Diamond Raman lasers and amplifiers – status and future

by Prof. Mildren Rich (Macquarie University)

Wednesday 31 Oct 2018, 14:30 → 15:30 Europe/Zurich

Raman lasers have often been perceived as a nonlinear conversion technique for wavelength-shifting a pump laser (usually pulsed) with an often-simultaneous benefit of beam cleanup. However, diamond enables this view to be considerably broadened by its extreme properties including a characteristically large Raman shift (40 THz), pure first-order Raman spectrum and the massively improved thermal properties (eg., thermal conductivity of 2000 W/mK). Since the first demonstrations of Raman lasers using synthetic diamond about 10 years ago, there has been rapid progress in using diamond lasers power output of Raman lasers in temporal regimes spanning the ultrafast to cw. This lecture reviews the progress so far and highlights the directions in laser and nonlinear optics where it is well placed to make a substantial impact. Amongst a range of interesting advantages, its capacity for very high average power (> kW), diamond-based techniques for beam combination and beam brightness enhancement and high spectral brightness at traditionally difficult regions of the spectrum to access are areas that will be addressed.