitter mirror. And these aberrations are real-timely delivered to the wavefront sensor. Based on coordinate conversion and data fusion algorithm, it makes the wavefront sensor of AO can “see” the aberrations of splitter mirror by itself. Thus, the servo system controls the corrector to compensate these aberrations correctly. In this paper, the theoretical model of data fusion algorithm is carried out. A closed-loop AO system, which consists of a typical AO system and two extra Shack-Hartmann wavefront detectors, is set up to validate the data fusion algorithm. Experimental results show that, the distortion of a CaF2 beam splitter can be real-time corrected when the AO closedloop control is on. The beam quality factor of output laser decreases from 4 to 1.7 times of diffraction limit.
Alkali laser has been one of the most promising paths to high energy laser during past dozen years. As the first group realized DPAL and XPAL lasing in China, we had done lots of theoretical and experimental works to further clarify the mechanism of alkali lasers, such as exploring scaling parameters design balance and MOPA configuration amplified spontaneous emission suppression in DPAL based on our self-developed fast converging algorithm, XPAL’s continuous wave operation threshold, performance degradation of VBG narrowed diode laser array and stacks due to conductive thermal flow, heat deposition induced gas dynamic parameters variation estimation, local atomic number density change measurement with single frequency tunable diode laser, ionization and other higher level nonlinear effects with opto-galvanometer method. Based on above research works, preliminary c onsiderations and conclusions for alkali laser scaling are given.
3~5μm mid-infrared laser has many important applications, such as gas detection, spectral analysis, remote sensing, medical treatment, and also in the military laser radar, infrared countermine, and so on. Optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is an efficient way to generate laser in this wavelength range, which has attracted the eyes of many people. In this paper, the recent development of mid-infrared OPO is overviewed. Meanwhile, detailed introduction on our recent work is given. Maximum idler output power of 34.2W at center wavelength of 3.35μm was obtained, to our knowledge, which is the new power record of the international public reporting for the continue-wave (CW) mid-infrared OPO. It is worth mentioning that the pump source, the quasi single-frequency (SF) narrow line width fiber laser, was also developed by our groups. According to the current status of research, some solutions is proposed in order to achieve higher power, narrower line width, and compact volume mid-infrared OPO in a wide tunable range.
Study on random laser is an interesting topic in physics. In this paper we pay much attention to the high power random laser achievement in optical fiber. Two kinds of optical gains are used for light amplification. One is Raman gain and the other is Yb-doped fiber gain. The random signal is provided by distributed feedback came from Rayleigh scattering and amplified by those gain. We obtain the highest random laser output power results and different laser emitting characters are also reported.
Alkali laser has been one of the most promising paths to high energy laser during past dozen years. As the first group
realized DPAL and XPAL lasing in China, we had done lots of theoretical and experimental works to further clarify the
mechanism of alkali lasers, such as exploring scaling parameters design balance and MOPA configuration amplified
spontaneous emission suppression in DPAL based on our self-developed fast converging algorithm, XPAL’s continuous
wave operation threshold, performance degradation of VBG narrowed diode laser array and stacks due to conductive
thermal flow, heat deposition induced gas dynamic parameters variation estimation, local atomic number density change
measurement with single frequency tunable diode laser, ionization and other higher level nonlinear effects with opto-galvanometer method. Based on above research works, preliminary considerations and conclusions for alkali laser
scaling are given.
3~5μm mid-infrared laser has many important applications, such as gas detection, spectral analysis, remote sensing,
medical treatment, and also in the military laser radar, infrared countermine, and so on. Optical parametric oscillator
(OPO) is an efficient way to generate laser in this wavelength range, which has attracted the eyes of many people. In
this paper, the recent development of mid-infrared OPO is overviewed. Meanwhile, detailed introduction on our
recent work is given. Maximum idler output power of 34.2W at center wavelength of 3.35μm was obtained, to our
knowledge, which is the new power record of the international public reporting for the continue-wave (CW)
mid-infrared OPO. It is worth mentioning that the pump source, the quasi single-frequency (SF) narrow line width
fiber laser, was also developed by our groups. According to the current status of research, some solutions is proposed
in order to achieve higher power, narrower line width, and compact volume mid-infrared OPO in a wide tunable
range.
