The system and method of using an ultra-short pulse mid and long wave infrared laser. The system is seeded with a 2 μm laser source having a pulse duration in the femtosecond range. The beam is stretched, to increase the pulse duration, and the beam is amplified, to increase an energy level of the laser beam. Both mid wave IR and long wave IR seed beams are first generated, and then amplified via one or more optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification stages. A compressor may be used to compress one or more of the output beams to achieve high peak power and controllable pulse duration in the output beams. The output beams may then be used to create atmospheric or material effects at km range.

A measurement system is provided with an array of laser diodes with one or more Bragg reflectors. At least a portion of the light generated by the array is configured to penetrate tissue comprising skin. A detection system configured to: measure a phase shift, and a time-of-flight, of at least a portion of the light from the array of laser diodes reflected from the tissue relative to the portion of the light generated by the array; generate one or more images of the tissue; detect oxy- or deoxy-hemoglobin in the tissue; non-invasively measure blood in blood vessels within or below a dermis layer within the skin; measure one or more physiological parameters based at least in part on the non-invasively measured blood; and measure a variation in the blood or physiological parameter over a period of time.

The disclosure relates to an optical system comprising a laser source (1) which generates pulsed laser radiation consisting of a temporal sequence of laser pulses in an input laser beam (EL), a splitting element (2) which follows the laser source (1) in the course of the beam and splits each of the laser pulses into laser pulse replicas separated spatially and/or temporally from one another, a combination element (4) which follows the splitting element (2) in the course of the beam and superimposes the laser pulse replicas in a respective laser pulse in an output laser beam. It is the task of the disclosure to provide an improved optical system compared to the prior art. It should be possible to generate particularly short and thus spectrally broadband laser pulses of high power with the optical system. The disclosure proposes that at least one multipass cell (3) is arranged in the beam path between the splitting element (2) and the combination element (4), through which the laser pulse replicas propagate, wherein the multipass cell (3) contains a medium in which the laser pulse replicas undergo nonlinear spectral broadening.

A system for correcting the wavefront of a laser beam includes a beamsplitter for splitting off a fraction of the laser beam to be used as a diagnostic beam, a focusing element for bringing the diagnostic beam to a focus, a measurement subsystem for measuring sizes of the diagnostic beam at upstream and/or downstream locations with respect to a nominal location of the focus, and at least one adaptive optic, located upstream from the beamsplitter, for correcting the wavefront of the laser beam at least partly based on the measured sizes of the diagnostic beam at the upstream and/or downstream locations. The upstream and downstream locations correspond to mid-field locations in the laser beam as imaged by the focusing element. The system takes advantage of the sensitivity of the laser beam size to a waist location shift being greatest at one Rayleigh length from the nominal waist location.

In this patent, we teach methods to generate coherent X-ray and UUV rays beams for X ray and UUV microscopes using intense femtosecond pulses resulting the Ultra-Supercontinuum (USC) and Higher Harmonic Generation (HHG) from χ3 and χ.sup.5 media produce from electronic and molecular Kerr effect. The response of n.sub.2 (χ3) and n.sub.4 (χ5) at the optical frequency from instantaneously response of carrier phase of envelope results in odd HHG and spectral broadening about each harmonic on the anti-Stokes side of the pump pulse at wo typically in the visible, NIR, and MIR. From the slower molecular Kerr response on femtosecond to picosecond from orientation and molecular motion on n.sub.2 and n.sub.4 which follow the envelope of optical field of the laser gives rise to extreme broadening without HHG. The resulting spectra extend on the Stokes side towards the IR, RF to DC covering most of the electromagnetic spectrum. These HHG and Super broadening covering UUV to X rays and possibly to gamma ray regime for microscopes.

Disclosed is a device for interaction between a laser beam and a hyperfine energy transition of a chemical species. The device further includes an electro-optic modulator with a single sideband with an input optical waveguide suitable for receiving a source laser beam and an output optical waveguide suitable for generating an output laser beam and an electronic system suitable for generating and applying, simultaneously, a first modulated electrical signal, sin(Ω.sub.1t)) to a first hyperfrequency pulse on a first high-frequency electrode of the electro-optic modulator and, respectively, another modulated electrical signal, cos(Ω.sub.1t)) to the first pulse on another high-frequency electrode of the electro-optic modulator, in such a way as to frequency-switch the output laser beam to a first optical frequency offset from the first pulse with respect to the initial optical frequency.

A method and a system for controlling an output of an optical system, the method comprising generating a plurality of optical signal components having different optical properties and passing the generated optical signal components as input to an optical system comprising an optical device and/or an optical medium; an output of the optical system being based on interactions of the signal components within the optical device and/or the optical medium; and relative proportions of the optical signal components that are generated and individual optical properties thereof being selected to control the output of the optical system.

A system for multimodal nonlinear optical imaging is provided. Each mode uses a high NA objective to cause total internal reflection excitation at a sample-substrate interface. The system has a femtosecond oscillator to generate pulses used for two beams. The objective receives at least one beam, redirects the received at least one beam through a dielectric substrate to cause the TIR and produces corresponding evanescent waves in a portion of the sample adjacent to the sample-substrate interface, and collects a backward-propagating beam of pulses of responsive light. The portion of the sample illuminated by the evanescent waves emits responsive light. Different modes or combinations of the distinct modalities may be selected to access complementary chemical and structural information for various chemical species near the sample-substrate interface. Each mode may have mode-specific control such as selective beam blocking, power ratios and filtering.

A broadband light source device for creating broadband light pulses includes a hollow-core fiber and a pump laser source device. The hollow-core fiber is configured to create the broadband light pulses by an optical non-linear broadening of pump laser pulses. The hollow-core fiber includes a filling gas, an axial hollow light guiding fiber core configured to support core modes of a guided light field, and an inner fiber structure surrounding the fiber core and configured to support transverse wall modes of the guided light field. The pump laser source device is configured to create and provide the pump laser pulses at an input side of the hollow-core fiber. The transverse wall modes include a fundamental transverse wall mode and second and higher order transverse wall modes.

A wavelength conversion system according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a first crystal holder holding a first non-linear crystal, a second crystal holder holding a second non-linear crystal, a third crystal holder holding a third non-linear crystal, and a container housing the holders. The container has an entrance window and an emission window. The first non-linear crystal, the second non-linear crystal, and the third non-linear crystal are disposed in this order on an optical path of a laser beam traveling from the entrance window to the emission window. The crystal holders are rotatable. A first rotational axis that is a rotational axis of the first crystal holder is orthogonal to a second rotational axis that is a rotational axis of the second crystal holder, and the first rotational axis is parallel to a third rotational axis that is a rotational axis of the third crystal holder.