This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 10016, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction (if any), and Conference Committee listing.

A frontier in laser machining has been required by material processing in DUV region because it is hard to get high power solid-state lasers in this spectral region. DUV excimer lasers are the only solution, and now the time has come to examine the new applications of material processing with DUV excimer lasers. The excimer lasers at 193nm and 248nm have been used in the semiconductor manufacturing for long years, and have field-proven stability and reliability. The high photon energy of 6.4 eV at 193nm is expected to interact directly with the chemical bond of hard-machining materials, such as CFRP, diamond and tempered glasses. We report the latest results of material processing by 193nm high power DUV laser.

Compared with traditional methods of energy supply, there is a great possibility to get a more remarkable enhancement of conversion efficiency for laser power (of proper wavelength and intensity) beaming to silicon solar cells. However, it should be noticed that cells may be damaged by high power laser. Based on the background, this essay explores high-power-laser's possible damage to silicon solar cells by analyzing IV curves (obtained by IV tester) and minority-carrier lifetime (measured by open-circuit-voltage-decay method). Research shows that, for 30s irradiation, minority-carrier lifetime decreases to some extent when irradiated by laser of over 5.5W/cm² and the higher laser power density, the more degradation. Similarly, IV curves see a downward trend under laser of over 5.5W/cm². In addition, there is a roughly linear relationship between lifetime and the decrease amount of short circuit current. Moreover, the degradation degree has a close relation with the maximum temperature. The prolonged illumination would not bring about more serious damage if one cell had already reached an equilibrium temperature.

Sunlight is considered as a new efficient source for direct optical-pumped solid state lasers. High-efficiency solar pumped lasers with low threshold power would be more promising than semiconductor lasers with large solar panel in space laser communication. Here we report a significant advance in solar-pumped laser threshold by pumping Nd:YAG rod with a grooved sidewall. Two-solar pumped laser setups are devised. In both cases, a Fresnel lens is used as the primary sunlight concentrator. Gold-plated conical cavity with a liquid light-guide lens is used as the secondary concentrator to further increase the solar energy concentration. In the first setup, solar pumping a 6mm diameter Nd:YAG rod, maximum laser power of 31.0W/m² cw at 1064nm is produced, which is higher than the reported record, and the slope efficiency is 4.98% with the threshold power on the surface of Fresnel lens is 200 W. In the second setup, a 5 mm diameter laser rod output power is 29.8W/m² with a slope efficiency of 4.3%. The threshold power of 102W is obtained, which is 49% lower than the former. Meanwhile, the theoretical calculating of the threshold power and slope efficiency of the solar-pumped laser has been established based on the rate-equation of a four-level system. The results of the finite element analysis by simulation software are verified in experiment. The optimization of the conical cavity by TracePro© software and the optimization of the laser resonator by LASCAD© are useful for the design of a miniaturization solar- pumped laser.

The visible supercontinuum (SC) sources has played an important role in biomedical applications. However, the small core size of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) restrict the development of high power SC by its small mode field area. In addition, the zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW) of the PCF with small core diameter is usually below 1 μm, which is far away from the 1.06 μm laser which is the most commonly used pump source. As the ZDW of PCF shifts away from the pump, the intensity of visible light decreases correspondingly. We promote a new technique to get an enhanced visible SC with high output power, which involves enhanced visible SC generation in a seven-core PCF pumped by a high power 1016 nm fiber laser. Muti-core PCFs offer a possibility of scaling up the mode field area to a large extent without remarkable change in dispersion properties, which show great potential in high power SC generation. Using a 1016 nm fiber laser as the pump makes the pump wavelength closer to the ZDW of PCF, which could raise the intensity of visible light. In this paper, we report an enhanced visible SC generation ranging from 400 nm to 2300 nm in a seven-core PCF pumped by a 1016 nm picosecond fiber laser. The visible light (400~800 nm) occupies 31% of the total SC power 24 W and the power of the visible light is about 7.4 W.

