High wall-plug efficiency 808-nm laser diodes with a power up to 30.1 W

A very highly efficient InGaAlAs/AlGaAs quantum-well structure was designed for 808 nm emission,and laser diode chips 390-μm-wide aperture and 2-mm-long cavity length were fabricated.Special pretreatment and passivation for the chip facets were performed to achieve improved reliability performance.The laser chips were p-side-down mounted on the AlN submount,and then tested at continuous wave(CW)operation with the heat-sink temperature setting to 25℃using a thermoelectric cooler(TEC).As high as 60.5%of the wall-plug efficiency(WPE)was achieved at the injection current of 11 A.The maximum output power of 30.1 W was obtained at 29.5 A when the TEC temperature was set to 12°C.Accelerated life-time test showed that the laser diodes had lifetimes of over 62111 h operating at rated power of 10 W.

975 nm multimode semiconductor lasers with high-order Bragg diffraction gratings

The 975 nm multimode diode lasers with high-order surface Bragg diffraction gratings have been simulated and calcu-lated using the 2D finite difference time domain(FDTD)algorithm and the scattering matrix method(SMM).The periods and etch depth of the grating parameters have been optimized.A board area laser diode(BA-LD)with high-order diffraction grat-ings has been designed and fabricated.At output powers up to 10.5 W,the measured spectral width of full width at half maxi-mum(FWHM)is less than 0.5 nm.The results demonstrate that the designed high-order surface gratings can effectively nar-row the spectral width of multimode semiconductor lasers at high output power.

A high-power high-stability Q-switched green laser with intracavity frequency doubling using a diode-pumped composite ceramic Nd:YAG laser

We successfully obtain a high-average-power high-stability Q-switched green laser based on diode-side-pumped composite ceramic Nd：YAG in a straight piano-concave cavity. The temperature distribution in composite ceramic Nd：YAG crystal is numerically analyzed and compared with that of conventional Nd：YAG crystal. By using a composite ceramic Nd：YAG rod and a type-II high gray track resistance KTP （HGTR-KTP） crystal, a green laser with an average output power of 165 W is obtained at a repetition rate of 25 kHz, with a diode-to-green optical conversion of 14.68%, and a pulse width of 162 ns. To the best of our knowledge, both the output power and optical-to-optical efficiency are the highest values for green laser systems with intracavity frequency doubling of this novel composite ceramic Nd：YAG laser to date. The power fluctuation at around 160 W is lower than 0.3% in 2.5 hours.

Experimental study of weld position detection based on keyhole infrared image during high power fiber laser welding

Keyhole is one of the important phenomena in high-power laser welding process. By studying the keyhole characteristic and detecting the seam offset during high-power fiber laser welding, an infrared sensitive high-speed camera arranged off-axis orientation of laser beam was applied to capture the dynamic thermal images of a molten pool. The 304 austenitic stainless steel plate butt joint welding experiment with laser power 10 kW was carried out. Through analyzing the keyhole infrared image, the weld position was calculated. Least squares method was used to determine the actual weld position. Image filtering technique was used to process the keyhole image, and the keyhole centroid coordinate were calculated. Also, least squares method was used to fit the keyhole centroid curve equation and establish a nonlinear continuous model which described the deviation between keyhole centroid and weld seam. The heat accumulation effect affected by the infrared radiation was analyzed to determine whether the laser beam focus spot deviated from the desired welding seam. Experimental results showed that the keyhole centroid has related to the seam offset, and can reflect the welding quality.

Simulation of High Power Er/Yb Codoped Fiber Linear Cavity Lasers

The performances of high power Er/Yb codoped fiber linear cavity lasers are investigated numerically. The numerical analysis is based on the iterative solution of rate equations for population density of the Er/Yb ions. The behaviors of co-pump and counter-pump methods are contrasted. Dependence of output power on input pump power, output reflectivity, operating wavelength and active fiber length is simulated, respectively. High conversion efficiency Er/Yb laser output is obtained in simulations and experiments.

