A laser processing method of laser processing a workpiece made of at least one sheet of metallic foil includes: generating laser light by supplying pulsed pumping energy to a laser medium, the laser light including an optical pulse component and a continuous light component that is continuous with the optical pulse component and temporally after the optical pulse component; irradiating a surface of the workpiece with the laser light; and limiting duration of the continuous light component such that a ratio of energy of the continuous light component to energy of the optical pulse component is equal to or less than a predetermined value.

A device for the generation of ultrashort pulses, wherein an oscillator is formed by: a first and a second non-overlapping transmission band-pass filter, which can serve as reflecting end element of the oscillator; optically transparent means with non-linear Kerr coefficient χ.sup.(3) different from zero configured to achieve a spectral broadening by self-phase modulation of the signal transiting through these means; an optical waveguide that produces a positive gain; a node configured to receive a trigger signal designed to activate the operation of the oscillator; a trigger signal generating device comprising: a laser source, for example a microchip, configured to generate a laser pulse, preferably with a minimum bandwidth, having a duration of hundreds of ps, up to the ns; a coupling system designed to introduce the pulse of the trigger laser into a waveguide made of an optically transparent material characterised by a non-linear Kerr coefficient χ.sup.(3) different from zero, which is configured to produce two distinct effects in order to spectrally broaden the pulse of the trigger laser, and precisely: a) self-phase modulation four-wave mixing; the output of the waveguide supplies the trigger signal to the node. The pulses produced by the oscillator typically have a duration of the order of the picosecond and are easily reduced to the Fourier limit of circa 100 femtoseconds by means of a dispersive device.

A glass processing method according to a viewpoint of the present disclosure includes generating a pulse laser beam by using a laser oscillator, and irradiating alkali-free glass to be processed with the pulse laser beam. The wavelength of the pulse laser beam ranges from 248 nm to 266 nm, and the pulse laser beam has an energy ratio greater than or equal to 91% but smaller than or equal to 99% in the region from 5 ns after a pulse rises to 400 ns.

A mode-lockable ring oscillator includes a gain element for amplifying an optical pulse into an amplified pulse, a nonlinear optical element for broadening the amplified pulse into a first spectrally-broadened pulse, a first optical filter for filtering the first spectrally-broadened pulse into a first filtered pulse, a passive nonlinear optical element for broadening the first filtered pulse into a second spectrally-broadened pulse, and a second optical filter for filtering the second spectrally-broadened pulse into a second filtered pulse. The first and second optical filters have passbands that partially overlap such that the ring cavity can lase CW. With these spectrally overlapping passbands, the mode-lockable ring oscillator can directly initiate single-pulse mode-locking by modulating pump power that pumps the gain element. After this modulation has stopped, the mode-lockable ring oscillator maintains this single-pulse mode-locking while the passbands remain spectrally overlapped.

Provided are a laser device and an optical apparatus including the same. The laser device includes a pump light source configured to provide pump light, a gain medium configured to acquire a gain of seed laser light by using the pump light, a first curved mirror and a second curved mirror, which are provided at both sides of the gain medium to reflect the seed laser light into the gain medium, an output mirror configured to transmit a portion of the seed laser light reflected by the second curved mirror and reflect the other portion of the seed laser light to the gain medium, a first acoustic wave generator connected to the gain medium and configured to provide a first photoacoustic wave in the gain medium, and a second acoustic wave generator connected to the gain medium and configured to provide a second photoacoustic wave in the gain medium.

Aspects of the present disclosure include methods for producing an output laser beam having two or more angularly deflected laser beams (e.g., for irradiating a sample in a flow stream) with a predetermined intensity profile. Systems for practicing the subject methods having a laser, an acousto-optic device, a radiofrequency generator and a controller for adjusting the amplitude of the radiofrequency drive signals to produce an output laser beam of angularly deflected laser beams with a predetermined intensity profile are also described.

A laser (14) includes an optical amplifier array system (17) that generates a plurality of laser beams (24); and a beam combiner (18) that coherently combines the plurality of laser beams (24) to form a combination beam (26) having a hollow center in a near field. The combination beam (26) with the hollow center allows for the use of a beam director (19) having an on-axis, reflective beam expander (21) without (i) loss in power, (ii) degradation of beam quality, or (iii) excessive heating of the beam expander (21).

A method for providing spectral beam combining (SBC) including generating a plurality seed beams each having a central wavelength and a low fill factor profile, where the wavelength of all of the seed beams is different; amplifying the seed beams; causing the amplified beams to expand as they propagate so as to be converted from the low fill factor profile to a high fill factor profile where the high fill factor profile tapers to a lower value at a perimeter of each beam; causing a wavefront of the converted beams to flatten to provide a plurality of adjacent SBC beams having different wavelengths with minimal overlap and a minimal gap between the beams; collimating the SBC beams; and directing the collimated SBC beams onto an SBC element that spatially diffracts the individual beam wavelengths and directing the beams in the same direction as a combined output beam.

A magnetically-actuated laser beam control assembly may include a magnetically permeable cover arranged to sealingly couple to an optics housing to cover an opening of the optics housing, an interior sub-assembly, and an exterior sub-assembly. The interior sub-assembly may include includes a linkage having a first section and a second section; the first section of the linkage to receive an optical component; and a ferroelectric or ferromagnetic material on the second section of the linkage. The exterior sub-assembly may include an electromagnet energizable to impart a magnetic force to the ferroelectric or ferromagnetic material to move the optical component from one of a resting position and a different position to the other of the resting position and the different position to cause the optical component to selectively optically process a laser beam. Other embodiments may be disclosed and/or claimed.

An optical source for a photolithography tool includes a source configured to emit a first beam of light and a second beam of light, the first beam of light having a first wavelength, and the second beam of light having a second wavelength, the first and second wavelengths being different; an amplifier configured to amplify the first beam of light and the second beam of light to produce, respectively, a first amplified light beam and a second amplified light beam; and an optical isolator between the source and the amplifier, the optical isolator including: a plurality of dichroic optical elements, and an optical modulator between two of the dichroic optical elements.