We proposed a novel laser amplifier for inertial fusion energy (IFE) based on an edge-pumped, gas-cooled multi-slab architecture. Compared to the face-pumped laser amplifiers for IFE, this architecture enables the pump, coolant and laser propagating orthogonally in the amplifier, thereby decoupling them in space and being beneficial to construction of the amplifier. To satisfy the high efficiency required for IFE, high-irradiance rectangle-waveguide coupled diode laser arrays are employed in the edge-pumped architecture and the pump light will be homogenized by total internal reflection. A traverse gradient doping profile is applied to the gain media, thus the pump absorption and gain uniformity can be separately optimized. Furthermore, the laser beam normal to the surfaces of the gas-cooled slabs will experience minimum thermal wavefront distortions in the amplifier head and ensure high beam quality. Since each slab has its own pump source and uniform gain in the aperture, power scaling can be easily achieved by placing identical slabs along the laser beam axis. Our investigations might provide an efficient and convenient way to design and optimize the amplifiers for IFE.

A high power ZnGeP₂ (ZGP) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with good beam quality pumped by a Q-switched Ho:YAG laser was demonstrated. The maximum output power of the ZGP OPO with a four-mirror ring cavity was about 5.04 W around 8.1 μm with 83.9 W Ho incident pump power, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 9.2 %. The ZGP OPO produced 36.0 ns far-IR pulse laser in the 8.0-8.3 μm spectral regions. The beam quality was measured to be M²~1.6 at the highest output power.

Laser beam alignment is very important for high-power laser facility. Long laser path and large-aperture lens for alignment are generally used, while the proposed alignment system with a wedge by far-field sampling technique reduces both space and cost requirements. General alignment system for large-aperture laser beam is long in distance and large in volum because of taking near-field sampling technique. With the development of laser fusion facilities, the space for alignment system is limited. A new alignment system for large-aperture laser beam is designed to save space and reduce operating costs. The new alignment for large-aperture laser beam with a wedge is based on far-field sampling technique. The wedge is placed behind the spatial filter to reflect some laser beam as signal light for alignment. Therefore, laser beam diameter in alignment system is small, which can save space for the laser facility. Comparing to general alignment system for large-aperture laser beam, large-aperture lenses for near-field and far-field sampling, long distance laser path are unnecessary for proposed alignment system, which saves cost and space greatly. This alignment system for large-aperture laser beam has been demonstrated well on the Muliti-PW Facility which uses the 7th beam of the SG-Ⅱ Facility as pump source. The experimental results indicate that the average near-field alignment error is less than 1% of reference, and the average far-filed alignment error is less than 5% of spatial filter pinhole diameter, which meet the alignment system requirements for laser beam of Multi-PW Facility.

The wavefront can keep stable while the laser system is adjusted well. Based on this characteristic, in order to improve the beam quality, we suggest to make mirror of free-form surface to compensate for the laser wavefront aberration. First, the theory of aberration compensated with free-form shape mirror is introduced, then through computer simulation, the mirror’s capability of is discussed, lastly, the mirror is used by laser system which the average output power is 12.5KW. By the using of free-form shape mirror, laser’s wavefront, beam quality of farfield and intensity of nearfield are improved obviously: the intensity of nearfield F is improved from 0.15 to 0.39; the wavefront’s PV is improved from 6.3μm to 1.7μm; the wavefront’s rms is improved from 2.0μm to 0.4μm; the beam quality of farfield β is improved from 5.25 to 1.8. Compared with deformable mirror of adaptive optics, the free-form shape mirror has its own advantage: low cost; with no increase to laser system complication; the free-from shape mirror can be used to compensated for high order wavefront aberration effectively.

It is well known that hot images of small-scale scatterers can be formed. For phase-typed scatterers, hot image and second-order hot-image can be formed. However, when the number of scatterer is larger than one, the interaction between the scatterered waves will lead to new nonlinear propagation results. In this paper, the propagation of flat-topped intense laser beam through Kerr medium slab is investigated, with the incident beam modulated by two parallel wirelike phase-typed scatterers. We demonstrate that an intense fringe together with hot image and second-order hot image can be formed when the distance of the two scatterers is several millimeters. It is found that the on-axis position of the plane of this intense fringe is in the middle part between the exit surface of the Kerr medium slab and the secondorder hot image plane. This intense fringe shows the following basic properties: Firstly, its intensity is apparently higher than that of corresponding second-order hot image and can be comparable with that of corresponding hot image; Secondly, the distances between it and the in-beam positions of the scatterers are identical. The intensity profile shows that this intense fringe is the only prominent bright fringe in the corresponding plane, and thus it is not a nonlinear image of any scatterer. Besides, the influences of the properties of scatterer on the intensity of the fringe are discussed.

