20–22 Feb 2013
CERN
Europe/Zurich timezone

InnoSlab Lasers and their Applications in Science and Industry

20 Feb 2013, 15:50
40m
30-7-018 (CERN)

30-7-018

CERN

European Organisation for Nuclear Research CH - 1211Genève 23 Switzerland

Speaker

Dr Keming Du (EdgeWave GmbH)

Description

Diffractive limited high energy 1.0 µm nano-second laser pulse and the efficient green and UV radiation by second harmonic generation and third harmonic generation are widely used in industry and science. A lot of laser applications in industry and research require laser sources having high energy, short pulse width, high repetition rates, high beam quality and compact size. It is difficult or impossible for rod, disc solid lasers and fibre lasers to have all the features at the same time. The InnoSlab lasers with a stable-unstable hybrid resonator have been verified to be successful for the generation of laser radiation with diffraction limited beam quality at high power level. As far as we know, it is still a challenge for the generation of Gaussian beam with several ten’s mJ energy and below 10ns pulse width at multi kHz repetition rate by robust and compact resonator design. In case of rod and disc solid state lasers and fibre lasers huge effort is required to build up lasers of several mJ pulse energy with Gaussian beam quality and with pulse length shorter than 10ns at multi ten´s kHz. To scale power and energy oscillator and amplifier systems (MOPA) are often used. The main problem in most MOPA designs is to obtain efficient amplification with a large amplification factor due to the controversial behavior between the saturation for high efficiency and the achievable gain for a large amplification factor. Furthermore, the high power/energy scaling combined with high beam quality is always the aim of the amplifier system. The key point of the beam quality control at high power level is to reduce the thermal effects. Those problems are addressed by the InnoSlab amplifier design. Laser materials supporting short pulses require high pump intensities throughout the crystal. Good thermal management is essential to avoid failure by thermo-mechanical stress and to support nearly diffraction limited beam quality at high average power. An InnoSlab laser or amplifier consists of a longitudinally, partially pumped slab crystal. Grinding of the mounting surface of the slab suppresses parasitic oscillations across the line-shaped, homogeneously pumped cross-section inside the crystal. The short distance between the pumped gain volume and the large cooled mounting surfaces allow for efficient heat removal. In this talk, we present InnoSlab oscillator and amplifier design for short pulse and ultra-short pulse lasers. Performances and favorable applications of short pulse and ultra-short pulse lasers in science and industry will be discussed.

Primary author

Dr Keming Du (EdgeWave GmbH)

Presentation materials