Laser-induced damage of 1064-nm narrow-band interference filters under different laser modes

The laser-induced damage behavior of narrow-band interference filters was investigated with a Nd:YAG laser at 1064 nm under single-pulse mode and free-running laser mode. The absorption measurement of such coatings has been performed by surface thermal lensing (STL) technique. The relationship between damage morphology and absorption under the two different laser modes was studied in detail. The explanation was given by the standing-wave distribution theory.

Low Power Consumption Distributed-Feedback Quantum Cascade Lasers Operating in Continuous-Wave Mode above 90℃ at λ～7.2μm

We report on the design and fabrication of λ-7.2μm distributed feedback quantum cascade lasers lot very high temperature cw operation and low electrical power consumption. The cw operation is reported above 90℃. For a 2-mm-long and 10-μm-wide laser coated with high-reflectivity on the rear facet, more than 170mW of output power is obtained at 20℃ with a threshold power consumption of 2.4 W, corresponding to 30mW with a threshold power consumption of 3.9 W at 90℃. Robust single-mode emission with a side-mode suppression ratio above 25 dB is continuously tunable by the heat sink temperature or injection current.

Optimization of High Power 1.55-μm Single Lateral Mode Fabry-Perot Ridge Waveguide Lasers

Optimization of the high power single-lateral-mode double-trench ridge waveguide semiconductor laser based on InGaAsP/InP quantum-well heterostructures with a separate confinement layer is reported. Two different waveguide structures of Fabry-Perot lasers emitting at a wavelength of 1.55 μm are fabricated. The influence of an effective lateral refractive index step on the maximum output power is investigated. A cw single mode output power of 165mW is obtained for a 1-mm-long uncoated laser.

Influence of transverse mode on retinal spot size and retinal injury effect:A theoreticalan alysis on 532-nm laser

The fundamental transverse mode(TEM00)is preferable for experimental and theoretical study on the laser-induced retinal injury effect,for it can produce the minimal retinal image andestablish the most strict laser safety standards.But actually lasers with higher order mode werefrequently used in both earlier and recent studies.Generally higher order mode leads to largerretinal spot size and so higher damage threshold,but there are few quantitative analyses on thisproblem.In this paper,a four-surface schematic eye model is established for human and macaque.The propagation of 532-nm laser in schematic eye is analyzed by the ABCD law of Gaussianoptics.It is shown that retinal spot size increases with laser transverse mode order.For relativelower mode order,the retinal spot diameter will not exceed the minimum laser-induced retinallesion(25~30μm in diameter),and so has little effect on retinal damage threshold.While forhigher order mode,the larger'retinal spot requires more energy to induce injury and so the damage threshold increases.When beam divergence is lowered,the retinal spot size decreasescorrespondingly,so the efect of mode order can be compensated.The retinal spot size of macaqueis slightly smaller than that of human and the ratio bet ween them is independent of mode order.We conclude that the laser mode order has significant influence on retinal spot size but limitedinfluence on the retinal injury ffect.

Heat Transfer and Mode Transition for Laser Ablation Subjected to Supersonic Airflow

When laser ablation is subjected to supersonic flow, the influence mechanism of airflow on laser ablation behavior is still unclear. A coupled thermal-fluid-structure model is presented to investigate the influence of supersonic airflow on the development of a laser ablation pit. Results show that the aerodynamic convection cooling effect not only reduces the ablation velocity but also changes the symmetry morphology of the ablation pit due to the non-uniform convective heat transfer. Flow mode transition is also observed when the pit becomes deeper, and significant change in flow pattern and heat transfer behavior are found when the open mode is transformed into the closed mode.

A power and wavelength detuning-dependent hysteresis loop in a single mode Fabry-Prot laser diode

In this paper, we observe experimentally the optical bistability induced by the side-mode injection power and wave- length detuning in a single mode Fabry-P6rot laser diode （SMFP-LD）. Results show that the bistability characteristics of the dominant and injected modes are strongly dependent on the injected input optical power and wavelength detuning in an SMFP-LD. We observe three types of hysteresis loops： counterclockwise, clockwise, and butterfly hysteresis with various loop widths. In the case of a bistability loop caused by injection power, the transition from counterclockwise to clockwise in the hysteresis direction with the wavelength detuning from 0.028 nm to 0.112 nm is observed in a way of butterfly hys- teresis for the dominant mode by increasing the wavelength detuning. The width of hysteresis loop, induced by wavelength detuning is also changed while the injection power is enhanced from -7 dBm to -5 dBm.