High power fiber laser is attracting more and more attention due to its advantage in excellent beam quality, high electricto- optical conversion efficiency and compact system configuration. Power scaling of fiber laser is challenged by the brightness of pump source, nonlinear effect, modal instability and so on. Pumping active fiber by using high-brightness fiber laser instead of common laser diode may be the solution for the brightness limitation. In this paper, we will present the recent development of various kinds of high power fiber laser based on tandem pumping scheme. According to the absorption property of Ytterbium-doped fiber, Thulium-doped fiber and Holmium-doped fiber, we have theoretically studied the fiber lasers that operate at 1018 nm, 1178 nm and 1150 nm, respectively in detail. Consequently, according to the numerical results we have optimized the fiber laser system design, and we have achieved (1) 500 watt level 1018nm Ytterbium-doped fiber laser (2) 100 watt level 1150 nm fiber laser and 100 watt level random fiber laser (3) 30 watt 1178 nm Ytterbium-doped fiber laser, 200 watt-level random fiber laser. All of the above-mentioned are the record power for the corresponded type of fiber laser to the best of our knowledge. By using the high-brightness fiber laser operate at 1018 nm, 1178 nm and 1150 nm that we have developed, we have achieved the following high power fiber laser (1) 3.5 kW 1090 nm Ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier (2) 100 watt level Thulium-doped fiber laser and (3) 50 watt level Holmium -doped fiber laser.

1-MW peak power picosecond, 574-kHz repetition rate green laser at 515-nm is generated from a frequency-doubled fiber amplifier. 12-ps pulses with 13.9-μJ energy at 515 nm are achieved with a noncritically phase-matched lithium triborate (LBO) crystal through second harmonic generation of a 1030 nm infrared source. The infrared source employs ultra-large-mode-area rod-type photonic crystal fiber (Rod-PCF) for direct picosecond amplification and delivers 20-W 11.6-ps 2.97-MW pulse train with near-diffraction-limited beam quality (M² = 1.01).

We demonstrated for the first time a novel and effective method for obtaining both high peak-power and narrow linewidth 1.5 μm fiber sources through gas Raman effect in hollow core fibers. An Ethane-filled ice-cream antiresonance hollow-core fiber is pumped with a high peak-power pulse 1064 nm microchip laser, generating 1552.7 nm Stokes wave by pure vibrational stimulated Raman scattering of ethane molecules. A maximum peak-power of about 400 kW is achieved with 6 meter fiber length at 2 bar pressure, and the linewidth is about 6.3 GHz. The maximum Raman conversion efficiency of 1064 nm to 1552.7 nm is about 38%, and the corresponding laser slope efficiency is about 61.5%.

By considering propagation equations of Stokes-waves for the Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) and the Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) together with propagation-rate equations of Ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber amplifiers, we numerically solve set of coupled partial differential equations and investigate dynamic characteristics of these amplifiers such as the temporal pulse energy, power, upper-level population distribution, amplified spontaneous emission, stored energy, pulse waveform evolution and the threshold of inelastic scatterings in different regimes of the temporal pulse width, input pulse peak power, input pulse bandwidth and repetition rates. Based on our analysis we establish some criteria for the threshold of inelastic scatterings according to characteristics of the input pulse and amplifying regime. Also for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we discuss effect of the input pulse shape on the threshold of inelastic scatterings and importance of using pulse shaping methods.

We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate a double-pass ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier. First, we numerically analyze the impact of fiber length on the amplifier. In our experiment, a laser seed with output power of ~100 μW and wavelength of 1064 nm is amplified to 51.2 mW with a signal gain of 27.1 dB. With this double-pass configuration, amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is effectively suppressed to more than 30 dB. Compared with single pass configuration, it is found that double-pass amplification configuration enhances the gain coefficient and improves the signal-to-noise ratio.

Passive harmonic mode-locking fiber laser is experimentally demonstrated with high pulse energy and excellent signal-to-noise-ratio by employing monolayer graphene and multi-mode fiber. A repetition rate of 20.26 MHz corresponding to the 3^rd harmonic mode-locking has been achieved, with a pulse duration of ~ 603 fs, and a high single-pulse energy of ~1.04 nJ. The spectral width of the pulses is found to be decreased with the increase of the harmonic order. Such a fiber laser is suitable for optical access network or material processing applications.

