A laser system comprising an RE:XAB gain medium within a resonator cavity. X is selected from Ca, Lu, Yb, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Ga, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, and RE is selected from Lu, Y, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Pr, Tm, Cr, Ho. The system further comprises a pumping source having optical output directed towards the gain medium. A laser controller operates the pumping source. The system further comprises a heat spreader, the heat spreader in thermal communication with the gain medium through a surface wherein the pump source has optical output incident.

A method for generating femtosecond vortex beams with high spatial intensity contrast, where a noncollinearly pumped HG beam femtosecond laser generates femtosecond HG beam and a cylindrical lens mode converter converts the femtosecond HG beam to femtosecond LG vortex beam. The HG beam femtosecond laser comprises a pump source, a gain medium, a saturable absorption mirror as mode-locker, and an output coupler with a noncollinear angle between the laser beam and the pump beam in the gain medium, which enables the laser to generate pure, order-tunable femtosecond HG beams. Femtosecond vortex beams obtained after the cylindrical lens converter have high-intensity-contrast, and are topological charge-tunable.

The present application discloses a double-clad crystal fiber which includes a Yb-doped CALGO core region, a pump cladding region configured to have the core region positioned therein, and a second cladding region configured to have the core region and pump cladding region positioned therein.

A laser includes a laser pump source (14), a pump-beam coupler (18) coupled with the laser pump source, a laser gain medium (12) comprising Yb:CALGO, a second-harmonic generator (30) and an output coupler (32). The SHG may include a chirped PPLN or PPLT. The laser gainmedium (50) may comprise a gradient doping or plural segments (52-56) with different doping concentration.

A divided-pulse laser regeneration amplification apparatus includes: a signal light coupling component including a first half-wave plate, a first polarization beam splitter, a first Faraday rotator and a second half-wave plate placed in sequence; and a divided-pulse laser regeneration amplification component including a second polarization beam splitter and a third reflector, the second polarization beam splitter is adjacent to the second half-wave plate and is in a same column as the third reflector and the second half-wave plate; a first quarter-wave plate, a Pockels cell and a first reflector are successively arranged on a first side of the second polarization beam splitter, and a third half-wave plate, a first pulse polarization separation component and a first non-linear pulse amplification component are successively arranged on a second side of the second polarization beam splitter.

A method for generating femtosecond vortex beams with high spatial intensity contrast, where a noncollinearly pumped HG beam femtosecond laser generates femtosecond HG beam and a cylindrical lens mode converter converts the femtosecond HG beam to femtosecond LG vortex beam. The HG beam femtosecond laser comprises a pump source, a gain medium, a saturable absorption mirror as mode-locker, and an output coupler with a noncollinear angle between the laser beam and the pump beam in the gain medium, which enables the laser to generate pure, order-tunable femtosecond HG beams. Femtosecond vortex beams obtained after the cylindrical lens converter have high-intensity-contrast, and are topological charge-tunable.

An apparatus for generating and amplifying laser beams at approximately 1 micrometer wavelength is disclosed. The apparatus includes an ytterbium-doped gain-crystal pumped by an ytterbium fiber-laser. The fiber-laser enables a pump wavelength to be selected that minimizes heating of the gain-crystal. The apparatus can be configured for generating and amplifying ultra-fast pulses, utilizing the gain-bandwidth of ytterbium-doped gain-crystals.

Sol-gel methods, apparatus and compositions for cladding optical fiber cores provide optical fibers, including single crystal optical fiber cores with polycrystalline cladding, having improved performance in a variety of applications, such as fiber lasers.

The present application discloses a double-clad crystal fiber which includes a Yb-doped CALGO core region, a pump cladding region configured to have the core region positioned therein, and a second cladding region configured to have the core region and pump cladding region positioned therein.

The present application is directed to a homogeneous laser light source having a temporally-variable seed source which includes at least one seed source configured to output at least one seed signal, the seed source configured to permit the user to selectively vary at least one temporal characteristic of the seed signal, at least one amplifier in communication with and configured to receive the seed signal and output at least one amplifier signal, at least one nonlinear optical generator is communication with the amplifier, the nonlinear optical generator configured to generate at least one homogeneous harmonic output signal in response to the amplifier signal, wherein the wavelength of the homogeneous harmonic output signal is different than the wavelength of the amplifier signal.