A pulse configurable laser unit is an environmentally stable, mechanically robust, and maintenance-free ultrafast laser source for low-energy industrial, medical and analytical applications. The key features of the laser unit are a reliable, self-starting fiber oscillator and an integrated programmable pulse shaper. The combination of these components allows taking full advantage of the laser's broad bandwidth ultrashort pulse duration and arbitrary waveform generation via spectral phase manipulation. The source can routinely deliver near-TL, sub-60 fs pulses with megawatt-level peak power. The output pulse dispersion can be tuned to pre-compensate phase distortions down the line as well as to optimize the pulse profile for a specific application.

An ultrafast electro-optic laser makes a stabilized comb and includes: a comb generator that produces a frequency comb; a dielectric resonant oscillator; a phase modulator in communication with the dielectric resonant oscillator; an intensity modulator in communication with the phase modulator; an optical tailor in communication with the comb generator and that produces tailored light; a filter cavity in communication with the intensity modulator; a pulse shaper in communication with the filter cavity; a highly nonlinear fiber and compressor in communication with the pulse shaper; an interferometer in communication with the optical tailor and that produces a difference frequency from the tailored light; and an electrical stabilizer in communication with the interferometer and the comb generator and that produces the stabilization signal with a stabilized local oscillator cavity that produces a stabilized local oscillator signal that is converted into the stabilization signal and communicated to the dielectric resonant oscillator.

Apparatuses and methods are disclosed for applying laser energy having desired pulse characteristics, including a sufficiently short duration and/or a sufficiently high energy for the photomechanical treatment of skin pigmentations and pigmented lesions, both naturally-occurring (e.g., birthmarks), as well as artificial (e.g., tattoos). The laser energy may be generated with an apparatus having a resonator with the capability of switching between a modelocked pulse operating mode and an amplification operating mode. The operating modes are carried out through the application of a time-dependent bias voltage, having waveforms as described herein, to an electro-optical device positioned along the optical axis of the resonator.

In one embodiment, a lidar system includes a light source configured to emit pulses of light and a scanner configured to scan at least a portion of the emitted pulses of light across a field of regard. The lidar system also includes a receiver configured to detect at least a portion of the scanned pulses of light scattered by a target located a distance from the lidar system.

There is described a device for generating electromagnetic field oscillation in a RF device or cavity. The device generally has a photo-diode configured for receiving a laser pulse train and emitting a first electrical signal based thereon, the first electrical signal having a plurality of frequencies; and a harmonics selector configured to output a second electrical signal having one or more frequency of the first electrical signal, the one or more frequency being selected in a manner for the output to generate the electromagnetic field oscillation in the RF device or cavity.

A high-power ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride laser system is disclosed herein which includes at least one pump source, at least one laser cavity formed by at least one high reflector and at least one output coupler, and at least one ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride optical crystal positioned within the laser cavity in communication with the pump source, the ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride optical crystal configured to output at least one output signal of at least 20 W, having a pulse width of 200 fs or less, and a repetition rate of at least 40 MHz.

An ultrafast mode-locked laser comprising circuitry configured to drive an electro-optic modulator (EOM) in the mode-locked laser with a drive waveform, the drive waveform being a phase-coherent sinusoidal waveform at a frequency equal to a repetition rate of the mode-locked laser, a phase-coherent pulsed waveform at a frequency equal to the repetition rate of the mode-locked laser, or a phase-coherent sinusoidal waveform at a frequency equal to half of the repetition rate of the mode-locked laser.

Direct diode-pumped Ti:sapphire laser amplifiers use fiber-coupled laser diodes as pump beam sources. The pump beam may be polarized or non-polarized. Light at wavelengths below 527 nm may be used in cryogenic configurations. Multiple diode outputs may be polarization or spectrally combined.

The present disclosure discloses a saturable absorber mirror of a composite structure, including: a substrate; a buffer layer on the substrate; a distributed Bragg reflective mirror on the buffer layer; a quantum dot or quantum well saturable absorber body on the distributed Bragg reflective mirror; a graphene saturable absorber body on the quantum dot or quantum well saturable absorber body. In the present disclosure, the graphene saturable absorber body is composited with the quantum dot saturable absorber body or the quantum well saturable absorber body to be used as the saturable absorber body in the saturable absorber mirror of the present disclosure. A thermal damage threshold and an optical property stability of the saturable absorber body are improved, and an ultrafast laser pulse with high power and short pulse mode locking, a stable output repetition cycle, a narrow pulse width, and a short response time is implemented.

In one embodiment, a laser system includes a seed laser configured to produce optical seed pulses. The laser system also includes a first fiber-optic amplifier configured to amplify the seed pulses by a first amplifier gain to produce a first-amplifier output that includes amplified seed pulses and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The laser system further includes a first optical filter configured to remove from the first-amplifier output an amount of the ASE. The laser system also includes a second fiber-optic amplifier configured to receive the amplified seed pulses from the first optical filter and amplify the received pulses by a second amplifier gain to produce output pulses. The output pulses have output-pulse characteristics that include: a pulse repetition frequency of less than or equal to 100 MHz; a pulse duration of less than or equal to 20 nanoseconds; and a duty cycle of less than or equal to 1%.