The laser system may include a delay circuit unit, first and second trigger-correction units, and a clock generator. The delay circuit unit may receive a trigger signal, output a first delay signal obtained by delaying the trigger signal by a first delay time, and output a second delay signal obtained by delaying the trigger signal by a second delay time. The first trigger-correction unit may receive the first delay signal and output a first switch signal obtained by delaying the first delay signal by a first correction time. The second trigger-correction unit may receive the second delay signal and output a second switch signal obtained by delaying the second delay signal by a second correction time. The clock generator may generate a clock signal that is common to the delay circuit unit and the first and second trigger-correction units.

The laser system may include a first laser apparatus configured to emit a first pulse laser beam, a second laser apparatus configured to emit a second pulse laser beam, a timing detector, and a controller. The timing detector may be configured to detect a first passage timing at which the first pulse laser beam passes a first position and a second passage timing at which the second pulse laser beam passes a second position. The controller may be configured to control a first trigger timing for the first laser apparatus to emit the first pulse laser beam and a second trigger timing for the second laser apparatus to emit the second pulse laser beam based on the first passage timing and the second passage timing.

The laser system may include a plurality of laser apparatuses, a beam delivery device configured to bundle pulse laser beams emitted from respective laser apparatuses of the plurality of laser apparatuses to emit a bundled pulse laser beam, and a beam parameter measuring device provided in an optical path of the bundled pulse laser beam to measure a beam parameter of each one of the pulse laser beams and a beam parameter of the bundled pulse laser beam.

A laser device includes: a traveling wave type resonator comprising a first mirror and a second mirror; and a laser medium disposed between the first mirror and the second mirror. The first mirror and the second mirror are disposed such that round-trip light that travels in round trips in the resonator has a focus inside the laser medium. The laser device is configured such that: excitation light incident on the resonator is superimposed on the round-trip light at the focus and narrowed to be thinner than the round-trip light, Z.sub.R<0.5 is satisfied, where Z.sub.R is a Rayleigh length of the excitation light and is an absorption coefficient of the laser medium with respect to the excitation light, and a round-trip Gouy phase shift of the resonator has a value excluding 2n/m where m is an integer of less than 15 and n is an integer of equal to or less than m.

The invention relates to an apparatus for generating temporally spaced apart light pulses, comprising a first laser (11) which generates a first sequence (I) of light pulses at a first repetition rate, a second laser (12) which generates a second sequence (II) of light pulses at a second repetition rate, and at least one actuating member which influences the first repetition rate and/or the second repetition rate. It is an object of the invention to provide an apparatus for generating temporally spaced apart light pulses which is improved in relation to the prior art. This object is achieved by the invention by a control element (23) which applies a periodic modulation signal (24) to the actuating member for periodic variation of the first repetition rate and/or the second repetition rate, wherein the actuating member comprises a mechanical oscillator excited by the modulation signal (24), the deflection of said oscillator causing an adjustment in the resonator length of the first laser (11) and/or second laser (12), wherein the mechanical oscillator oscillates in resonant fashion at the frequency of the modulation signal (24). In accordance with the invention, an actuator (e.g. a piezo-actuator) which adjusts the resonator length of the laser is operated in resonant fashion. As a result, a large maximum time offset of the light-pulse sequences (I, II) with, at the same time, a high scanning speed is rendered possible. Moreover, the invention relates to a method for generating temporally spaced apart light pulses.

A cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating (X-FROG) system causes a reference beam and an unknown beam to interact within a nonlinear medium in a cross-correlation or multiplication to produce X-FROG spectra and an X-FROG spectrogram. A dedicated frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) system is included within the apparatus to characterize the reference beam and to provide that characterization information to the computer or other processor that performs phase retrieval on the X-FROG spectrogram. A single reference beam is directed into the system and is split three ways by a zero dispersion difference beamsplitter, with a portion of the reference beam directed into the FROG system and a portion of the reference beam directed into the X-FROG system. The apparatus includes a trigger for initiating the reference beam characterization.

A frequency modulated, continuous wave (FMCW) laser using a microchip gain medium, an optical coupling element, and a tuning element is described. The laser may be part of a coherent laser ranging system.