A high power single-frequency fiber amplifier with linear polarization is demonstrated based on the master oscillator power amplifier configuration, consisting of a single-frequency seed laser at 1064.1 nm and three-stage amplifiers. To suppress stimulated Brillouin scattering, a short piece of polarization-maintaining active fiber with large core diameter of 25 μm and high pump absorption coefficient is adopted in the main amplifier. Besides, step-distributed longitudinal strain is intentionally imposed on the active fiber to broaden the effective SBS gain spectrum and correspondingly improve the SBS threshold. As a result, a pump-limited single-frequency output of 414 W is obtained with no sign of SBS and mode instability, experimentally showing that the SBS threshold is improved by at least two times through introducing extra strain.. The slope efficiency of the main amplifier is about 80 %. The polarization degree is better than 98 % at all the power levels. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest output power of single-frequency polarization-maintained fiber amplifier based on all-fiber structure.

We use a semi-analytical model considering pump power saturation in high power fiber laser systems of multi-kW-class to calculate mode instability threshold. A novel designed fiber, linear inner-cladding fiber, can mitigate mode instability effect by decreasing nonlinear coupling coefficient and smoothing heat profile along the fiber. We investigate strong pump absorption of linear inner-cladding fiber, leading to shorter fiber length. With 915 nm pumping, linear inner-cladding fiber can reach 10 kW output power without mode instability in theory.

Phase modulation of the signal laser into multiple laser-lines is one of the common methods to suppress the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) effect in high power narrow linewidth fiber amplifiers. In order to achieve optimal effect, the multiple laser-lines should have equal amplitudes. In this paper, the phase modulation signal we employed is the sum of a finite number of sinusoidal signals with different initial phases and different weights. The stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm is used to search for the optimal initial phases and weights. Through numerical simulation, we obtain homogeneous symmetrical spectra with 11, 19 and 29 lines whose mean square errors of power density are less than 3%.

In the indirect-drive Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) system, groups of laser beams are injected into a gold cylindrical hohlraum and plasma is stimulated with the ablation of the wall of hohlraum by the laser beams. In our work, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method associated with the bilinear transform and Maclaurin series expansion approaches is utilized to examine the laser beam propagation in plasma described by the Drude model. The state-of-the-art approaches for generating the laser beams are presented and realized according to the full utilization of the TF/SF source condition. Base on the previous technologies, the quantitatively numerical analysis of the propagation characteristics of laser beams in the plasma is conducted. The obtained results are illustrated and discussed that are helpful for the parameter optimization of laser beams for an ICF system.

The applications of laser wake field accelerators (LWFA) rely heavily on the quality of produced high energy electron beams and X-ray sources. We present our recent progress on this issue. Firstly we propose a bichromatic laser ionization injection scheme for obtaining high quality electron beams. With the laser pulse combinations of 800 nm and 267 nm, or 2400 nm and 800 nm in wavelengths, electron beams with energy spread of 1% or lower can be produced. Secondly we propose polarization tunable X-ray sources based on LWFA. By shooting a laser pulse into a preformed plasma channel with a skew angle referring to the channel axis, the plasma channel can act as a helical undulator for elliptically polarized X-rays.

Pulse front distortion (PFD) is mainly induced by the chromatic aberration in femtosecond high-peak power laser systems, and it can temporally distort the pulse in the focus and therefore decrease the peak intensity. A novel measurement scheme is proposed to directly measure the PFD of ultra-intensity ultra-short laser pulses, which can work not only without any extra struggle for the desired reference pulse, but also largely reduce the size of the required optical elements in measurement. The measured PFD in an experimental 200TW/27fs laser system is in good agreement with the calculated result, which demonstrates the validity and feasibility of this method effectively. In addition, a simple compensation scheme based on the combination of concave lens and parabolic lens is also designed and proposed to correct the PFD. Based on the theoretical calculation, the PFD of above experimental laser system can almost be completely corrected by using this compensator with proper parameters.

