The commercial market for telecom components has had an increasing demand for laser transmitter packages with higher functionality and smaller form factor. These higher levels of integration require an optical bench platform that can incorporate multiple active and passive elements and withstand stringent reliability requirements. Furthermore, the laser package must be compatible with high-volume manufacturing. We have developed an optical platform for building hybrid (multiple active elements) optoelectronic devices in a stable, hermetically sealed package. Two novel approaches to optical packaging have been developed: a localized laser soldering process and a flexure-based lens mount with large dynamic range. We present the optical bench and component design and the results of engineering reliability testing of the assembled package.

Optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) have become accepted in recent years as useful, reliable sources of tunable coherent light, particulary those pumped by Q-switched, nanosecond-pulse-length pump lasers.

A 21-/spl mu/m Ho:YAG laser end pumped by 1.9-/spl mu/m diode lasers has generated nearly 0.7-W CW output power. Laser operation was maintained even with Ho:YAG heat sink temperatures in excess of 60/spl deg/C.<>

Get PDF Email Share Share with Facebook Tweet This Post on reddit Share with LinkedIn Add to CiteULike Add to Mendeley Add to BibSonomy Get Citation Copy Citation Text Robert C. Eckardt, C. D. Nabors, William J. Kozlovsky, and Robert L. Byer, "Optical parametric oscillator frequency tuning and control: errata," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12, 2322-2322 (1995) Export Citation BibTex Endnote (RIS) HTML Plain Text Citation alert Save article

A theoretical model for longitudinally pumped quasi-three-level lasers under Q-switched, repetitively Q-switched, and cw operating conditions is developed. The model is applied using 8% Ho:YAG as the gain medium, and it is found that for typical conditions the effective energy storage time can be much less than the upper state lifetime, in agreement with experiment but not predicted by earlier theories. This effect is attributed to details of laser design and pumping conditions, as opposed to being an intrinsic property of the gain material. >

The effects on far-field intensity patterns, Strehl ratios, central-lobe angular widths, and central-lobe pointing in rectangular aperture, rectangular grid, coherent emitter arrays with uncorrelated and nearest-neighbor-correlated Gaussian phase deviations are presented.

Microchip lasers consist of monolithic flat-flat cavities formed by a short length of gain material with dielectric cavity mirrors deposited directly on the surfaces, and can operate with performance beyond that of larger cavity solid-state lasers.1,2 Two-dimensional arrays of microchip lasers offer the ability to scale the output power significantly while maintaining many of the properties of the single microchip device. In addition, such arrays can be robust, compact and manufacturable devices that should ultimately operate at power levels beyond 10 kW. While these lasers will not replace a single diffraction-limited-beam laser of the same power, the brightness available from these arrays can be sufficient for numerous uses such as materials processing, radar, and medical applications.

A transversely extended, flat-flat monolithic Nd:YAG laser cavity was pumped by a two-dimensional laser-diode array to form an array of cw microchip laser emitters with total output power of 9.8 W for an incident pump power of 38.5 W. The ensemble optical efficiency was 25.5%, the slope efficiency was 32.5%, and the beams were shown to have excellent spatial mode quality and parallelism.

The frequency-tuning and -control properties of monolithic doubly resonant optical parametric oscillators are analyzed for stable single-mode pump radiation. Single-axial-mode operation is observed on the idler and the signal for both pulsed and continuous pumping. Projections are made for tuning-parameter tolerances that are required for maintenance of stable single-frequency oscillation. Continuous frequency tuning is possible through the simultaneous adjustment of two or three parameters; thus the synthesis of specific frequencies within the broad tuning range of the doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator is permitted.

Microchip lasers with flat–flat cavities and small size have been previously demonstrated in a number of solid-state laser crystals with good efficiency, beam quality, and single frequency operation. An attractive way to scale the power of these lasers while maintaining the characteristics of the single microchip is by increasing the number of lasers operating in a single structure. In an incoherent array of lasers, the far-field modes overlap and the beam should have a divergence equal to the divergence of a single element. Additionally, such laser arrays have greatly reduced speckle. We used diode arrays to pump 1- and 2-mm thick flat–flat Nd: YAG microchip array wafers 25 mm in diameter. With a linear array of up to four elements operating cw, the pointing error of individual elements over the wafer is <5% of the divergence of each element, and the beam quality of individual elements is 1.5× diffraction-limited. Operation of a 2-D laser array with twenty-five elements was demonstrated using a pulsed diode laser array.

A monolithic doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator produced signal and idler modes at widely separated wavelengths whose amplitude fluctuations were correlated (53.6\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0)% below the vacuum-noise level. The system was used to detect modulated signals well below the shot-noise limit.

Single-axial-mode lasers pump very-low-loss doubling crystals. Important advance in making resonant generation of second harmonics possible for diode-laser-pumped solid-state lasers is recent development of monolithic nonplanar ring geometries in neodymium:yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) lasers that produce frequency-stable single-mode outputs. Other advance is development of high-quality MgO:LiNbO3 as electro-optically nonlinear material. Series of experiments devised to improve doubling efficiency of low-power lasers, and particularly of diode-laser-pumped continuous-wave Nd:YAG lasers.