Suppressing the preferential σ-polarization oscillation in a high power Nd:YVO_4 laser with wedge laser crystal

We observe the phenomenon of priority oscillation of the unexpected a-polarization in high-power Nd：YVO4 ring laser. The severe thermal lens of the a-polarized lasing, compared with the n-polarized lasing, is the only reason for the phenomenon. By designing a wedge Nd：YVO4 crystal as the gain medium, the unexpected a-polarization is completely suppressed in the entire range of pump powers, and the polarization stability of the expected zc-polarized output is enhanced. With the output power increasing from threshold to the maximum power, no a-polarization lasing is observed. As a result, 25.3 W of stable single-frequency laser output at 532 nm is experimentally demonstrated.

A new method for measuring the pulse-front distortion of arbitrary shapes in high-power ultrashort laser systems

We present a new method that can be used to calculate pulse-front distortion by measuring the spectral interference of two point-diffraction fields in their overlapped district. We demonstrate, for the first time, the measurement of the pulse-front distortion of the pulse from a complex multi-pass amplification system, which exists in almost all high-power laser systems, and obtain the irregular pulse-front distribution. The method presented does not need any reference light or assumption about the pulse-front distribution, and has an accuracy of several femtoseconds.

Investigation of high power laser coatings

High laser-induced damage threshold and large aperture were focuses on the studies of high power laser coatings. This paper reports the research activities at our center. Several measures were developed for evaluating characters of laser damage, including determination of laser induced damage threshold and detection of absorption based on surface thermal lensing technique. Defect was deemed to be the initial source of laser damage, and was the main factor restricting the laser damage resistance of optical coatings. The contribution of several kinds of typical defects to laser damage was analyzed, and some deposition measures were adopted to control and eliminate the origin of defect. Furthermore, some post-treatment methods were also employed to alleviate the influence of the defect and to improve the laser damage resistance. Correction mask was introduced to improve the thickness uniformity, and the thickness uniformity can be amended to less than 1% in the range of Φ650 mm. Preliminary investigation related to surface deformation was also conducted.

Fabrication of Tm-Doped Fibers for High Power and 121W Output All-Fiber Tm-Doped Fiber Laser

We fabricate the Tm-doped double cladding silica fiber by using the vapor-solution hybrid-doping method, then build up an all-fiber Tin-doped fiber laser which can provide the output power of up to 121 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 51% and an optical-optical efficiency of 48%. By using the domestic Tin-doped fiber, it is the first time a hundred-watt level output at 1915nm has been achieved, to the best of our knowledge. The thermal effect of Tm-doped fiber laser is also analyzed.

High efficiency, high power 808nm laser array and stacked arrays optimized for elevated temperature operation

Operation of 808-nm laser diode pumping at elevated temperature is crucial to many applications. Reliable operation at high power is limited by high thermal load and low catastrophic optical mirror damage (COMD) threshold at elevated temperature range. We demonstrated high efficiency and high power operation at elevated temperature with high COMD power. These results were achieved through device design optimization such as growth conditions, doping profile, and materials composition of the quantum-well and other layers. Electrical-to-optical efficiency as high as 62% was obtained through lowered threshold current, lowered series resistance and increased slope efficiency. The performance of single broad-area laser diodes scales to that of high power single bars on water-cooled copper micro-channel heatsinks or conductively-cooled CS heatsinks. No reduction in bar performance or significant spectral broadening is seen when these micro-channel coolers are assembled into 6-bar and 18-bar CW stacks for the highest power levels.