Adaptive Optics (AO) based on artificial beacons is the key to achieve high resolution images from large ground-based telescopes. Long pulsed lasers are preferable to create sodium laser guide stars (LGS) as they allow for Rayleigh blanking. However, these lasers may increase the effective light intensity irradiated at the sodium layer, which may lead to transition saturation, and then decline the normalized return flux efficiency. The return flux might be boosted by optical repumping, which could make full use of the advantages of optical pumping without trapping the atoms to the F=1 ground state. In this paper, we study the optical repumping effect by using a small scale long pulsed sodium laser developed in Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC), Chinese Academy of Sciences, whose pulse format may be pretty suitable for large telescopes. An electro-optic phase modulator is used to produce 1.713 GHz sidebands from the D2a center wavelength with the fraction of 20%. As for a vacuum sodium cell at the temperature of 40°C, when the effective laser intensity increases from 4.53×102 W/m2 to 6.99×105 W/ m2, resonant fluorescence with and without repumping is measured. The result illustrates that the resonant scattering brightness with repumping can be as over 3 times as without it when the light intensity changes between 4.53×102 W/m2 to 5 ×104 W/ m2. The saturated phenomenon is also observed. This gives direct evidence that repumping could improve the performance of sodium laser guide stars based on TIPC long pulsed lasers. To our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of the repumping effect with the TIPC type long pulsed laser in laboratory.
We present a new method to calculate wavefront pre-compensation of the thermal deformation aberrations based on the finite element method (FEM) and Zernike polynomials. The thermal deformation aberrations of a plat circular Si mirror are theoretically analyzed in detail. Model of the beam path with 4 reflective mirrors and a uniform incident laser source is established. With the above model, performances of the outgoing laser with and without wavefront pre-compensation are calculated, respectively. The results show that the Strehl ratio of the outgoing laser beam is increased from 0.13 to 0.66 with wavefront pre-compensation using the new method. The influence of Fresnel number on the ability of wavefront pre-compensation was also studied. The value of SR increases to 0.83 as the Fresnel number is 257. The ability of wavefront pre-compensation is limited when the Fresnel number is small.
In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a single-element beam shaper for transforming a fiber laser beam into a near-diffraction-limited dark hollow beam. The single-element beam shaper contains two aspheric surfaces. One aspheric surface redistributes the intensity distribution of the incident beam and the other re-collimates the output beam. The distributions of these surfaces are derived by the energy conservation condition and constant optical path length condition. The comparisons between the single-element beam shapers based on different working principles are analyzed in detail. Based on the Fourier optics and Geometrical optics, the near field, far field intensity distribution and wavefront distribution of the output beam are studied in detail. The influences of deviations of the beam shape from the assumed value, distance between dual aspheric surfaces and optical alignment errors are studied in detail. Results show that the shaping errors of the single-element Keplerian beam shaping system are much smaller than that of the single-element Galilean beam shaping system. The wavefront distribution of the output beam is maintained. The dark hollow intensity distribution of the output beam can be maintained for a certain distance in the near field and the far filed intensity distribution exhibits airy disk pattern.
To overcome the shortcomings of Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor, we developed a lightfield wavefront detection system,
which is able to complete the large field of view, multi-perspective wavefront detection in a single photographic exposure.
The lightfield wavefront detection system includes an imaging primary mirror, a lenslet array and a photosensitive device.
The lenslet array is located on the imaging plane of the imaging primary mirror and the photosensitive device is located on
the focal plane of the lenslet array. In this system, each lenslet reimages the aperture and forms a low-resolution image of
the aperture. Compared with the Shack-Hartmann sensor, this lightfield measuring method can obtain imaging arrays in
different perspectives. By comparing the array information with the standard information, we can obtain the slope matrix of
the wavefront in different perspectives and restore the wavefront in a large field of view. Based on Fourier optics, we built
the corresponding theoretical model and simulation system. By busing Meade telescope, turbulent phase screen, lenslet
array and CCD camera, we founded the experimental lightfield wavefront measuring system. Numerical simulation results
and experimental results show that this wavefront measuring method can effectively achieve the wavefront aberration
information. This wavefront measurement method can realize the multi-perspective wavefront measurement, which is
expected to solve the problem of large viewing field wavefront detection, and can be used for adaptive optics in giant
telescopes.
Recent years, benefited from their greater coverage and smaller focus anisoplanatism, sodium laser guide stars are
becoming more attractive in providing artificial beacons for adaptive optical (AO) system in large ground telescopes
compared to Rayleigh guide stars. And it had been found that the Sodium laser guide stars backward fluorescence
intensity is closely related with the local magnetic field intensity and direction. In this paper, we make use of the World
Magnetic Model (WMM) 2010 and by considering the geographical differences in Beijing, Nanjing and Kunming we
investigate the effects of the light intensity, line-width, polarization of the CW laser and re-pumping conditions on the
photon return flux by numerically solving the Rochester et al. Bloch model. So in theory we can get better Sodium guide
star in Beijing. In conclusion, according to the simulation results, we can acquire much bright of Sodium guide stars by
optimize the parameter of the launched 589 nm laser.
