An erbium doped block of glass has input port and reflective end faces arranged such that a signal is launched into the block and is amplified as it traverses the block following a zig-zag path. A laser diode pump is focused to excite erbium ions within the block thereby amplifying the input signal light traversing the block numerous times. A gain flattening filter flattens the gain of the signal being amplified numerous times as the filter is within the path upon each pass across the block.

The invention relates to a discoidal or cuboidal solid body for a laser amplification system of a solid-state laser, which solid body contains at least one laser-active material, has an upper side defining an upper side plane and a lower side defining a lower side plane, wherein the upper side plane and the lower side plane are inclined in relation to each other and enclose an angle of inclination, wherein the lower side is provided with a first reflective coating, wherein the upper side is provided with a second reflective coating, and wherein at least one of the upper side and the lower side has at least one optical input coupling opening for input coupling at least one of a seed laser radiation field and a pump laser radiation field into the solid body between the first and the second reflective coating.

A device comprising a master clock configured to produce a pulse sequence having a wideband light signal of approximately 800 nanometers or red visible wavelength of a predetermined amplitude. The device comprises X laser amplifiers along a common optical path each amplifier being triggered by a burst of X pulses with high-peak power and high-average power. The X laser amplifiers receive the pulse sequence of the master clock and sequentially amplifying the pulse sequence wherein a last laser amplifier of the X laser amplifiers produces an amplified pulse sequence. A compressor is configured to compress the amplified pulse sequence to produce a laser signal having a sequence of directed energy (DE) pulses each DE pulse having a pulse width in a femtosecond range to induce when striking a solid surface of a target object transient electric fields in a microwave frequency range. A system and method are also provided.

A device comprising a low-power oscillator having an oscillator output, the oscillator when triggered produces X number of oscillator pulses in series at a high repetition rate from the oscillator output, where X is an integer. The device comprises a plurality of X series coupled amplifiers having a common optical path. The plurality of X amplifiers amplify a power parameter of the X number of oscillator pulses. A first amplifier of the plurality of X amplifiers is coupled to the oscillator output. The plurality of amplifiers are triggered in sequence in accordance with the high repetition rate of the oscillator so that an output from a last amplifier of the plurality of X amplifiers is a burst of X amplified pumping oscillator (APO) pulses with high-peak power and high-average power over the burst of APO pulses. A system and a method are also provided.

A laser system includes a laser device configured to output pulse laser light, and a first optical pulse stretcher including a delay optical path for stretching a pulse width of the pulse laser light. The first optical pulse stretcher is configured to change a beam waist position of circulation light that circulates through the delay optical path and is output therefrom, in an optical path axis direction according to a circulation count. When the circulation light is condensed by an ideal lens, a light condensing position of the circulation light is changed in the optical path axis direction according to the circulation count.

Grating pair architectures used for short pulse stretching, compression and pulse shaping are enabled for use at arbitrary use angles without inducing spatial frequency chirp. These symmetric out-of-plane diffractive grating arrangements are capable of adding or removing spatial, temporal and angular chirp at any incidence angle.

A laser apparatus may include: an optical amplifier configured to amplify a laser beam outputted from a master oscillator; an optical-amplifier power supply configured to supply an alternating current for optical amplification to the optical amplifier; and a laser controller. The optical-amplifier power supply may include: an alternating current generation circuit including an inverter circuit configured to change output amplitude in accordance with a duty cycle, the alternating current generation circuit being configured to generate the alternating current from an output of the inverter circuit; and a power supply control circuit configured to hold control information defining correspondence relations between command values from the laser controller and duty cycles of the inverter circuit, determine a duty cycle corresponding to a command value received from the laser controller based on the control information, and provide the determined duty cycle to the inverter circuit.

Laser-apparatus includes a fiber-MOPA arranged to deliver amplified seed optical pulses having a wavelength of about 1043 nanometers to a multi-pass ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet solid-state optical amplifier for further amplification.

The present invention demonstrates a technique for achieving milli-joule level and higher energy, broad bandwidth laser pulses centered around 2.4 micrometer with a kilohertz and other repetition rate. The key to such technique is to start with a broadband micro-joule level seed laser at around 2.4 micrometer, which could be generated through difference frequency generation, four-wave mixing process and other methods. This micro-joule level seed laser could then be amplified to above one milli-joule through chirped pulse amplification in a Cr2+:ZnSe or Cr2+:ZnS crystal pumped by a commercially available Ho:YAG or other appropriate suitable lasers. Due to the high seed energy, fewer gain passes are needed to achieve a milli-joule level output thus significantly simplifies laser architectures. Furthermore, gain narrowing effect in a typical chirped pulse amplifier is also mitigated and thus enable a broadband output.

A solid state laser device includes a seed laser that outputs continuous wave laser seed light, a light intensity changeable unit that changes a light intensity thereof and outputs seed pulse light, a CW excitation laser that outputs continuous wave excitation light, an amplifier that amplifies the seed pulse light and outputs amplified light based on an amplification gain increased by the excitation light, a wavelength conversion unit that converts a wavelength of the amplified light and outputs harmonic light, and a light intensity control unit that allows the light intensity changeable unit to output the seed pulse light after a certain time elapsed from an input of an external trigger signal each time the signal is input and output suppression light that suppresses an increase of the amplification gain in a period after an output of the seed pulse light until an input of a next external trigger signal.