Mapping the dynamical regimes of a SESAM mode-locked VECSEL with a long cavity using time series analysis.

The different dynamical regions of an optically-pumped SESAM mode-locked, long-cavity VECSEL system with a fundamental pulse repetition frequency of ~200 MHz are investigated. The output power, captured as 250 µs long time series using a sampling rate of 200 GSa/s, for each operating condition of the system, is analyzed to determine the dynamical state. A wavelength range of 985-995 nm and optical pump powers of 10 W-16.3 W is studied. The system produces high quality fundamental passive mode-locking (FML) over an extensive part of the parameter space, but the different dynamical regions outside of FML are the primary focus of this study. We report five types of output: CW emission, FML, mode-locking of a few modes, double pulsing, and, semi-stable 4th harmonic mode-locking. The high sampling rate of the oscilloscope, combined with the long duration of the time series analyzed, enables insight into how the structure and substructure of pulses vary systematically over thousands of round trips of the laser cavity. Higher average output power is obtained in regions characterized by semi-stable 4th harmonic mode-locking than observed for FML, raising whether such average powers might be achieved for FML. The observed dynamic transitions from fundamental mode-locking provide insights into instability challenges in developing a stable, widely tunable, low repetition rate, turn-key system; and to inform future modelling of the system.

Single-longitudinal-mode ring diamond Raman laser.

We demonstrate a single-longitudinal-mode ring diamond Raman laser, pumped by a tunable single-mode Ti:sapphire laser. Two methods to achieving unidirectional operation have been demonstrated: increasing gain for one direction using a reinjecting mirror and increasing loss for one direction using sum frequency mixing in BBO. Both methods result in a stable single-longitudinal-mode operation.

Tunable terahertz generation in the picosecond regime from the stimulated polariton scattering in a LiNbO3 crystal.

We demonstrate narrowband tunable terahertz generation from a picosecond LiNbO3 polariton laser, pumped by a CW mode-locked Nd:YVO4 picosecond laser. We generated up to 5.4 µW of terahertz output in untuned mode. We tuned the terahertz output, using etalons in the cavity, from 0.51 to 2.12 THz. Terahertz output powers of 3.7 µW and 2.4 µW were achieved at terahertz frequencies of 1.6 THz and 0.9 THz, respectively.

Two-Color, Two-Photon Imaging at Long Excitation Wavelengths Using a Diamond Raman Laser.

We demonstrate that the second-Stokes output from a diamond Raman laser, pumped by a femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser, can be used to efficiently excite red-emitting dyes by two-photon excitation at 1,080 nm and beyond. We image HeLa cells expressing red fluorescent protein, as well as dyes such as Texas Red and Mitotracker Red. We demonstrate the potential for simultaneous two-color, two-photon imaging with this laser by using the residual pump beam for excitation of a green-emitting dye. We demonstrate this for the combination of Alexa Fluor 488 and Alexa Fluor 568. Because the Raman laser extends the wavelength range of the Ti:Sapphire laser, resulting in a laser system tunable to 680-1,200 nm, it can be used for two-photon excitation of a large variety and combination of dyes.

Ultrafast second-Stokes diamond Raman laser.

We report a synchronously-pumped femtosecond diamond Raman laser operating with a tunable second-Stokes output. Pumped using a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser at 840-910 nm with a duration of 165 fs, the second-Stokes wavelength was tuneable from 1082 - 1200 nm with sub-picosecond duration. Our results demonstrate potential for cascaded Raman conversion to extend the wavelength coverage of standard laser sources to new regions.

25.5 fs dissipative soliton diamond Raman laser.

We have demonstrated a dissipative soliton diamond Raman laser that generates 25.5 fs pulses. Synchronously pumped by a 128 fs Ti:sapphire laser, the Raman cavity employed a pair of chirped mirrors to optimize the group delay dispersion, resulting in a Stokes field with 125 nm of spectral bandwidth from 840 to 965 nm. The Stokes pulse formation can be described as a dissipative soliton balancing self-phase modulation, normal dispersion, and gain due to stimulated Raman scattering (SRS).

Multiwavelength ultrafast LiNbO(3) Raman laser.

We present a multiwavelength ultrafast Raman laser based on lithium niobate which uses polariton scattering in combination with Raman scattering to selectively generate new wavelengths from a nanojoule-scale picosecond pump laser. Pumped by a 1064 nm pump laser, the system generates 1123 nm by stimulated polariton scattering (SPS) and 1140 nm by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). Cascading of these intracavity fields generates 1155 nm and 1174 nm, as well as generating THz output.

Efficient diamond Raman laser generating 65 fs pulses.

We report a synchronously-pumped femtosecond diamond Raman laser operating at 890 nm with a slope efficiency of 32%. Pumped using a mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser at 796 nm with a pulse duration of 194 fs, the bandwidth of the Stokes output was broadened to enable subsequent pulse compression to 65 fs using a prism-pair. Modelling results provide an understanding of the physical mechanisms involved in the Raman conversion of femtosecond pulses, supporting an in-depth characterization of these ultrashort pulsed lasers.

Ti:sapphire-pumped diamond Raman laser with sub-100-fs pulse duration.

We report a synchronously pumped femtosecond diamond Raman laser operating at 895 nm with a 33% slope efficiency. Pumped using a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser at 800 nm with a duration of 170 fs, the bandwidth of the Stokes output is broadened and chirped to enable subsequent pulse compression to 95 fs using a prism pair. Modeling results indicate that self-phase modulation drives the broadening of the Stokes spectrum in this highly transient laser. Our results demonstrate the potential for Raman conversion to extend the wavelength coverage and pulse shorten Ti:sapphire lasers.