Elucidation of Metallic Plume and Spatter Characteristics Based on SVM During High-Power Disk Laser Welding

During deep penetration laser welding,there exist plume（weak plasma） and spatters,which are the results of weld material ejection due to strong laser heating.The characteristics of plume and spatters are related to welding stability and quality.Characteristics of metallic plume and spatters were investigated during high-power disk laser bead-on-plate welding of Type 304 austenitic stainless steel plates at a continuous wave laser power of 10 kW.An ultraviolet and visible sensitive high-speed camera was used to capture the metallic plume and spatter images.Plume area,laser beam path through the plume,swing angle,distance between laser beam focus and plume image centroid,abscissa of plume centroid and spatter numbers are defined as eigenvalues,and the weld bead width was used as a characteristic parameter that reflected welding stability.Welding status was distinguished by SVM（support vector machine） after data normalization and characteristic analysis.Also,PCA（principal components analysis） feature extraction was used to reduce the dimensions of feature space,and PSO（particle swarm optimization） was used to optimize the parameters of SVM.Finally a classification model based on SVM was established to estimate the weld bead width and welding stability.Experimental results show that the established algorithm based on SVM could effectively distinguish the variation of weld bead width,thus providing an experimental example of monitoring high-power disk laser welding quality.

Role of Thermal Stresses in Degradation of High Power Laser Diodes

Catastrophic degradation of high power laser diodes is due to the generation of extended defects inside the active parts of the laser structure during the laser operation.The mechanism driving the degradation is strongly related to the existence of localized thermal stresses generated during the laser operation.These thermal stresses can overcome the yield strength of the materials forming the active part of the laser diode.Different factors contribute to reduce the laser power threshold for degradation.Among them the thermal transport across the laser structure constitutes a critical issue for the reliability of the device.

Design and fabrication of triangular inner cladding double-clad ytterbium doped fibre for high power lasers

To improve the performance of double clad high power fibre lasers, inner cladding design plays a significant role. A triangular inner cladding and silica structure second cladding with large air holes go acquire high inner cladding numerical aperture are designed. Single mode and high power output of the fibre lasers need the double clad Yb doped fibre with large core. A fibre with annular refractive index distribution core and low numerical aperture to acquire a large mode area fibre core is designed and fabricated. Furthermore co-doping with aluminium （A1） has been used to improve the solubility of ytterbium （Yb） into silicate network, and the core absorption coefficients of two Yb doped fibres are compared with different A1 concentration experimentally.

Numerical simulation of the molten pool character in high power fiber laser welding

A mathematical model was developed to describe moving laser welding by using the rotary Gauss body heat source model, and the effect of recoil pressure was taken into account. The formation of the long and narrow pool in high power fiber laser welding can be explained by the mathematical model （laser power： 10 kW, welding speed： 4 -20 m/min）. Numerical simulation was conducted by PHOENICS software. The results show that at high welding velocity the plasma accelerated the velocity of liquid metal around the keyhole which is the main reason for the formation of the long and narrow molten pool in high power laser welding.

Efficient loading of ultracold sodium atoms in an optical dipole trap from a high power fiber laser

We report on a research of the loading of ultracold sodium atoms in an optical dipole trap,generated by two beams from a high power fiber laser.The effects of optical trap light power on atomic number,temperature and phase space density are experimentally investigated.A simple theory is proposed and it is in good accordance with the experimental results of the loaded atomic numbers.In a general estimation,an optimal value for each beam with a power of 9 W from the fiber laser is achieved.Our results provide a further understanding of the loading process of optical dipole trap and laid the foundation for generation of a sodium Bose–Einstein condensation with an optical dipole trap.

An accurate and stable method of array element tiling for high-power laser facilities

Due to laser-induced damage, the aperture of optics is one of the main factors limiting the output capability of highpower laser facilities. Because of the general difficulty in achieving large-aperture optics, an alternative solution is to tile some small-aperture ones together. We propose an accurate, stable, and automatic method of array element tiling and verify it on a double-pass 1 × 2 tiled-grating compressor in the XG-III laser facility. The test results show the accuracy and stability of the method. This research provides an efficient way to obtain large-aperture optics for high-power laser facilities.

