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Coherent Addition
Coherent addition (or coherent combining) of lasers is a method of power scaling. It allows increasing the output power and brightness of single-transversal mode laser. Usually, the term coherent addition applies to fiber lasers. As the ability of pumping and/or cooling of a single laser is saturated, several similar lasers can be forced to oscillate in phase with a common coupler. The coherent addition was demonstrated in power scaling of Raman lasers. Limits of coherent addition The addition of lasers reduces the number of longitudinal modes in the output beam; the more lasers are combined, the smaller is the number of longitudinal modes in the output. The simple estimates show that the number of output modes reduces exponentially with the number of lasers combined. Of order of eight lasers can be combined in such a way.D. Kouznetsov, J.F. Bisson. A. Shirakawa, K.Ueda Limits of Coherent Addition of Lasers: Simple Estimate" Optical Review Vol. 12, No. 6, 445–447 (2005). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow. A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light which is ''coherent''. Spatial coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay narrow over great distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser pointers and lidar (light detection and ranging). Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them to emit light with a very narrow spectrum. Alternatively, temporal coherence can be used to produce ultrashort pulses of ligh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Scaling
Power scaling of a laser is increasing its output power without changing the geometry, shape, or principle of operation. Power scalability is considered an important advantage in a laser design. this means it can increase power without changing outside features! Usually, power scaling requires a more powerful laser pumping, pump source, stronger cooling, and an increase in size. It may also require reduction of the background loss in the optical resonator, laser resonator and, in particular, in the gain medium. MOPA The most popular way of achieving power scalability is the "MOPA" (Master Oscillator Power Amplifier) approach. The master oscillator produces a highly coherent beam, and an optical amplifier is used to increase the power of the beam while preserving its main properties. The master oscillator has no need to be powerful, and has no need to operate at high efficiency because the efficiency is determined mainly by the power amplifier. The combination of several laser amplif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transverse Mode
A transverse mode of electromagnetic radiation is a particular electromagnetic field pattern of the radiation in the plane perpendicular (i.e., transverse) to the radiation's propagation direction. Transverse modes occur in radio waves and microwaves confined to a waveguide, and also in light waves in an optical fiber and in a laser's optical resonator. Transverse modes occur because of boundary conditions imposed on the wave by the waveguide. For example, a radio wave in a hollow metal waveguide must have zero tangential electric field amplitude at the walls of the waveguide, so the transverse pattern of the electric field of waves is restricted to those that fit between the walls. For this reason, the modes supported by a waveguide are quantized. The allowed modes can be found by solving Maxwell's equations for the boundary conditions of a given waveguide. Types of modes Unguided electromagnetic waves in free space, or in a bulk isotropic dielectric, can be described as a super ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiber Laser
A fiber laser (or fibre laser in British English) is a laser in which the active gain medium is an optical fiber doped with rare-earth elements such as erbium, ytterbium, neodymium, dysprosium, praseodymium, thulium and holmium. They are related to doped fiber amplifiers, which provide light amplification without lasing. Fiber nonlinearities, such as stimulated Raman scattering or four-wave mixing can also provide gain and thus serve as gain media for a fiber laser. Advantages and applications An advantage of fiber lasers over other types of lasers is that the laser light is both generated and delivered by an inherently flexible medium, which allows easier delivery to the focusing location and target. This can be important for laser cutting, welding, and folding of metals and polymers. Another advantage is high output power compared to other types of laser. Fiber lasers can have active regions several kilometers long, and so can provide very high optical gain. They can support ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raman Laser
A Raman laser is a specific type of laser in which the fundamental light-amplification mechanism is Raman effect#Stimulated Raman scattering and Raman amplification, stimulated Raman scattering. In contrast, most "conventional" lasers (such as the ruby laser) rely on Stimulated emission, stimulated electronic transitions to amplify light. Specific properties of Raman lasers Spectral flexibility Raman lasers are Optical pumping, optically pumped. However, this pumping does not produce a population inversion as in conventional lasers. Rather, pump photons are absorbed and "immediately" re-emitted as lower-frequency laser-light photons ("Stokes" photons) by Stimulated Raman Effect, stimulated Raman scattering. The difference between the two photon energies is fixed and corresponds to a vibrational frequency of the gain medium. This makes it possible, in principle, to produce arbitrary laser-output wavelengths by choosing the pump-laser wavelength appropriately. This is in contrast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optics Express