An average power of 58 W, pulse width of 40 ps at 1 KHz repetition rate of Nd:YAG picosecond laser is reported. It used an etalon to directly get pulse width of 135 ps from Nd:YVO4 mode locked laser in 1064 nm, which repetition rate was 88 MHz. When the seed pulses were injected into the double length of regenerative LD side-pump Nd:YAG cavity at 1 KHz repetition rate, the single pulse energy was amplified to 3 mJ, the pulse width was compressed to 99 ps, beam quality of M^2 factor was 1.3. The single pulse energy was amplified up to 58 mJ, the pulse width was self compressed to 40 ps, beam quality of M^2 factor was approximately 3.5 after single passing three stages of double high gain LD side-pump Nd:YAG module. Beam pointing was about 40 urad. The stability for pulse to pulse RMS was less than 3%. A thin-film polarizer and a quarter-wave plate was inserted into the regenerative amplification cavity to let pulses double travel the same geometric path basis on pulse polarization. Serrated aperture were used in the amplification. That's beneficial to decrease the nonlinear effect for the high power in the crystal. High gain LD side-pump Nd:YAG module could lead the pulse energy amplify more and self compress the pulse width. Double length of regenerative cavity was used to enhance the optical cavity length, it greatly decreased the laser's volume and improved stability of picosecond laser. It's a nice way for high power picosecond laser and the laser system would be more simple and smaller.

We proposed a mode-locked all-polarization-maintaining erbium-doped fiber laser base on a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). The laser can generate 1.6 ps pulses at 1550 nm with the energy of 1 nJ that can be compressed down to 100 fs with the compressor outside the cavity. The repetition rate of the output pulse is 12MHz. Such configuration of laser is easier controlled and self starting long term operation, and is highly desirable for industrial applications, such as micro-machining.

We present a linear cavity type of Erbium-Doped fiber oscillator designed for high stability femtosecond pulse production. Commercial Semiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirrors (SESAM) is applied. To avoid environment unstable effects which affects on polarization state of fiber, standard faraday rotator is used in this cavity. Also the experimental study of ring femtosecond fiber laser is compared with linear once. The linear cavity is more stable than ring configuration. With addition of Erbium-Doped fiber amplifier, the output power 100mW with 910 fs and 45.5 MHz repetition rate is acquired without any pulse compressing.

The effect of the combined guiding, the thermal induced guiding and gain guiding, on the beam quality in Nd:YVO₄ MOPA laser is studied experimentally and theoretically. The beam quality enhancement is achieved during the power-amplification process in a 4-amplifier-stage Nd:YVO₄ MOPA laser. 195 W TEM₀₀ mode laser is achieved while its beam quality enhanced from M²=3.0 to 1.2 after power amplification. This is an interesting phenomenon since the beam quality is always deteriorated during the laser amplification. To explain the phenomenon of beam quality improvement, a theoretical model is established with the thermal induced guiding effect and gain guiding effect is considered, and a nonlinear dynamical equation of the laser mode in laser amplifier is derived. The wave equation is a Schrödinger-like two order nonlinear partial differential equation, and a symmetrical split-step Fourier mothed is developed to analyze the wave equation. Both experimental and theoretical results show that the combined guiding effect dominates the evolution of beam quality in the insensitive pumping Nd:YVO₄ MOPA lasers, and the combined guiding effect can be employed to improve the performance of beam quality in MOPA lasers.

We have demonstrated a high power and high efficiency thulium-doped silica fiber laser using a cascade tandem pumping method. A 1915nm Tm-doped fiber laser was used as a pump source for another Tm-doped fiber laser with the output power of 63W at 1980nm, corresponding to the slope efficiency of ~80%, which is the highest power to our best knowledge. And the 3dB bandwidth was 0.24nm. The 1915nm Tm-doped fiber laser was pumped by 793nm diode laser and the slope efficiency was 51%. The preform of double cladding Tm-doped fiber for the tandem pumped fiber laser was manufactured by MCVD with using the vapor-solution hybrid doping method. The fiber has a ~25μm diameter, 0.098 NA(numerical aperture) core and 400μm diameter, 0.46 NA inner cladding. In the tandem pumped fiber laser, the resonant cavity consist of a high reflection FBG at 1980nm, flat fiber end and the homemade Tm-doped silica fiber. The optimal active fiber length was presented and it is found that when the length of homemade Tm-doped silica fiber was 7m, the efficiency was the highest. The influence of Tm concentration and ratio of Tm ion and Al ion on the efficiency was also explored. And it is found that the thulium-doped silica fiber with lower Tm concentration and higher Tm:Al ratio had lower optical efficiency. Meanwhile, the optimal fiber length became shorter.

