A passively, Q-switched laser is described. The laser may operate at an eye-safe lasing wavelength of 1.34 microns and use a gain element of Nd:YVO.sub.4 and a saturable absorber element of V:YAG with a space separating the gain element and saturable absorber element. The Q-switched laser is pumped by a grating stabilized laser diode. The laser may be used in laser ranging applications.

Systems and methods described herein are directed to optical light sources, such as an external cavity laser (ECL) with an active phase shifter. The system may include control circuitry for controlling one or more parameters associated with the active phase shifter. The phase shifter may be a p-i-n phase shifter. The control circuitry may cause variation in a refractive index associated with the phase shifter, thereby varying a lasing frequency of the ECL. The ECL may be configured to operate as a light source for a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system based on generating frequency modulated light signals. In some embodiments, the ECL may generate an output LIDAR signal with alternating segments of increasing and decreasing chirp frequencies. The ECL may exhibit increased stability and improved chirp linearities with less dependence on ambient temperature fluctuations.

A laser device includes a seed laser, a plurality of optical amplifiers, and an optical distribution assembly. The seed laser is configured to emit seed laser light. The plurality of optical amplifiers is configured to generate amplified laser light by amplifying the seed laser light. The optical distribution assembly is configured to distribute the seed laser light to an input of each of the optical amplifiers in the plurality and each of the optical amplifiers is configured to direct its respective amplified laser light to a common target.

Some embodiments are directed to a multiplexed fiber sensor for a fiber optic hydrophone array, including a signal receiver configured to receive a signal from the fiber optic hydrophone sensor array and an interferometer. The interferometer is configured to produce a first signal component and a second signal component from the signal received from the hydrophone array, and also provided with a first polarisation controller configured to control the polarisation of the first signal component and a second polarisation controller configured to control the polarisation of the second signal component. A modulated carrier signal generator configured to generate a modulated carrier signal component based on the first signal component is also provided. A detector configured to output a demodulated output signal from the modulated signal component and the second signal component is included, wherein the modulated signal component and the second signal component output separately from the interferometer.

A method for full-field measurement using Doppler imaging, comprising the following steps: turning on a laser and adjusting the laser; adjusting a spatial filter to obtain circular laser spots having uniform intensity distribution; adjusting a quarter-wave plate and a whole polarizer in a system, and requiring two beams in a reference object and a measured object having different frequencies and perpendicular polarization directions; applying slight pressure to the measured object, setting a charge coupled device (CCD) camera into a continuous acquisition mode, observing interference fringes, and adjusting a light path so that the fringes are clear and visible; setting the sampling frequency, sampling time, captured image format and resolution size of the CCD camera; turning on a lithium niobate crystal drive power switch to produce a heterodyne carrier frequency; applying continuous equal pushing force to the measured object by means of piezoelectric ceramics (PZT) so as to make the measured object produce continuous bending deformation; controlling the CCD camera to sample using a computer, and collecting a set of time series light interference images along with the continuous deformation of the measured object; and processing the time series light intensity interference image to obtain a three-dimensional data module comprising continuous deformation of the measured objects distributed in time and space.

The disclosure provides a dispersion management method and apparatus based on non-periodic spectral phase jumps. Precise dispersion is provided by virtue of non-periodic spectral phase jumps, the dispersion can be tuned freely with engineering of the phase jump. A device based on non-periodic spectral phase jump also has a wide working bandwidth and could promote the development of ultrafast optics. The method includes: spatially separating a light pulse with different frequency components, and meanwhile, making the light pulse with the different frequency components propagate in parallel; enabling the light pulse with the different frequency components and propagating in parallel to be incident on a non-periodic phase jump device to obtain non-periodic spectral phase jumps, forming a phase grating effect to obtain two ±1-order diffracted pulses having opposite group delays, and introducing frequency dependent relative delay for the different spectral components in the two diffracted pulses.

A method for providing spectral beam combining (SBC) including generating a plurality seed beams each having a central wavelength and a low fill factor profile, where the wavelength of all of the seed beams is different; amplifying the seed beams; causing the amplified beams to expand as they propagate so as to be converted from the low fill factor profile to a high fill factor profile where the high fill factor profile tapers to a lower value at a perimeter of each beam; causing a wavefront of the converted beams to flatten to provide a plurality of adjacent SBC beams having different wavelengths with minimal overlap and a minimal gap between the beams; collimating the SBC beams; and directing the collimated SBC beams onto an SBC element that spatially diffracts the individual beam wavelengths and directing the beams in the same direction as a combined output beam.

A femtosecond pulse laser apparatus includes a pump light source configured to provide a pump light, a gain medium configured to obtain a gain of a laser light using the pump light, a first curved mirror and a second curved mirror, which are provided at both sides of the gain medium, an output mirror configured to transmit a portion of the laser light and reflect the other portion of the laser light to the gain medium, a mode locking portion configured to generate a femtosecond pulse of the laser light, and an acoustic wave generator configured to provide an acoustic wave into the gain medium so as to adjust self-phase modulation of the laser light.

An optical apparatus for spectrally shaping a laser beam within a fiber MOPA laser is disclosed. The apparatus includes a birefringent optic and a linear polarizer. The laser beam is divided between two orthogonal polarization axes of the birefringent optic having polarization mode dispersion. Propagation of the laser beam through the birefringent optic causes a wavelength-dependent phase shift between components of the laser beam in the two polarization axes. A polarizing direction of the polarizer is oriented between the two polarization axes. Propagation of the polarization-dispersed laser beam through the polarizer modulates the power spectral density of a transmitted portion of the laser beam. This spectral modulation can be tuned to shape a Gaussian spectral distribution from the master oscillator into a uniform spectral distribution for amplification by the power amplifier. The uniform spectrally-shaped laser beam can be amplified to higher powers than the original Gaussian laser beam.

A laser device includes: a first reflecting unit; a second reflecting unit; a gain unit provided between the first reflecting unit and the second reflecting unit; a divider provided after the first reflecting unit and configured to divide laser light from the first reflecting unit into first light and second light; a first end portion positioned separately from the divider in a first direction, and positioned after the divider, the first end portion being configured to output, as output light, the first light or the first light that has been amplified; and a second end portion positioned separately from the divider in a second direction different from the first direction, the second end portion being configured to output the second light.