An optical parameter oscillator base on KTP nonlinear optical crystals and a frequency doubling Nd:YAG lase was built. The wavelength of the signal light could be tuned from 750-800nm. At the wavelength of 780.2nm it could provide 62mJ each pulse with duration of 14 ns and spectrum (FWHM) about 0.4nm, and at the wavelength of 755nm the energy of each pulse was 10mJ with duration of 8ns. When the signal passed through a 10cm long Rb cell with Ar buffer gas at the temperature of 120°C and the wavelength was tuned from 779nm to 781nm, it could be observed that the fluorescence in the cell changed from dim to clear at first and then declined. Fluorescence could also be observed when the signal wavelength was 755nm and the cell was heated to 180℃. Which indicated that this OPO can provides over 1MW peak power for the research of rubidium lasers and rubidium-rare gas excimer lasers.
Diode pumped alkali vapor lasers (DPAL) is a rising high-energy laser. The wavelength of which is consistent with the response curve peak position of solar cell, and it has broad application prospects in laser directed energy transfer. The paper bases on the application of solar unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) energy transfer in high altitude and longendurance conditions. For the first time by using the MODTRAN and FASCODE, we calculate the transmittance of Potassium, rubidium, cesium laser in the typical atmospheric conditions vertically and different angles of atmospheric slant path by the numbers, The result shows that DPAL has a very high atmospheric transmittance, and also a valuable reference in other applications with the atmospheric transmission.
The generation of vortex laser beam by using phase-only liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) combined with the spiral phase screen is experimentally and theoretically studied. Results show that Gaussian and dark hollow vortex laser beams can be generated by using this method successfully. Differing with the Gaussian and dark hollow beams, far field intensities of the generated vortex laser beams still exhibit dark hollow distributions. The comparisons between the ideal generation and experimental generation of vortex laser beams with different optical topological charges by using phase only LC-SLM is investigated in detail. Compared with the ideal generated vortex laser beam, phase distribution of the experimental generated vortex laser beam contains many phase singularities, the number of which is the same as that of the optical topological charges. The corresponding near field and far field dark hollow intensity distributions of the generated vortex laser beams exhibit discontinuous in rotational direction. Detailed theoretical analysis show that the main reason for the physical phenomenon mentioned above is the response error of phase only LC-SLM. These studies can provide effective guide for the generation of vortex laser beam by using phase only LC-SLM for optical tweezers and free space optical communication.
A strip Volume Bragg Grating (VBG) locked 64 emitter diode laser array’s center wavelength shift of each emitter
according to VBG’s local temperature is experimentally studied, which is consistent well with thermal imaging
temperature distribution, Finite element analysis (FEA) is then used to study strip and large area VBG’s temperature
gradients, we find even with minute heat deposition, due to PTR glass’s low heat conductivity, tens degrees temperature
gradient could easily be built, we suggest it may be partially respond for stack’s poor spectra narrowing performance
compared to single laser diode and diode array. Finally, some measures are further suggested to alleviate the effect.
In this paper, a simple one dimensional heated flow analysis model and 3-D finite volume method (FVM) is set to
discuss the real gas dynamic effect in FDPAL. We found that huge amount of waste heat deposited in extreme compact
volume size will notably affect active medium’s local velocity, temperature and the density distribution along flow
direction, and would accordingly affect pump beam’s absorption and change optimized lasing conditions, hence, a
comprehensive model incorporate gas dynamic effect should be built for DPAL’s next stage development. We further
proposed that expanding fluid channel may be a choice to increase optical thickness along pumping direction and
alleviate this effect.
Excimer Pumped Alkali Laser (XPAL) is a hopeful choice to solve Diode Pumped Alkali Laser (DPAL)’s
disadvantages. Theoretical and experimental investigations of Rb-Ar XPAL were carried out in this paper. Time
dependent rate equation model illustrated that extreme pump strength was needed to exceed threshold and to assure
efficient cw running. 780nm lasing of four level Rb-Ar excimer was realized with a surrogate 15 ns pulsed optical
parametric oscillator (OPO). Possible resonator configuration may increase pumping strength was proposed.
A cascaded all-fiber amplifier was set up to investigate stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) suppression with
phase-modulation (PM) in our experiment. With a modulation index of π / 2 , the SBS threshold power of the modulated
amplifier can be enhanced with a factor of 3.5 compared with the unmodulated single frequency amplifier. In high power
level, we demonstrate a 275 W all-fiber amplifier, where the SBS threshold enhancement factor is larger than 2.2
compared with the unmodulated case with SBS threshold power of 126 W. Further enhancing the output power is limited
by available gain fiber and pump powers in this case.