Experimental research on the energy coupling characteristic of 45# steel and 304 stainless steel under mid-infrared CW laser irradiation is carried out. Based on the classical electromagnetic theory, the theoretical formula of the energy coupling coefficient is derived under ideal condition. In order to obtain the energy coupling coefficient, an experimental system for reflectance measurement is set up by an integrating sphere. The curves about energy coupling coefficient and the temperature variation are measured respectively. The mechanism about the variation of energy coupling coefficient of sample under mid-infrared CW laser irradiation is also discussed. The experimental results show that the energy coupling coefficient of sample increased with temperature rising, but the curve in the heating stage is not consistent with the curve in the cooling stage, which means the change of the energy coupling coefficient is not a reversible process. Combined with the experimental phenomena and the energy dispersive spectrometry, the qualitative analysis about the differences between the 45# steel and 304 stainless steel is presented after irradiation. It indicates that the oxidation reaction has a significant effect on the laser interaction with sample. Accordingly, the variation of coupling coefficient of 304 stainless steel is not as obvious as that of 45# steel.

The outgassing characteristic of the silicone rubber which is the main material of non-metallic materials in high power laser system was studied，outgassing rates of the silicone rubber and the baked-out silicone rubber which was performed at 80°C4 hours were measured by the constant volume process method，and outgassing properties of them were analyzed by the quadrupole mass spectrometer. The results show that the outgassing rate of the silicone rubber and the baked-out silicone rubber is 2.69×10^-7 Pa·m³s^-1cm^-2 and 6.47×10^-8 Pa·m³s^-1cm^-2 ， respectively. All of them give out condensable volatile matter in vacuum. The outgassing rate and condensable volatile matter of the baked-out silicone rubber are less an order of magnitude compared with the silicone rubber, and the outgassing rate of the silicone rubber is less than 1×10^-7 Pa·m³s^-1cm^-2, which is fit for non-metallic material of the high power laser system. This paper also discusses the method of reducing the outgassing rate and condensable volatile matter of the silicone rubber in high power laser system.

In order to investigate the power characteristics of the Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber(PCF) laser, we have represented a simple three-level system modeling based on a rate equation model. According to our theoretical modeling, the variation of the output power P_out via the pump power P_p is theoretically studied, which agrees well with experimental data. Then, we have investigated the effects of the doped concentration of Yb ions, the length and the effective mode field area of the PCF on the output power P_out of the Yb-doped PCF laser, respectively. The results show that the output power P_out first increases and then decreases when the doped concentration of Yb ions N₀ increases and when the pump power P_p and the length of the PCF L are constant. And the optimal doped concentration N_m exponentially decreases when the length L of the PCF increases and the slope of the optimal doped concentration N_m also decreases when the length L of the PCF increases. The output power P_out first increases and then decreases when the length of the PCF L increases and when the pump power P_p and the doped concentration N₀ are constant. And the optimal length L_m of the PCF exponentially decreases when the doped concentration N₀ increases and the slope of the length of the PCF also decreases when the doped concentration N₀ increases. The output power P_out linearly decreases when the effective mode field area A increases.

Deformation of the large aperture mirror caused by the external environment load seriously affects the optical performance of the optical system, and there is a limit to develop the shape quality of large aperture mirror with traditional mounting method. It is effective way to reduce the optical mirror distortion with active support method, and the structural-optical integrated method is the effective means to assess the merits of the mounting for large aperture mirror. Firstly, we proposes a new support scheme that uses specific boundary constraints on the large lens edges and imposes flexible torque to resist deformation induced by gravity to improve surface quantity of large aperture mirror. We calculate distortion of the large aperture mirror at the edges of the flexible torque respectively with the finite element method; secondly, we extract distortion value within clear aperture of the mirror with MATLAB, solve the corresponding Zernike polynomial coefficients; lastly, we obtain the peak-valley value (PV) and root mean square value (RMS) with optical-structural integrated analysis . The results for the 690x400x100mm mirror show that PV and RMS values within the clear aperture with 0.4MPa torques than the case without applying a flexible torque reduces 82.7% and 72.9% respectively. The active mounting on the edge of the large aperture mirror can greatly improve the surface quality of the large aperture mirror.

Fused silica transmission grating plays an important role in the ultra-short laser pulse compression system. Fused silica transmission grating have the advantages of high diffraction efficiency, high damage threshold, long life and no shelter. The design and fabrication of pulse compression grating are investigated theoretically and experimentally in this paper. Rigorous coupled wave theory is used for design transmission grating with trapezoidal structure. The trapezoidal structure has better diffraction efficiency than that of the rectangular structure. The deep-etched fused silica transmission grating (1250lp/mm) is fabricated by holographic recording and ion beam etching. The aperture of transmission grating is Φ65mm, and its thickness is 1mm.The absolute -1st diffraction efficiency is about to 98%(@808nm). Experimental results are coincident with the theoretical analysis.

