A method and apparatus for characterizing an optical element. The optical element is part of a laser and is mounted on a translation stage to scan the optical element transverse to an intracavity laser beam. A performance characteristic of the laser is recorded as a function of position of the optical element.

A laser system, comprising: a laser cavity, a gain medium positioned within the laser cavity, a pump source optically coupled to the gain medium, an input minor positioned at a first end of the laser cavity, an output coupler positioned at a second end of the laser cavity, a first etalon positioned within the laser cavity, and a q-switching element positioned within the laser cavity, wherein the laser system is configured to provide a laser beam at a selected wavelength ranging of 1700 to 3000 nm with a tunable spectral range of at least 10 nm. A method for using the laser system e.g., for producing a pulsed laser beam is further disclosed.

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.

An all solid-state laser light source device comprises a diode-pump laser and the following devices sequentially arranged in an optical path direction of laser light: a coupling optical fiber, a coupling lens assembly, and a resonant cavity. An anisotropic laser crystal is provided in the resonant cavity. Absorption spectra of the anisotropic laser crystal comprise a π polarization absorption spectrum and a σ polarization absorption spectrum. Each of the π polarization absorption spectrum and the σ polarization absorption spectrum has a peak pump region and a left pump region and a right pump region arranged on either side of the peak pump region. Pump light outputted by diode-pump laser has a wavelength λ falling within the left pump region or the right pump region.

Apparatus and methods for producing ultrashort optical pulses are described. A high-power, solid-state, passively mode-locked laser can be manufactured in a compact module that can be incorporated into a portable instrument. The mode-locked laser can produce sub-50-ps optical pulses at a repetition rates between 200 MHz and 50 MHz, rates suitable for massively parallel data-acquisition. The optical pulses can be used to generate a reference clock signal for synchronizing data-acquisition and signal-processing electronics of the portable instrument.

A solid-state optical refrigerator for cryogenic cooling of a payload, the solid-state optical refrigerator including a laser cooling crystal including a first material and a dopant material; a thermal link including a second material, the thermal link being bonded to the laser cooling crystal and the thermal link being configured to be thermally linked to the payload to transfer heat conductively from the payload to the laser cooling crystal via the thermal link; and a vacuum chamber housing the laser cooling crystal and the thermal link, the vacuum chamber and thermal link having a combination of shape and coating such that laser and fluorescence light reflected off a wall of the vacuum chamber and laser and fluorescence light propagating within the thermal link are not incident on the payload.

An apparatus may include a diode-pumped solid-state laser oscillator configured to output a pulsed laser beam, a modulator configured to modify an energy and a temporal profile of the pulsed laser beam, and an amplifier configured to amplify an energy of the pulse laser beam. A modified and amplified beam to laser peen a target part may have an energy of about 5J to about 10 J, an average power (defined as energy (J)frequency (Hz)) of from about 25 W to about 200 W, with a flattop beam uniformity of less than about 0.2. The diode-pumped solid-state oscillator may be configured to output a beam having both a single longitudinal mode and a single transverse mode, and to produce and output beams at a frequency of about 20 Hz.

The present application is directed to various architectures of a laser oscillator which include an optical element, reflective, refractive, or diffractive injection device for injection seeding and/or locking a laser oscillator.

An all solid-state laser light source device comprises a diode-pump laser and the following devices sequentially arranged in an optical path direction of laser light: a coupling optical fiber, a coupling lens assembly, and a resonant cavity. An anisotropic laser crystal is provided in the resonant cavity. Absorption spectra of the anisotropic laser crystal comprise a polarization absorption spectrum and a polarization absorption spectrum. Each of the polarization absorption spectrum and the polarization absorption spectrum has a peak pump region and a left pump region and a right pump region arranged on either side of the peak pump region. Pump light outputted by diode-pump laser has a wavelength falling within the left pump region or the right pump region.

The present invention relates to a novel stand-off distance chemical detector system such as can be used, for example, for standoff detection of explosives. Instead of a conventional lasing medium, a Pr:YAG or Pr:BYF based UV laser is used which can be advantageously implemented in Raman spectroscopy.