Pulse transmission or reflection mode laser
AssigneeThe Commonwealth of Australia
InventorJames Richards
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A Q-switched laser in which the laser cavity contains on one side of the laser rod (1) a mirror (2) and on the other side of the laser rod (1) in sequence a polarizer (4) and an electro-optical cell (5) and first fold-back reflector means (3) to fold-back the beam to a second reflector (6) arranged to direct the beam back to the polarizer (4) to form a loop around the electro-optical cell (5). The mirror (2) is a partial reflector to allow output from the laser rod (1) through the mirror in pulse reflection mode or is a total reflector to allow output from the polarizer (4) in pulse transmission mode.
Claims6
A Q-switched laser comprising:
- a laser rod;
- a mirror in optical alignment with and disposed on one side of said laser rod and an optical loop including:
- a polarizer in optical alignment with and disposed on another side of said laser rod opposite said mirror;
- an electro-optical cell disposed to pass light from and to said laser rod transmitted through said polarizer;
- fold-back reflector means for folding back light from and to said electro-optical cell;
- and
- a reflector disposed to reflect light from said fold-back reflector means to said polarizer along a different axis than that of light passing between said polarizer and said electro-optical cell, and to reflect said light from said polarizer to said fold-back reflector means;
- said polarizer, said fold-back reflector means and said reflector being disposed to cause light to form said loop around said electro-optical cell such that light of a first polarization travels around said loop in a first direction and light of a second polarization travels around said loop in a second direction opposite said first direction;
- light of both said first and second polarizations building up in said loop when said electro-optical cell has a predetermined potential state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.