An improved dental laser system has been developed to cut enamel quickly and precisely, without detrimental residual energy, to provide a replacement for conventional high speed rotary burrs and commercially available dental laser systems.

An improved dental laser system has been developed to cut enamel quickly and precisely, without detrimental residual energy, to provide a replacement for conventional high speed rotary burrs and commercially available dental laser systems.

Provided is a laser processing machine having a Peltier refrigeration element for cooling a cooling medium of a laser oscillator in a body of a small household laser processing machine. A laser processing machine 1 includes a device body 10, a laser oscillator 71 received in the device body 10, a cooling medium flow path provided in the device body 10 for allowing a cooling medium of the laser oscillator 71 to flow, and a cooling device 45 provided with a Peltier refrigeration element for refrigerating the cooling medium flowing in the cooling flow path. A cooling fin 621 for discharging heat generated by the Peltier refrigeration element is connected to the cooling device 45. The cooling fin 621 is installed directly upstream of an airflow direction of an air outlet 121 for discharging air in the device body 10 out of the device body 10.

A tunable laser has a first mirror, a second mirror, a gain medium, and a directional coupler. The first mirror and the second mirror form an optical resonator. The gain medium and the directional coupler are, at least partially, in an optical path of the optical resonator. The first mirror and the second mirror comprise binary super gratings. Both the first mirror and the second mirror have high reflectivity. The directional coupler provides an output coupler for the tunable laser.

Laser amplification utilizing plasma confinement of a gas laser gain media is described. The gas laser gain media is compressed into plasma utilizing a self-reinforcing magnetic field referred to a plasma pinch (e.g., a flow stabilized z-pinch). In the plasma pinch, the gas laser gain media is compressed to a high density, which improves the gain of the media. An optical resonator partially surrounds the plasma pinch and utilizes the laser gain media compressed within the plasma pinch to generate an output of coherent light.

A CO.sub.2 laser that generates laser-radiation in just one emission band of a CO.sub.2 gas-mixture has resonator mirrors that form an unstable resonator and at least one spectrally-selective element located on the optical axis of the resonator. The spectrally-selective element may be in the form of one or more protruding or recessed surfaces. Spectral-selectivity is enhanced by forming a stable resonator along the optical axis that includes the spectrally-selective element. The CO.sub.2 laser is tunable between emission bands by translating the spectrally-selective element along the optical axis.

A semiconductor device includes a substrate, a semiconductor laser part formed on the substrate and having an active layer with an uniform composition and a first ridge structure, and an adjacent part formed on the substrate, having a core layer with an uniform composition and a second ridge structure, and being an optical modulator or an optical waveguide which is in contact with the semiconductor laser part, wherein the first ridge structure is largest in width at a first contact part which is in contact with the second ridge structure, and the second ridge structure is largest in width at a second contact part which is in contact with the first ridge structure.

A line narrowing module includes a prism that refracts laser light in a first plane, a grating that disperses the laser light in the first plane, first to fourth elements, and a rotation mechanism and narrows the linewidth of the laser light. The second element is supported between the first and fourth elements by the first element. The rotation mechanism rotates the second element relative to the first element around an axis intersecting the first plane. The prism is located between the second and fourth elements and so supported by the second element that the rotation mechanism rotates the prism and the second element. The third element has elasticity and is compressed and located between the prism and the fourth element. The fourth element receives reaction force from the compressed third element. The second element is mechanically independent of the fourth element in the rotational direction of the rotation mechanism.

A folded slab waveguide laser having a hybrid waveguide-unstable resonator cavity. Multiple slab waveguides of thickness t supporting vertical waveguide modes are physically arranged above one another in a stack and optically arranged in series through one or more cavity folding assemblies with curved mirrors. A gain medium such as a gas is arranged in each slab. Each cavity folding assembly is designed to redirect the radiation beam emitted from one slab waveguide into the next waveguide and also at the same time to provide a focus for the radiation beam so that a selected vertical waveguide mode (or modes) is (or are) coupled efficiently into the next slab.

The present disclosure is to provide a shape of a surface mount type optical module to be mounted on a surface of a system board or package submount, and is to provide a compact and lightweight optical module attachment/detachment apparatus that performs the mounting (attachment) and separation of the optical module in a confined space by automatically performing optical module loading/unloading, optical module alignment, and laser soldering to facilitate attachment and detachment of the optical module. The attachment/detachment apparatus includes a body frame; a fixing part for fixing the body frame to the board; a gripper for gripping the optical module; an aligning part for aligning the position of the optical module with respect to the board; and a laser part which irradiates a laser for non-contact bonding between the optical module and the board.