Trends in ultrashort and ultrahigh power laser pulses based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

Since the proof-of-principle demonstration of optical parametric amplification to efficiently amplify chirped laser pulses in 1992, optical parametric chirped pulse amplification（OPCPA） became the most promising method for the amplification of broadband optical pulses. In the meantime, we are witnessing an exciting progress in the development of powerful and ultrashort pulse laser systems that employ chirped pulse parametric amplifiers. The output power and pulse duration of these systems have ranged from a few gigawatts to hundreds of terawatts with a potential of tens of petawatts power level. Meanwhile, the output pulse duration based on optical parametric amplification has entered the range of fewoptical-cycle field. In this paper, we overview the basic principles, trends in development, and current state of the ultrashort and laser systems based on OPCPA, respectively.

High power lasers and ecology of atmosphere (I)

There are many appearances in the literature of reliable observations of studying so-called “jets” and “sprites” - the discharges in the gigantic natural capacitor “Ionosphere-Earth” [1]. The volume of such a discharge is approximately 5-10 thousand cubic kilometers and usually it appears above the surface of ocean. There are the cases also of above mentioned discharges on the ground. The value of the energy transferred to the earth can comprise to several terajoule. Events are accompanied by the emission of the waves of ultra-low frequency. Their study has the significant interest from many points of view. The essence of the observed irregular phenomena consists of the electromechanical conversion of the energy excesses of natural electricity into mechanical and thermal energy of cyclones, typhoons and other natural cataclysms. The ionosphere can retain only the specific quantity of energy. Otherwise, it discards the surpluses of electricity through the atmosphere or transforms them into the energy of storms, in that number and inside the Earth. By using the part of the natural electricity for useful purposes it is possible to govern the weather of planet. Causing the artificial breakdowns of the ionosphere it could be possible to arrange the discharge of the controlled aqueous sediments at the necessary points of the globe. It could be possible as well to attempt to regulate the climate of planet and to decrease the amplitudes of the magnetic storms, earthquakes and hurricanes.

Diode Pumped High Peak Power Quasi Q-Switched and Passively Q-Switched Nd:YVO₄Lasers at 1064 nm and 532 nm using Cr:YAG and KTP crystals

Diode end-pumped solid-state lasers have the potential to yield high quality laser beams with high efficiency for laser range finding and warning receiver applications as well as day and night military laser designation systems. In this paper we presents theoretical calculations using Advanced Dynamics Professional LASCAD software and experimental studies for a high power pigtailed fiber diode laser module of 8 W operating at 808 nm with a specially designed high efficiency cooling system, end pumped high-efficiency Nd:YVO4 laser of 3 × 3 × 10 mm rod and overall cavity length of 44 mm. To the best of our knowledge a self Q-switching effects was generated in Nd:YVO4 laser by changing the cavity dimensions and the position of the intracavity KTP crystal at certain regime of operation for the first time, in which the cavity length is reduced to be 30 mm and the distance between Nd:YVO4 rod and KTP crystal is only 1mm. Self Q-switched laser pulse at 532 nm with high peak power of 96 W, pulse width of 88 ns at FWHM and repetition rate of 400 kHz was achieved. Experimental studies of a passive Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser using Cr:YAG crystal with three different transmissions of 30%, 40% and 70% were investigated. Passive Q-switched laser pulse at 1064 nm and narrow line width of less than 1.5 nm with highest peak power of nearly 18 kW, short pulse width of less than 4 ns at FWHM and higher repetition rate of 45 kHz using Cr:YAG with transmission of 30% was achieved for the first time.

Development of Surface Grating Distributed Feedback Quantum Cascade Laser for High Output Power and Low Threshold Current Density

We report on the room-temperature cascade laser （QCL） at λ -4.7μm. cw operation of a surface grating Both grating design and material distributed feedback （DFB） quantum optimization are used to decrease the threshold current density and to increase the output power. For a high-reflectivity-coated 13-μm-wide and 4- mm-long laser, high wall-plug efficiency of 6% is obtained at 20℃ from a single facet producing over I W of ew output power. The threshold current density of DFB QCL is as low as 1.13kA/cm^2 at 10℃ and 1.34kA/cm2 at 30℃ in cw mode. Stable single-mode emission with a side-mode suppression ratio of about 30 dB is observed in tile working temperature range of 20-50℃.