A laser system, comprised of: a laser cavity; a gain medium a pump, a saturable absorber (SA); a first mirror and a second mirror; wherein a ratio of an area of the beam area within the SA to an area of the laser beam within the gain medium is greater than 1, and wherein the beam generates a gain medium radius spot on the gain medium and a saturable absorber radius spot on the saturable absorber such that a ratio between a saturable absorber radius spot on the saturable absorber and the gain medium radius spot on the gain medium is within a range of 1.7-7 is disclosed. A method for using the laser system e.g., for producing a pulsed energy is further disclosed.

A planar waveguide laser crystal assembly includes an optical bench and a laser crystal mount mounted on the optical bench. The laser crystal mount includes an upper housing having an interior horizontal surface and an exterior horizontal, a lower housing coupled to the upper housing and having an interior horizontal surface and an exterior horizontal surface, and a cavity defined between the interior horizontal surfaces of the upper and lower housings. A laser crystal is mounted in the cavity of the laser crystal mount. Each of the exterior horizontal surfaces of the upper and lower housings is oriented parallel to a length of the laser crystal. The laser crystal assembly further includes a heat dissipating structure thermally coupled to at least one of the exterior horizontal surfaces of the upper and lower housings to dissipate heat transferred from the laser crystal mount.

A solid-state laser device includes an inner container, an outer container, a cooling medium supply unit, and a cover section. The inner container in which a laser medium is accommodated includes an inner light-transmitting unit. An outer light-transmitting unit of the outer container is provided at a part that faces the inner light-transmitting unit and is vacuum-insulated from the inner light-transmitting unit. The cooling medium supply unit supplies a cooling medium so that the cooling medium comes in contact with a surface other than a light input and output surface in the laser medium. The cover section partitions a light-passing area from a cooling medium supply area to which the cooling medium is supplied.

The present disclosure relates to a glass having a refractive index of at least 1.7 as well as the use of the glass as a cladding glass of a solid-state laser. The disclosure also relates to a laser component comprising a core of doped sapphire and a cladding glass being placed on said core. The cladding glass is arranged on said core such that light exiting from the core due to parasitic laser activity can enter the cladding glass and can be absorbed there. Thus, a laser component with improved efficiency is obtained. The present disclosure also relates to a method for producing the laser component.

The invention relates to a ceramic material (14) for generating light when irradiated with radiation, wherein the ceramic material comprises a stack of layers (15, 16) having different compositions and/or different dopings. The ceramic material may be used in a spectral computed tomography (CT) detector, in order to spectrally detect x-rays, or it may be used as a ceramic gain medium of a laser such that temperature gradients and corresponding thermo-mechanical stresses within the gain medium can be reduced.

A laser medium unit includes: a plate-shaped laser gain medium which includes a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface and generates emission light by the irradiation of excitation light from the first surface; a reflection member that is provided on the second surface so as to reflect the excitation light and the emission light; and a cooling member that cools the laser gain medium. The laser gain medium includes an irradiation area which is irradiated with the excitation light and an outer area which is located outside the irradiation area when viewed from a thickness direction intersecting the first surface and the second surface. The cooling member is thermally connected to the second surface through the reflection member so that a cooling area of the laser gain medium is formed on the second surface.

A multi-wavelength laser device equipped with a linear cavity along which a first direction and a second direction opposite to the first direction are defined is disclosed. The apparatus includes, along the first direction, a first optical component, a gain and Raman medium, a sum frequency generation crystal, a first second-harmonic generation crystal and a second optical component. The first optical component allows a pumping light to transmit therethrough and be incident in the first direction. The gain and Raman medium receives the pumping light from the first optical component and generates a first infrared base laser light having a first wavelength and a second infrared base laser light having a second wavelength. The first and second optical components form a laser cavity for oscillation of these two infrared base laser lights. The sum frequency generation crystal receives the first and second infrared base laser lights and generates a first visible laser light having a third wavelength. The first second-harmonic generation crystal receives the first infrared base laser light and generates a second visible laser light having a fourth wavelength. The second optical element allows the first and the second visible laser lights to emit out along the first direction.

A transparent ceramic optic includes: a lasing region comprising at least one lasing species dopant; and a transparent region transparent to light generated by the lasing species. At least the transparent region is doped with at least one other dopant species such that the lasing region and the transparent region are characterized by a difference in refractive index between the two regions in an amount of about 1.010.sup.4 or less. Inventive formulations of inks suitable for fabricating transparent ceramic optics having desirable compositional characteristics such as concentration gradients in desired spatial arrangements, e.g. using additive manufacturing techniques such as direct ink writing and/or extrusion freeform fabrication are also disclosed, along with suitable techniques for forming the transparent ceramic optics from such inks.

A method for manufacturing an optical element includes a bonding step of bonding a first and a second element portion to each other without interposing an adhesive therebetween. The bonding step includes: a first step of fixing the first and the second element portion with an intermediate layer disposed between these portion, the intermediate layer containing an element substitutable for a constituent element of a bonded portion in the first and the second element portion, the intermediate layer being colored; and a second step of integrating a part of the intermediate layer with the first and the second element portion, and making a part of the intermediate layer transparent to laser light by irradiating the intermediate layer with giant pulse laser light and causing it to be absorbed into the intermediate layer after the first step.

A monolithic laser cavity (100, 200, 300, 400) for generating an output series of pulses (37) based on an input pump signal 36. This is achieved by a novel cavity design that utilizes a transparent, low-loss, and near zero-dispersion spacer (38) to form an optical resonator without the use of wave-guiding effects. The pulse forming material (32), optical elements (10-16, 30, 31, 33), and the laser gain medium (34) are in direct contact with the spacer and/or each other without any free-space sections between them. Therefore, the light inside the laser cavity never travels through free space.