''Optics Express'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Optica. It was established in 1997. The journal reports on scientific and technology innovations in all aspects of optics and photonics. The Energy Express supplement reports research on the science and engineering of light and its impact on sustainable energy development, the environment, and green technologies. The editor-in-chief is James Leger (University of Minnesota). According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2021 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as i ... of 3.833, ranking it 28th out of 101 journals in the category "Optics". References External links * Open access journals Optics journals Optica (society) academic journals Publications estab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Review
''Optical Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1994 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media in partnership with the Optical Society of Japan. The editor-in-chief is Masahiro Yamaguchi. The journal publishes research and review papers in all subdisciplines of optical science and optical engineering. Subdisciplines include general and physical optics, spectroscopy, quantum optics, optical computing, photonics, optoelectronics, lasers, nonlinear optics, environmental optics, adaptive optics, and space optics. Optics regarding the visible spectrum, infrared, and short wavelength optics are also included. Coverage encompasses required materials as well as suitable manufacturing tools, technologies, and methodologies. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and/or indexed in: According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 0.890. See also * ''Applied Physics Express'' * ''Japa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exponential Growth
Exponential growth is a process that increases quantity over time. It occurs when the instantaneous rate of change (that is, the derivative) of a quantity with respect to time is proportional to the quantity itself. Described as a function, a quantity undergoing exponential growth is an exponential function of time, that is, the variable representing time is the exponent (in contrast to other types of growth, such as quadratic growth). If the constant of proportionality is negative, then the quantity decreases over time, and is said to be undergoing exponential decay instead. In the case of a discrete domain of definition with equal intervals, it is also called geometric growth or geometric decay since the function values form a geometric progression. The formula for exponential growth of a variable at the growth rate , as time goes on in discrete intervals (that is, at integer times 0, 1, 2, 3, ...), is x_t = x_0(1+r)^t where is the value of at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phase Conjugation
Phase conjugation is a physical transformation of a wave field where the resulting field has a reversed propagation direction but keeps its amplitudes and phases. Description It is distinguished from Time Reversal Signal Processing by the fact that phase conjugation uses a holographic or parametric pumping whereas time reversal records and re-emits the signal using transducers. * Holographic pumping makes the incident wave interact with a pump wave of the same frequency and records its amplitude-phase distribution. Then, a second pump wave reads the recorded signal and produces the conjugate wave. All those waves have the same frequency. * In parametric pumping, the parameters of the medium are modulated by the pump wave at double frequency. The interaction of this perturbation with the incident wave will produce the conjugate wave. Both techniques allow an amplification of the conjugate wave compared to the incident wave. As in time reversal, the wave re-emitted by a phase conj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chirped Pulse Amplification
Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique for amplifying an ultrashort laser pulse up to the petawatt level, with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally and spectrally, then amplified, and then compressed again. The stretching and compression uses devices that ensure that the different color components of the pulse travel different distances. CPA for lasers was introduced by Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou at the University of Rochester in the mid-1980s, work for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018. CPA is the current state-of-the-art technique used by most of the highest-power lasers in the world. Background Before the introduction of CPA in the mid-1980s, the peak power of laser pulses was limited because a laser pulse at intensities of gigawatts per square centimeter causes serious damage to the gain medium through nonlinear processes such as self-focusing. For example, some of the most powerful compressed CPA laser beams, even in an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mode Locking
Mode locking is a technique in optics by which a laser can be made to produce pulses of light of extremely short duration, on the order of picoseconds (10−12 s) or femtoseconds (10−15 s). A laser operated in this way is sometimes referred to as a femtosecond laser, for example, in modern refractive surgery. The basis of the technique is to induce a fixed phase (waves), phase relationship between the longitudinal modes of the laser's resonant cavity. Wave interference, Constructive interference between these modes can cause the laser light to be produced as a train of pulses. The laser is then said to be "phase-locked" or "mode-locked". Laser cavity modes Although laser light is perhaps the purest form of light, it is not of a single, pure frequency or wavelength. All lasers produce light over some natural Bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth or range of frequencies. A laser's bandwidth of operation is determined primarily by the laser construction, gain mediu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