Printable microlaser arrays with programmable modes for information encryption

Lasing emissions with multiple and tunable modes are promising in coding field as a novel cryptographic primitive.With the advantages of simple fabrication,full-color and high-quality-factor whispering gallery mode lasing inside a circular cross-section,polymer microfibers are attractive for photonic devices.However,polymer lasing microfibers for information encryption have never been reported.Herein,we propose a design of printable lasing microfiber encryption chip by in-situ tuning the effective refractive index of the microresonator arrays via a facile approach.Through inkjet printing high-refractive-index nanoparticles on the designated position of lasing microfiber arrays,the effective refractive index of the microcavities is regulated,and the ratio of wavenumber spacing between transverse electric and transverse magnetic mode to the free spectral range can be modulated,particularly with neglectable influence by the size factor.Thus,the programmable region selective encoding process can be conducted simply by a printing program within several minutes.Besides,the encoded microfiber arrays are encapsulated into polydimethylsiloxane to reduce the scattering loss and environmental interference,and a printable encryption chip is realized.This work is expected to provide a platform for the printable encrypted devices.

Welding depth measurement for different mode lasers using optical coherence tomography

Optical coherence tomography(OCT)allows a direct and precise measurement of laser welding depth by coaxially measuring the keyhole depth and can be used for process monitoring and control.When OCT measurement was taken during single-beam laser welding,the keyhole instability of aluminum welding resulted in highly scattered OCT data and complicated the welding depth extraction methods.As a combination of an inner core beam and an outer ring beam,a novel adjustable ring mode(ARM)laser for producing a stable keyhole was applied to the OCT measurement.Different ARM laser power arrangements were conducted on aluminum and copper.The results indicated that the ring beam greatly improved the stability of the core beam-induced keyhole,and smooth welding depth can be extracted from the concentrated OCT data.

Modes competition in a birefringence cavity laser with optical feedback

The modes competition characteristics in birefringence cavity laser are studied in different regions of the gain curve. The mode＇s intensity modulation depth with modes competition is much deeper than that without modes competition. When the average intensities of the two modes are comparable, the intensity modulation depth of either mode reaches its maximum. Modes competition can do more contribution to the mode＇s modulation depth than the percentage of light reflected back into the laser cavity does. These characteristics can be used to improve the sensitivity of an optical feedback system. A modes competition factor is introduced to either mode＇s intensity expression which describes the laser intensity more precisely.

Optimization of gallium nitride-based laser diode through transverse modes analysis

We investigate the transverse mode pattern in GaN quantum-well （QW） laser diode （LD） by numerical calculation. We optimize the current GaN LD structure by varying the n-GaN layer thickness. The n-type GaN layer is an important factor to determine the optical mode. Finally, we discuss the lasing performance of the GaN LD based on the transverse optical modes.

HG-LG Mode Conversion with Stressed 3-Mode Fibers under Polarization

We have coupled an upright HG mode into a fiber-optic waveguide and used the application of stress to generate a Laguerre-Gaussian laser mode. We have generalized previous results by McGloin et al. by using a polarized input beam, a true 3-mode fiber and by applying the stress on a stripped piece of the optical waveguide. These generalizations are necessary in order to perform quantum information experiments and obtain reliable information on the stress imposed on the optical fiber.

Transverse-mode controlling of a large-mode-area multimode fiber laser

Coiling technique is used to control the transverse mode of a large-mode-area （LMA） multimode fiber laser. By winding the fiber to a coil with different radius, high-order modes of a multimode fiber laser are suppressed one by one and finally 15.4-W single-transverse-mode output is achieved when the coil radius is 20 mm. It is found that as the coil radius decreases, the beam quality of a multimode fiber laser gets better but the slope efficiency drops for higher-order modes are discriminated. During the experiment, as the coil radius of multimode fiber changes, output characteristic of the laser has been measured. Meanwhile, the mode loss of different modes is calculated theoretically. It is proved that the experimental measured results fit well with the theoretically calculated results.

Analysis of directional emission in square resonator lasers with an output waveguide

Square microcavity laser with an output waveguide is proposed and analyzed by the finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） technique. For a square resonator with refractive index of 3.2, side length of 4μm, and output waveguide of 0.4μm width, we have got the quality factors （Q factors） of 6.7 ×10^2 and 7.3 × 10^3 for the fundamental and first-order transverse magnetic （TM） mode near the wavelength of 1.5μm, respectively. The simulated intensity distribution for the first-order TM mode shows that the coupling efficiency in the waveguide reaches 53%. The numerical simulation shows that the first-order transverse modes have fairly high Q factor and high coupling efficiency to the output waveguide. Therefore the square resonator with an output waveguide is a promising candidate to realize single-mode directional emission microcavity lasers.