We present research on high-order Gaussian laser beam cleanup by using adaptive optics (AO)
technique. A 64-element adaptive optics beam cleanup simulation system based on Stochastic
Parallel-Gradient-Descent (SPGD) Algorithm was set up. The far-filed energy centrality of TEM10 mode was
advanced and the evaluation function increased more than a factor of 4.6 when the system evolves from
open-loop into close-loop state. The experiments results indicate the feasibility of Adaptive Optics in mode
transform system.
In this paper, a system of containing dual deformable mirrors (DMs) is proposed to adaptively conversion of input
beam with wave front distortion into near-diffraction-limited flattop beam based on the stochastic parallel gradient
descent (SPGD) algorithm. In the analysis, the wave front distortion of the input beam is chosen as the Zernike
representation of Kolmogoroff spectrum of turbulence. The whole shaping system is controlled by the SPGD algorithm.
One DM adaptively redistributes the intensity of the input beam and the other adaptively compensates the wave front of
the output beam. The near-diffraction-limited flattop beams with different parameters are realized by this technique. The
near-diffraction-limited square flattop beam retains an flattop intensity distribution without significant diffraction peaks
for a working distance of more than 60cm in the near field.
Thulium-doped fiber laser (TFL), which emitted near 2 μm laser beam, has become the latest revolution in highpower
fiber laser technology. Further increasing the output power will face great challenges induced by nonlinear effects;
coherent beam combining of TFL can increase laser output power while simultaneously maintaining beam quality.
In this manuscript, we will present our detailed investigation on coherent beam combining of TFLs. Three different
approaches, i.e., interferometric array, mutual injection locking and active phasing based on multi-dithering technique,
are employed. In the interferometric array scheme, coherent combining is realized by using an intracavity fiber coupler
in an all-fiber laser array configuration. Efficient coherent combining can be achieved by providing sufficient loss
discrimination. High combining efficiency of 85% for two fiber laser has been obtained. In mutual injection locking
scheme, mutual coherence between the two fiber lasers is established by means of mutual coupling through two 3dB
couplers. High combining efficiency of 99% for two fiber laser has been obtained, and the fringe contrast of the intensity
pattern at the receiving plane is as high as 93%. In active phasing scheme, when the phase control system is in the closed
loop, the fringe contrast of far-field intensity pattern is improved by more than 75 % from 10 % in open loop, and the
residual phase error is less than λ/20.
Multiwavelength seed laser can suppress stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and improve the ultimate output power of
the fiber laser amplifier. Coherent combining of multiwavelength lasers/amplifiers is a promising way to get much
higher total output power than coherent combining of the single frequency lasers/amplifiers. Coherent beam combining
of stimulated Brillouin scattering based multiwavelength fiber lasers is proposed and demonstrated. Multiwavelength
laser is generated using stimulated Brillouin scattering effect by seeded a 10 kilometer single mode fiber laser with a
single frequency laser and phase locking is achieved using stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm.
Experiment results shows that more than 15 wavelengths are generated for the laser. With active phase control, mean
power of the main-lobe in close-loop is 1.37 times of that value in open-loop and the visibility of the long exposure
interference pattern is 0.37. Scale up this architecture to higher power involves introduction of power amplifiers,
increasing channel number of amplifiers and power of each individual amplifier.
In conventional cooling operation, thermal effects and stress distribution in slabs of solid-state laser are presented by
many workers, it is different with that in the solid state heat capacity laser. In this paper, the transient temperature and
stress distribution in Xeon flash lamps pumped slabs for single-shot and repetitively pulsed operations will be produced
in the heat capacity operation. A high speed CCD camera was used to set up an experiment system to measure the
interference fringes, from these fringes' changes, the extension of the slab due to the stress and thermal expansion can be
obtained. Since dielectric materials are inherently several factors stronger in compression than in tension, this
temperature reversal in heat capacity operation increases the inherent fracture limit of the system and allows a heat
capacity operated laser to be pumped much harder than a conventionally operated slab laser.