Laser has been used in the military field widely because it has some advantages, such as strong directional, fast speed, high energy and flexible accurate. Non-lethal laser weapon does not directly lead to death and equipped with destruction and the destruction of the ecological environment. It has a broad application prospect in the field of counter-terrorism ChuTu. But the laser transmission should be affected by atmospheric environment. These will affect the operational effect of non-lethal laser weapons seriously. In this paper, the influence of fog visibility of laser attenuation characteristics is studied using Mie theory based on analysis of the laser atmospheric transmission theory. Different wavelengths laser attenuation coefficient in the fog are simulated and calculated. Different wavelengths laser’s Kim attenuation model are deduced when they propagate in the fog. The relationship between attenuation coefficient and transmittance and the fog particle concentration and the transmission distance of 532nm laser are studied by simulation. The simulation results show that different wavelengths laser attenuation was sharply increased with the decreasing of fog visibility. Attenuation coefficient is as high as 40dB/km under the condition of the fog. The laser transmittance with concentration of fog drop speed greatly reduced. The laser transmittance is 40% in the 100m distance when the fog particle concentration is 20/m3. And the laser transmittance is 10% in the 200m distance. The laser transmittance is only 5% when the fog particle concentration is 100/m3.

A focused conformal projection system (FCPS) has lots of advantages over parallel projection system, especially in near-field coherent beam combining situation. A home-made FCPS based on fiber laser array with adaptive fiber optics collimator is setup and its performances are investigated. First, the coherent beam combining based on the system is successfully achieved with simultaneous end-cap/tilt control and phase-locking control. Then performances of collimated conformal projection system (CCPS) are examined experimentally and consistent with the theoretical results with efficiencies above 80%. At last, we test the feasibility of FCPS in improving coherent combining efficiency. Results show that comparing with CCPS, the CBC efficiency of FCPS improves about 43.5%, from 59.0% to 84.7%, with perfect fitness to the ideal situation.

A short-pulse longitudinally excited CO₂ laser operating at a high repetition rate was developed. The discharge tube was made of a 45 cm-long or 60 cm-long dielectric tube with an inner diameter of 16 mm and two metallic electrodes at the ends of the tube. The optical cavity was formed by a ZnSe output coupler with a reflectivity of 85% and a high-reflection mirror. Mixed gas (CO₂:N₂:He = 1:1:2) was flowed into the discharge tube. A high voltage of about 33 kV with a rise time of about 200 ns was applied to the discharge tube. At a repetition rate of 300 Hz and a gas pressure of 3.4 kPa, the 45 cm-long discharge tube produced a short laser pulse with a laser pulse energy of 17.5 mJ, a spike pulse energy of 0.2 mJ, a spike width of 153 ns, and a pulse tail length of 90 μs. The output power was 5.3 W. The laser pulse waveform did not depend on the repetition rate, but the laser beam profile did. At a low repetition rate of less than 50 Hz, the laser beam had a doughnut-like shape. However, at a high repetition rate of more than 150 Hz, the discharge concentrated at the center of the discharge tube, and the intensity at the center of the laser beam was higher. The laser beam profile depended on the distribution of the discharge. An output power of 7.0 W was achieved by using the 60 cm-long tube.

We present an annular laser guide star (LGS) concept for large ground-based telescopes in this paper. The more stable annular LGS is generated by turbulence-resisted vortex beam. In the uplink, a vortex beam tends to wander more slightly than a Gaussian beam does in atmospheric turbulence. This may enable an annular LGS to wander more slightly than a traditional Gaussian beam generated LGS does, which would ease the burden of uplink tip-tilt mirror and benefit a dynamical closed-loop adaptive optics system. We conducted numerical simulation to validate the feasibility of this concept. And we have gotten 31% reduced variance of spot wandering of annular LGS. Besides, we set up a spatial light modulator based laser guide star simulator for beam propagation in turbulent atmosphere to experimentally test the annular LGS concept. Preliminary experimental results are given. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time this concept is formulated.

