Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser
Ti:Sapphire lasers could provide tunable femtosecond pulses in the 680-1180 nm region; however, due to the requirement of expensive green pump sources, its current cost sets a barrier to its widespread adoption. As an alternative, Cr :Colquiriites (Cr:LiCAF, Cr:LiSAF, Cr:LiSGaF) also possess broad g...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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SPIE
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73462 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-2555 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1368-4002 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-4357 |
| _version_ | 1811097527316905984 |
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| author | Demirbas, Umit Schmalz, Michael Sumpf, Bernd Erbert, Götz Petrich, Gale S. Kolodziejski, Leslie A. Fujimoto, James G. Kaertner, Franz X. Leitenstorfer, Alfred |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Demirbas, Umit Schmalz, Michael Sumpf, Bernd Erbert, Götz Petrich, Gale S. Kolodziejski, Leslie A. Fujimoto, James G. Kaertner, Franz X. Leitenstorfer, Alfred |
| author_sort | Demirbas, Umit |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Ti:Sapphire lasers could provide tunable femtosecond pulses in the 680-1180 nm region; however, due to the requirement of expensive green pump sources, its current cost sets a barrier to its widespread adoption. As an alternative, Cr :Colquiriites (Cr:LiCAF, Cr:LiSAF, Cr:LiSGaF) also possess broad gain bandwidths and their total cw tuning range cover the 720-1110 nm region. Moreover, their broad absorption bands around 650 nm enable direct diode pumping by low-cost red laser diodes. However, so far the limited brightness of red diodes required combination of four to six pump diodes to reach reasonable output power levels from Cr :Colquiriites. This complex pumping geometry increases cost and causes stability issues in long-term operation. In this study, we report compact, low-cost and efficient Cr:Colquiriite lasers pumped by a single 1.2 W tapered laser diode at 675 nm. In continuous wave laser operation, output powers of 500 mW and 410 mW together with slope efficiencies of 47% and 41% were demonstrated from Cr:LiSAF and Cr:LiCAF, respectively. In cw mode-locked operation, sub-100-fs pulse trains with average power between 200 mW and 250 mW were obtained at repetitions rates around 100 MHz. These results indicate that tapered diodes in the red spectral region are likely to become the standard pump source for Cr:Colquiriite lasers in the near future. Moreover, the simplified pumping scheme might facilitate efficient commercialization of these low-cost systems, bearing the potential to significantly boost applications of cw and femtosecond lasers in this spectral region. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:00:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/73462 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:00:48Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | SPIE |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/734622022-10-03T09:48:48Z Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser Demirbas, Umit Schmalz, Michael Sumpf, Bernd Erbert, Götz Petrich, Gale S. Kolodziejski, Leslie A. Fujimoto, James G. Kaertner, Franz X. Leitenstorfer, Alfred Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics Petrich, Gale S. Kolodziejski, Leslie A. Fujimoto, James G. Kaertner, Franz X. Ti:Sapphire lasers could provide tunable femtosecond pulses in the 680-1180 nm region; however, due to the requirement of expensive green pump sources, its current cost sets a barrier to its widespread adoption. As an alternative, Cr :Colquiriites (Cr:LiCAF, Cr:LiSAF, Cr:LiSGaF) also possess broad gain bandwidths and their total cw tuning range cover the 720-1110 nm region. Moreover, their broad absorption bands around 650 nm enable direct diode pumping by low-cost red laser diodes. However, so far the limited brightness of red diodes required combination of four to six pump diodes to reach reasonable output power levels from Cr :Colquiriites. This complex pumping geometry increases cost and causes stability issues in long-term operation. In this study, we report compact, low-cost and efficient Cr:Colquiriite lasers pumped by a single 1.2 W tapered laser diode at 675 nm. In continuous wave laser operation, output powers of 500 mW and 410 mW together with slope efficiencies of 47% and 41% were demonstrated from Cr:LiSAF and Cr:LiCAF, respectively. In cw mode-locked operation, sub-100-fs pulse trains with average power between 200 mW and 250 mW were obtained at repetitions rates around 100 MHz. These results indicate that tapered diodes in the red spectral region are likely to become the standard pump source for Cr:Colquiriite lasers in the near future. Moreover, the simplified pumping scheme might facilitate efficient commercialization of these low-cost systems, bearing the potential to significantly boost applications of cw and femtosecond lasers in this spectral region. United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract FA9550-10-1-0063) United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract FA9550-07-1- 0101) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF ECCS-0900901) Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (Postdoctoral Fellowship) 2012-09-28T13:44:46Z 2012-09-28T13:44:46Z 2012-06 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0277-786X http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73462 © (2012) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)Demirbas, Umit et al. “Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser.” Proc. SPIE 8433, Laser Sources and Applications, 84330D (June 1, 2012). https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-2555 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1368-4002 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-4357 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.920539 Proceedings of SPIE--the International Society for Optical Engineering Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf SPIE SPIE |
| spellingShingle | Demirbas, Umit Schmalz, Michael Sumpf, Bernd Erbert, Götz Petrich, Gale S. Kolodziejski, Leslie A. Fujimoto, James G. Kaertner, Franz X. Leitenstorfer, Alfred Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title | Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title_full | Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title_fullStr | Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title_full_unstemmed | Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title_short | Femtosecond Cr:Colquiriite Lasers Pumped by a Single Tapered Diode Laser |
| title_sort | femtosecond cr colquiriite lasers pumped by a single tapered diode laser |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/73462 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8733-2555 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1368-4002 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0828-4357 |
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