Solid-state laser
AssigneeAdvanced Optical Technology Ltd.
InventorClive Lionel Michael Ireland
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Abstract
An optically pumped solid-state laser in which an oscillator and optical amplifier are pumped by a common laser diode pump, with the pump beam first pumping the optical amplifier and a residual pump beam transmitted through the amplifier pumping the oscillator. Such an arrangement permits the use of high power laser diode arrays with poor focusability beams to be used as the laser pump to produce high energy laser pulses at least an order of magnitude greater than provided by the prior art and greatly expands the applications of such a solid-state laser.
Claims21
A solid state laser comprising an optical oscillator, at least one optical amplifier, a laser diode pump arranged to provide a single pump beam common to both the optical oscillator and the at least one optical amplifier, wherein the pump beam from the laser diode pump is arranged to pass serially through the optical amplifier to produce a pumped optical amplifier before a portion of the pump beam emergent from the optical amplifier pumps the optical oscillator to emit a laser beam and the pumped optical amplifier is arranged to amplify the laser beam.
A method of producing high energy pulses from a solid state laser comprising the steps of:
- a) providing an optical oscillator and at least one optical amplifier;
- b) providing a laser diode pump common to the optical oscillator and the at least one optical amplifier;
- c) end pumping the at least one optical amplifier by serially passing a single pump beam from the laser diode pump through the optical amplifier to produce a pumped optical amplifier before passing the single pump beam through the optical oscillator to end pump the optical oscillator with the laser diode pump to cause the optical oscillator to emit a laser bean;
- d) amplifying the laser beam with the pumped optical amplifier to produce an amplified laser beam;
- and
- e) outputting the amplified laser beam from the solid state laser.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.