KEYWORDS: Control systems, Control systems design, Fiber amplifiers, Optical amplifiers, Optical fibers, Fiber lasers, Phase measurement, Negative feedback, Oscillators, High power fiber amplifiers
Combining fiber laser beams are of current interest for scaling lasers to high average output power. The Master
Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) configuration is important in fiber laser beam combination. The efficiency of
coherent beam combining is depended on the phase control precision of the system mostly, which is equivalent to the
closed loop output phase noise. In this paper, a simplified negative feedback model of the phase control system is
constructed to study the optimum design of the system. The effects of the transfer function of the system on the phase
noise of the optical fiber amplifier, the measured noise and the stability of the system are analyzed. The relationship
between the closed loop output noise and the system parameters is analyzed and calculated. The results show that there is
a set of system parameters to minimize the closed loop output noise for different phase noise of the optical fiber amplifier,
and for a fixed set of system parameters, the closed loop output noise of the system almost changes linearly with the
change of the input noise. The effective means to achieve optimal system parameters for higher degree of control
precision are obtained.
Coherent beam combination of fiber laser arrays plays an important role in realizing high power, high radiance fiber laser
systems. The stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm is a newly developed optimization method using the
technique of parallel perturbation and stochastic approximation and it is expected that this algorithm can reduce the cost
and complexity of a high power fiber laser system when incorporated in its beam combination scheme. In this paper, a
numerical simulation model about the fiber laser beam combination system is then established based on beam-quality-metric optimization method. The SPGD algorithm is introduced and used to realize the beam-quality-metric
maximization, leading to the maximum output power of the fiber laser system. The results of numerical simulation
indicate that the far-field beam intensity optimization method using SPGD algorithm can realize coherent beam
combination of fiber laser arrays effectively.
Self-organized coherent laser array seems to be a promising method for coherent combining fiber lasers. Phase locking is
realized by mutual energy injection, without any active phase stabilization, requirement of the fiber length or the output
power for individual lasers.
In this paper, rate equations describing time evolution of the complex, slow varying electric field and gain of an array of
single transverse and longitudinal mode lasers proposed in former literature was referred to for modeling the self-organized
fiber laser array. The process for phase-locking evolution of each individual laser in a fiber laser array was
modeled and analyzed theoretically and numerically.
For the case of an array containing 2 or more than 4 lasers, the array will be in an out-of-phase mode, with a phase
difference of π between adjacent laser output modes. For an array containing 3 lasers, phase difference between adjacent
lasers would be ±2π/3. We will cite experiments to validate our verdict.
We can also obtain by investigating on the model that more powers can be extracted than the summation individual free
running lasers. Those phenomenons have been reported but not explained.
At the end of this paper, we perform system level analysis on the fiber laser array numerically. We find that with the
number of lasers increasing, the array will have a more critical condition on detuning frequency for phase locking.
Solid-state heat-capacity laser (SSHCL) has been developed in recent years. One of the key features of this heat capacity approach is the inversion of the temperature profile through the medium as compared to conditions where the laser is actively cooled while lasing takes place. So the thermal effects in the active medium on the two conditions mentioned above must be different. In this paper, we mostly discuss the contribution of temperature gradients to the effect of the thermal lens in optically pumped cylindrical laser rods operated in heat capacity operation through classical thermal conductivity equation, end effects and birefringence of the material with stress from temperature gradients ignored. Expressions are derived for the focus length of thermal lensing in laser rods for single-shot and repetitively pulsed operations. Programming the computer, we respectively calculate the thermal induced refractive power of the laser rods in the heat capacity operation and on the cooling condition, and compare the double results.
By means of Hartmann Sensor at the rate of 419 Hz, a series of dynamic degraded wave front of collimated laser transport perpendicularly across a heated air flow was measured. The airflow was generated using a vertical-placed nozzle. An integral result of the airflow density distribution was educed. Both span-wise direction and stream-wise direction structure convection were observed. Some pilot study of flow field visualization was made.
A new optical phase retrieval algorithm by lateral shear interferometer with wavelet transform is introduced. It can reconstruct the smooth wavefront faster than conventional polynomial fit. And to rough wavefront function, it also can do better. The computer simulation is also given.
Interferometry is a successful method of measuring fields of refractive index and displacement. It therefore has many applications in the measurement of fluid flows, photo elastic stresses, and surface and vibration analysis. The Fourier transform method of interferogram analysis is a useful mean of extracting phase information from linear fringe patterns generated by the interference of tilted wave fronts. This paper introduces Fourier transform method, and the results are given by applying the method to recovery ofthe original wave front in lateral-shearing interferometry.
Thermal blooming is one of the most important factors, which make the beam diffused and cause the decline of laser intensity on the object. This paper presents a method to reduce thermal blooming of high-energy laser (HEL) in the beam tube and compares two models describing the thermal blooming. Helium has the qualities of low absorption coefficient, high thermal conductivity and low index of refraction, and can be used as the medium through which HEL beam propagates. The condensations of thermal conduction model and acoustic wave model are evaluated respectively. Results show the method is practicable, and two models' applicable ranges are got.
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