Layered glass structures and fabrication methods are described. The methods include depositing soot on a dense glass substrate to form a composite structure and sintering the composite structure to form a layered glass structure. The dense glass substrate may be derived from an optical fiber preform that has been modified to include a planar surface. The composite structure may include one or more soot layers. The layered glass structure may be formed by combining multiple composite structures to form a stack, followed by sintering and fusing the stack. The layered glass structure may further be heated to softening and drawn to control linear dimensions. The layered glass structure or drawn layered glass structure may be configured as a planar waveguide.

This disclosure provides planar waveguides with enhanced support and/or cooling. One or more endcaps could be disposed between coating/cladding layers at one or more ends of a core region, where the core region is doped with at least one active ion species and each endcap is not doped with any active ion species that creates substantial absorption at pump and signal wavelengths. A core region could include at least one crystal or crystalline material, and at least one cladding layer could include at least one glass. Different types of coolers could be disposed on or adjacent to different coating/cladding layers. Side claddings could be disposed on opposite sides of a planar waveguide, where the opposite sides represent longer sides of the waveguide. Endcaps and one or more coolers could be sealed to a housing, and coolant can flow through a substantially linear passageway along a length of the waveguide. One side of a planar waveguide could be uncooled.

This disclosure provides systems, methods, and apparatus related to nanometer scale lasers. In one aspect, a device includes a substrate, a line of metal disposed on the substrate, an insulating material disposed on the line of metal, and a line of semiconductor material disposed on the substrate and the insulating material. The line of semiconductor material overlaying the line of metal, disposed on the insulating material, forms a plasmonic cavity.

A planar wave guide (PWG) having a first end for coupling to a light pump and a second end opposite to the first end and including a first cladding layer; a second cladding layer; and a uniformly doped core layer between the first cladding layer and the second cladding layer, wherein the core layer is tapered having a smaller thickness at the first end and a larger thickness at the second end, and wherein a ratio of the core thickness to thickness of the cladding layers is smaller at the first end and larger at the second end.

A device includes: at least one laser element with light emitting points to output fundamental waves in a one-dimensional array; a wavelength converting element to carry out wavelength conversion of the incident fundamental waves, and to output wavelength converted light rays; and an output mirror to reflect the fundamental waves, and to transmit the wavelength converted light rays resulting from the wavelength conversion by the wavelength converting element. The wavelength converting element is disposed between the laser element and the output mirror, and the distance between the position of a waist of the fundamental waves output from the laser element and the output mirror is set in accordance with a Talbot condition under which the adjacent light emitting points cause phase synchronization with each other.

A manufacturing method of a channel type planar waveguide amplifier and a channel type planar waveguide amplifier. The method is to pattern the channel structures on the surface of the optical substrate, and then seal them together with rare earth doped chalcogenide glass into the quartz tube, and finally the channel-type waveguide structure is directly created via the melt-quenching method to achieve high quality planar waveguide amplifier. Excellent side wall roughness can be assured since the present invention does not have any direct etching of rare earth ions. Chemical composition and the activity of the rare earth ions can be maintained since the whole process is not involved in any decomposition of the glass into atoms, ions or clusters as that occurs during the fabrication process of the films deposited by the traditional methods like thermal evaporation and magnetron sputtering.

A system includes a master oscillator configured to generate a first optical beam and a beam controller configured to modify the first optical beam. The system also includes a PWG amplifier configured to receive the modified first optical beam and generate a second optical beam having a higher power than the first optical beam. The second optical beam has a power of at least about ten kilowatts. The PWG amplifier includes a single laser gain medium configured to generate the second optical beam. The system further includes a feedback loop configured to control the master oscillator, PWG amplifier, and beam controller. The feedback loop includes a laser controller. The laser controller may be configured to process wavefront information or power in bucket information associated with the second optical beam to control an adaptive optic or perform a back-propagation algorithm to provide wavefront correction at an output of the PWG amplifier.

A method for preparing an erbium (Er)- or erbium oxygen (Er/O)-doped silicon-based luminescent material emitting a communication band at room temperature. The method comprising the following steps: (a) doping a single crystalline silicon wafer with erbium ion implantation or co-doping the single crystalline silicon wafer with erbium ion and oxygen ion implantation simultaneously to obtain an Er- or Er/O-doped silicon wafer, wherein the single crystalline silicon wafer is a silicon wafer with a germanium epitaxial layer, or an SOI silicon wafer with silicon on an insulating layer or other silicon-based wafers; and (b) subjecting the Er- or Er/O-doped silicon wafer to a deep-cooling annealing treatment, the deep-cooling annealing treatment includes a temperature increasing process and a rapid cooling process.

The present disclosure describes an optical waveguide provided with an incident side reflection film and an emission side reflection film to resonate light incident via the incident side reflection film and formed to penetrate from the incident side reflection film to the emission side reflection film for propagating resonated light. The disclosure also includes a substrate to which the optical waveguide is formed from a top surface thereof and a first protection member and a second protection member formed with a material corresponding to a material of the substrate, wherein the first protection member and the second protection member are arranged on the optical waveguide such that one end facet of the first protection member forms an identical plane with a first end facet of the substrate including an optical incident end.

A chip-scale mode-locked laser including a cavity including a gain medium for amplifying signal electromagnetic radiation (signal) through stimulated emission, the signal comprising a signal wavelength; and a passive or active mode-locking device to enforce pulse formation in the laser. The mode-locking device includes a thin-film waveguide having a thickness on the order of the signal wavelength so as to confine and guide the signal along the thin-film waveguide, and a material comprising a second-order nonlinear susceptibility to enable active or passive mode-locking of the signal. The mode-locking device leads to generation of pulses of the signal outputted from the mode-locked laser.