High efficiency Yb:YAG crystalline fiber-waveguide lasers.

A laser diode (LD) cladding pumped single-mode 1030 nm laser has been demonstrated, in an adhesive-free bonded 40 µm core Yb:YAG crystalline fiber waveguide (CFW). A laser output power of 13.2 W at a wavelength of 1.03 µm has been achieved, for an input pump power of 39.5 W. The corresponded laser efficiency is 33.4%. The laser beam quality is confirmed to be near diffraction-limited, with a measured M2 = 1.02. A LD core pumped single-clad Yb:YAG CFW laser has also been demonstrated with a top-hat laser beam profile, with a laser output power of 28 W and a slope efficiency of 78%.

Restoration of blurred images due to phase distortion based on polarization-insensitive phase conjugation in second-order nonlinear medium.

Broadband and polarization-insensitive phase conjugation, achieved based on difference-frequency generation in a second-order nonlinear composite consisting of stacked KTiOPO(4) (KTP) plates, was exploited to restore blurred images due to phase distortion as a novel scheme. Due to the quasi-phase matching in the stacked KTP crystals, our result reveals that the image restoration is insensitive to the polarization direction and wavelength of the input beam.

Singly resonant optical parametric oscillator based on adhesive-free-bonded periodically inverted KTiOPO4 plates: terahertz generation by mixing a pair of idler waves.

We implemented a singly resonant optical parametric oscillator based on adhesive-free-bonded periodically inverted KTiOPO4 plates. It has major advantages such as walk-off compensation and oscillation at four wavelengths. The threshold of the oscillation was measured to be 8 MW/cm2, which is about a factor of 4 lower than that based in two separate KTiOPO4 crystals. By frequency-mixing the dual-wavelength output in GaP stacks, we generated the terahertz radiation at 2.54 THz. The tuning range of the terahertz output was demonstrated to be 2.19-2.77 THz.

Optical parametric oscillations of 2 microm in multiple-layer bonded walk-off compensated KTP stacks.

Spatial walk-off can severely increase the threshold of critical phase-matched optical parametric oscillations (OPOs) and distort the output beam quality. With 16-layer KTP stacks for walk-off compensation, noncritical phase-match-like (NCPM-like) and quasi-phase-match-like OPOs with enhanced angular acceptance have been demonstrated based on two different KTP bonding orientations. In the NCPM-like composite, output pulse energy of 49 microJ has been achieved at pump energy of 523 microJ with pulse duration of 15 ns and repetition rate of 1 KHz. The OPO threshold as low as 254 microJ(44.6 MW/cm(2)) has been achieved.