Suppression of mode competition in fiber lasers by using a saturable absorber and a fiber ring

An erbium-doped fiber （EDF） laser was configured with a fiber grating, a fiber ring resonator, and a saturable absorber by using un-pumped EDF as mode selection element. The laser showed single mode operation with a narrow linewidth of 5 kHz. The mode selection mechanisms of the un-pumped EDF and the ring resonator are theoretically and experimentally analyzed.

Influence of laser mode on splitting beam illumination effect of Dammann grating

The influences of various laser modes on the splitting beam effect of Dammann grating are studied in theory and by numerical simulation. The results show that fundamental mode laser resembles plane wave while high order mode laser differs from plane wave in the splitting beam effect by Dammann grating. Therefore, the fundamental mode laser is more suitable to be the light source to improve the energy efficiency in far-distance image detecting systems, such as laser image ladar, which use Dammann grating in the ilhlmination svstem.

Conductively cooled all-solid-state zigzag slab laser

A diode pumped, Q-switched Nd：YAG zigzag slab laser is developed using passive conduction cooling. Flat-flat and unstable resonators are adopted in this experiment. The 150-mJ multi-mode and 100-mJ single-mode laser outputs with pulse width of 10 ns are achieved, corresponding to optical efficiencies of 19% and 13%, respectively. The experimental result demonstrates that the laser has the property of compact structure, high efficiency, reliability, and high beam quality. The design of laser has a potential application in space environment.

Generation of all-fiber femtosecond vortex laser based on NPR mode-locking and mechanical LPG

An all-fiber femtosecond vortex laser based on common fiber components is constructed. It can produce femtosecond orbital angular momentum modes whose time pulse width is 398 fs. The topological charge of output orbital angular momentum （OAM） modes from this laser can be adjusted among 0, ＋1, and -1 easily while it is also easy to convert between continuous OAM modes and pulse OAM modes.

Normalized intensity correlation function of single-mode laser system driven by colored cross-correlation noises

Considering a single-mode laser system with cross-correlated additive colored noise and multiplicative colored noise, we study the effects of correlation among noises on the normalized intensity correlation function C（s）. C（s） is derived by means of the projection operator method. The effects of the selfcorrelation time T1 of the additive colored noise, T2 of the multiplicative colored noise, and the effect of the cross-correlation time TO between the two noises on C（s） are discussed by numerical calculation. For the case of positive correlation （λ 〉 0）, it is found that when a0 〉 0 the normalized intensity correlation function C（s） increases with the increase of T0 or T2, and with value of T0 or T2 becoming larger, C（s） comes to saturation. With increasing the self-correlation time T1 of the additive noise, a minimum and a maximum will appear on curve of C（s） as a0 〉 0. If a0 〈 0, C（s） decreases with the increase of T0, T1, and T2.

Frequency-stabilized laser system at 1572 nm for space-borne CO2 detection LIDAR

A frequency-stabilized laser system at 1572 nm for space-borne carbon dioxide （CO2） detection LIDAR to realize the precise measurement of the global atmospheric CO2 concentration is presented in this Letter. A distributed- feedback laser diode serves as the master laser （ML） and is wavelength locked to the CO2 line center at 1572.0179 nm using the external frequency modulation technique. The root mean square frequency drift is sup- pressed to about 50 kHz at an average time of 0.1 s over 8 h. Based on optical phase-locked loops, an online seeder and an offiine seeder are offset locked to the reference laser at 1572.024 and 1572.081 nm, respectively, retaining virtually the same frequency stability as the ML.

Q-switched mode-locked diode-pumped Nd:YVO_4 laser with a saturable Bragg reflector

We demonstrated a diode-pumped passively Q-switched mode-locked Nd:YVO4 laser by using a relaxed saturable Bragg reflector (SBR). Stable mode-locked pulse train with the repetition rate of -230 MHz was achieved and the pulse train was modulated by the Q-switched envelope with the repetition rate of -150 kHz. The maximum output of 4 W was obtained under the pump power of 13.5 W. The optical-to-optical efficiency was 30%. We also discussed the transition of each process having emerged.