Spectral broadening in continuous-wave intracavity Raman lasers.

Spectral broadening of the fundamental field in intracavity Raman lasers is investigated. The mechanism for the spectral broadening is discussed and the effect is compared in two lasers using Raman crystals with different Raman linewidths. The impact of the spectral broadening on the effective Raman gain is analyzed, and the use of etalons to limit the fundamental spectral width is explored. It was found that an improvement in output power could be obtained by using etalons to limit the fundamental spectrum to a single narrow peak.

Highly efficient picosecond diamond Raman laser at 1240 and 1485 nm.

We present a highly efficient picosecond diamond Raman laser synchronously-pumped by a 4.8 W mode-locked laser at 1064 nm. A ring cavity was adopted for efficient operation. With a low-Q cavity for first-Stokes 1240 nm, we have achieved 2.75 W output power at 1240 nm with 59% overall conversion efficiency. The slope efficiency tended towards 76% far above the SRS threshold, approaching the SRS quantum limit for diamond. A high-Q first-Stokes cavity was employed for second-Stokes 1485 nm generation through the combined processes of four-wave mixing and single-pass stimulated Raman scattering. Up to 1.0 W of second-stokes at 1485 nm was obtained, corresponding to 21% overall conversion efficiency. The minimum output pulse duration was compressed relative to the 15 ps pump, producing pulses as short as 9 ps for 1240 nm and 6 ps for 1485 nm respectively.

Cascaded self-Raman lasers based on 382 cm(-1) shift in Nd:GdVO4.

We report quasi-continuous-wave, cascaded Nd:GdVO(4) self-Raman lasers based on a secondary Raman transition at 382 cm(-1) for which the Raman gain was estimated to be 0.7 cm/GW. Laser output was obtained in the near-infrared at 1108 nm, 1156 nm and 1227 nm. By incorporating intracavity sum-frequency generation (SFG) or second-harmonic generation (SHG), high power output at four discrete visible wavelengths could be selected, specifically 3.4 W at 542 nm, 2.8 W at 554 nm, 1.4 W at 566 nm and 0.8 W at 577 nm, with corresponding diode-to-visible optical conversion efficiencies of 11.7%, 9.7%, 4.8% and 2.7% respectively.

Continuous-wave Watt-level Nd:YLF/KGW Raman laser operating at near-IR, yellow and lime-green wavelengths.

A Nd:YLF/KGW Raman laser has been investigated in this work. We have demonstrated CW output powers at six different wavelengths, 1147 nm (0.70 W), 1163 nm (0.95 W), 549 nm (0.65 W), 552 nm (1.90 W), 573 nm (0.60 W) and 581 nm (1.10 W), with higher peak powers achieved under quasi-CW operation. Raman conversion of the 1053 nm fundamental emission is reported for the first time, enabling two new wavelengths in crystalline Raman lasers, 549 nm and 552 nm. The weak thermal lensing associated with Nd:YLF has enabled to achieve good beam quality, M(2) ≤ 2.0, and stable operation in relatively long cavities.

Continuous-wave VECSEL Raman laser with tunable lime-yellow-orange output.

We report a compact CW KGW Raman laser with intracavity nonlinear mixing, pumped by the intracavity field of a VECSEL. By temperature tuning an intracavity LBO crystal, we obtained two separate tunable emissions bands, namely 548.5 - 566 nm for sum-frequency-generation (SFG) of the fundamental and Stokes wavelengths, and 577.5 - 596 nm for second-harmonic-generation (SHG) of the Stokes wavelength. The maximum output powers for SFG and SHG were 0.8 W @ 560 nm and 0.52 W @ 592.5 nm, with corresponding diode-to-visible optical conversion efficiencies of 4.2% and 2.9%. These preliminary results show strong potential for expanding the spectral coverage of VECSEL lasers.

Near-infrared and orange-red emission from a continuous-wave, second-Stokes self-Raman Nd:GdVO4 laser.

We report the first cw intracavity crystalline Raman laser operating at the second-Stokes wavelength. Approximately 950 mW emission is obtained at 1308 nm from a Nd:GdVO(4) self-Raman laser, with an overall (diode to 1308 nm) conversion efficiency of 6.8%. By intracavity sum-frequency mixing the first- and second-Stokes lines, 1027 mW emission at 620 nm is demonstrated with an overall (diode-to-visible) conversion efficiency of 4.9%.

Study of relaxation oscillations in continuous-wave intracavity Raman lasers.

We study the relaxation oscillations in a continuous-wave intracavity Raman laser both theoretically and experimentally. Analytic expressions for the relaxation oscillation frequency are derived from the rate-equations and are validated by experiments. We show that some important experimental parameters such as the effective Raman gain coefficient and intracavity Stokes loss can be determined simply by measuring the relaxation oscillation frequency versus pump power.

[Support vector machine and optimized method for spectral analysis].

According to support vector machine based on the regularization theory, a small scale machine study theory was proposed to solve the problem of multi-gas analysis, which is mainly restricted by the lack of experimental samples. With its well nonlinear mapping ability, the training error was decided to be zero and global optimal parameters were obtained, hence the cross-sensitivity of spectrum is preferably eliminated. In multi-component gas analysis, the results show that the cross-sensitivity decreased to 1/81. A method based on genetic algorithm and cross-validation was proposed to solve the parameters selection of support vector machine(SVM), which still lacks theory support. The optimal structure parameters were achieved by genetic random search algorithm, the mean square error(MSE) 0. 018 of the spectrometer was achieved in 20th generation, and MSE decreased by multi-times in the fore generations. This hints that the genetic algorithm SVM is more efficient and has better generalizing ability.