An optical amplifier device employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) that reduces the amount of residual pump power in the optical output of the amplifier is disclosed. The MZI amplifier employs two geometrically linear optical amplifier arms or two multi-spatial-mode racetrack optical amplifiers to amplify a signal with a pumping beam, with the signal output port having extremely low levels of residual pump power. The MZI optical amplifier is a silicon photonic integrated circuit, with all optical amplifiers, couplers, phase shifters, and optical attenuators formed of silicon photonic integrated circuit elements. The MZI optical amplifier may include one, two, or three MZI stages, and multiple MZI optical amplifiers may be used in parallel or sequentially to achieve higher overall signal gain or power. The MZI optical amplifier may employ Brillouin-scattering-based amplifiers, Raman-based integrated waveguide optical amplifiers, or Erbium-doped integrated waveguide optical amplifiers.

An optical amplifier device employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) that reduces the amount of residual pump power in the optical output of the amplifier is disclosed. The MZI amplifier employs two geometrically linear optical amplifier arms or two multi-spatial-mode racetrack optical amplifiers to amplify a signal with a pumping beam, with the signal output port having extremely low levels of residual pump power. The MZI optical amplifier is a silicon photonic integrated circuit, with all optical amplifiers, couplers, phase shifters, and optical attenuators formed of silicon photonic integrated circuit elements. The MZI optical amplifier may include one, two, or three MZI stages, and multiple MZI optical amplifiers may be used in parallel or sequentially to achieve higher overall signal gain or power. The MZI optical amplifier may employ Brillouin-scattering-based amplifiers, Raman-based integrated waveguide optical amplifiers, or Erbium-doped integrated waveguide optical amplifiers.

A light source device includes a laser oscillator for emitting a continuous laser beam and a pulsed laser beam. The laser oscillator has a resonator, at least one laser medium in the resonator, a first pumping unit for supplying light to the laser medium, and a second pumping unit for supplying another light to the laser medium. The light source device also includes a plasma vessel to receive the continuous laser beam and the pulsed laser beam from the laser oscillator, generate plasma, and emit light derived from the plasma. The light source device also includes a first electricity feeder for feeding electricity to the first pumping unit, a second electricity feeder for feeding electricity to the second pumping unit, and a controller for controlling the first and second electricity feeders such that the first pumping unit generates continuous light, and the second pumping unit generates pulsed light.

Gain switched laser diode pulses are used as seed pulses for optical pulse generation. ASE is reduced by applying a prebias to the laser diodes at an amplitude less than that associated with a laser diode threshold. An electrical seed pulse having an amplitude larger than that associated with laser threshold is applied within about 10-100 ns of the prebias pulse. The resulting laser diode pulse can be amplified in a pumped, rare earth doped optical fiber, with reduced ASE.

The present invention relates to a method for operating a pulsed diode-pumped solid-state laser comprising: providing a pump light source for pumping a solid-state laser, said pump light source comprising at least one laser diode unit configured for emitting a series of light pulses for pumping the solid-state laser, modulating the series of light emission pulses of the at least one laser diode unit such that only the light pulses with a frequency close to or equal to a requested frequency setting of the solid-state laser are operated with a/the required pulse amplitude and/or a/the required pulse duration to trigger light emission of the solid-state laser, and such that any other light pulses of the at least one laser diode unit are operated to not trigger light emission of the solid-state laser.

An electrodeless laser-driven light source includes a laser that generates a CW sustaining light. A pump laser generates pump light. A Q-switched laser crystal receives the pump light generated by the pump laser and generates pulsed laser light at an output in response to the generated pump light. A first optical element projects the pulsed laser light along a first axis to a breakdown region in a gas-filled bulb comprising an ionizing gas. A second optical element projects the CW sustaining light along a second axis to a CW plasma region in the gas-filled bulb comprising the ionizing gas. A detector detects plasma light generated by a CW plasma and generates a detection signal at an output. A controller generates control signals that control the pump light to the Q-switched laser crystal so as to extinguish the pulsed laser light within a time delay after the detection signal exceeds a threshold level.

The laser amplification apparatus is provided with a plurality of plate-shaped laser medium components (M1 to M4) which are disposed to be aligned along a thickness direction, and prisms (P1 to P3) which optically couples the laser medium components. Each of the laser medium components is provided with a main surface to which a seed light is incident, and a side surface which surrounds the main surface. An excitation light is incident from at least one side surface of a specific laser medium component among the plurality of laser medium components. The excitation light is incident through the prism to a side surface of the laser medium component adjacent to the prism.

The laser amplification apparatus is provided with a plurality of plate-shaped laser medium components (M1 to M4) which are disposed to be aligned along a thickness direction, and prisms (P1 to P3) which optically couples the laser medium components. Each of the laser medium components is provided with a main surface to which a seed light is incident, and a side surface which surrounds the main surface. An excitation light is incident from at least one side surface of a specific laser medium component among the plurality of laser medium components. The excitation light is incident through the prism to a side surface of the laser medium component adjacent to the prism.

The present disclosure is intended to provide a smaller laser oscillator that can be manufactured at a reduced cost. Provided is a laser oscillator for producing a laser beam, the laser oscillator including: a housing; a transformer arranged in the housing, connected to a power supply, and supplying power to a first device that consumes a predetermined amount of power; and a power factor correction unit arranged in the housing, having a power factor correction circuit that brings a power factor close to 1, connected to the power supply, and supplying power to a second device that consumes a relatively larger amount of power than the first device.

Examples of the present invention include integrated erbium-doped waveguide lasers designed for silicon photonic systems. In some examples, these lasers include laser cavities defined by distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) formed in silicon nitride-based waveguides. These DBRs may include grating features defined by wafer-scale immersion lithography, with an upper layer of erbium-doped aluminum oxide deposited as the final step in the fabrication process. The resulting inverted ridge-waveguide yields high optical intensity overlap with the active medium for both the 980 nm pump (89%) and 1.5 μm laser (87%) wavelengths with a pump-laser intensity overlap of over 93%. The output powers can be 5 mW or higher and show lasing at widely-spaced wavelengths within both the C- and L-bands of the erbium gain spectrum (1536, 1561 and 1596 nm).