In high-power laser system such as Petawatt lasers, the laser beam can be intense enough to result in saturation of nonlinear refraction index of medium. Based on the standard linearization method of small-scale self-focusing and the split-step Fourier numerical calculation method, we present analytical and simulative investigations on the hot-image formation in cascaded saturable nonlinear medium slabs, to disclose the effect of nonlinearity saturation on the distribution and intensity of hot images. The analytical and simulative results are found in good agreement. It is shown that, saturable nonlinearity does not change the distribution of hot images, while may greatly affect the intensity of hot images, i.e., for a given saturation light intensity, with the intensity of the incident laser beam, the intensity of hot images firstly increases monotonously and eventually reaches a saturation; for the incident laser beam of a given intensity, with the saturation light intensity lowering, the intensity of hot images decreases rapidly, even resulting in a few hot images too weak to be visible.

In high-power laser system such as Petawatt lasers, the laser beam can be intense enough to result in saturation of nonlinear refraction index of medium. We present an analytical and simulative investigation of hot image formation in an intense laser beam through a saturable nonlinear medium slab based on Fresnel-Kirchhoff diffraction integral and the standard split-step Fourier method. The analytical results are found in agreement with the simulative ones. It is shown that, hot images can still form in an intense laser beam through a saturable nonlinear medium slab, additionally, the saturable nonlinearity does not change the location of hot images, while may decrease the intensity of hot images, i.e., the intensity of hot images decreases with the saturation light intensity lowering, and can stop to increase with the intensity of the incident laser beam heightening due to saturation of nonlinearity. Moreover, variations of intensity of hot images with the obscuration type and the slab thickness are discussed.

An unpolarized fused silica transmission grating with 1250lp/mm applying in femtosecond laser has been designed at 780nm center wavelength with 740nm~840nm bandwidth. By using the rigorous coupled-wave theory, computer optimization shows that: when the groove depth and duty cycle are about 1.51um~1.63um, 0.53~0.63 respectively, the first-order diffraction efficiency of a lossless-transmission surface-relief grating with a rectangular surface profile can reach to higher than 90% for total unpolarized wave under 28.2°±4°incident angle.

We demonstrated a new phenomenon, namely, thermally induced core laser leakage in single trench fiber (STF), for the first time. The STF provides very high loss and power delocalization of higher order mode (HOM) and maintain the effective single mode operation. However these properties are chartered only under low power situations. In this paper we established a 976nm directly pumped high power co-pumping fiber amplifier based on the STF. The maximum output power was 1022W with a slope efficiency of 76%. Further increase the pump power will leads to the output power decrease. Meanwhile a micro second Level noise like power fluctuation was observed. No resonance frequency was observed in frequency domain indicating the mode instability is not triggered. We believe that it is the thermally induced waveguide index profile change due to the excessively heat load in the front section of STF that leads to the failure of HOM suppression and the power of FM was coupled into the HOM. However the heat load in the rear section of STF was relatively low and the HOM leaked into the cladding due to the bending loss. We provide a mitigating method by pumping with pump light of smaller absorption. A maximum power of 1330W was achieved without power decrease via pumping the STF with 905nm and 976nm pump light (same amplifier). To our best knowledge, this is the first demonstration of thermally induced core laser leakage in STF and the pertinent results can provide significant reference for future optimization.

We developed a longitudinally excited CO₂ laser system that was constituted of two or three laser tubes and a single driving circuit. The multiple laser tubes simultaneously produced almost the same short laser pulses with a spike pulse width of about 164 ns and a pulse tail length of about 74 μs with a single driving circuit. The double-tube system was constituted of two 30 cm-long laser tubes with inner diameters of 13 mm and 16 mm and a single driving circuit with an input energy of 2.18 J. The output energy of the 13 mm-tube was 23.3 mJ, and that of the 16 mm-tube was 21.9 mJ at a gas pressure of 4.2 kPa (CO₂:N₂:He = 1:1:2). The triple-tube system was constituted of three 30 cm-long laser tubes with inner diameters of 9 mm, 13 mm, and 16 mm and a single driving circuit with an input energy of 2.18 J. The output energy of the 9 mm tube was 15.9 mJ, that of the 13 mm tube was 24.1 mJ, and that of the 16 mm tube was 19.2 mJ at a gas pressure of 4.2 kPa. With the same driving circuit and the same input energy, the total output energies of the multitube laser systems were higher than the output energy of a single-tube system.

Thermal effect in the gain fiber is one of the main factors which restrict the power improvement of high power fiber amplifiers. Previous studies have shown that the thermal effect is closely related to the doping concentration in the gain fiber. In order to reduce the temperature at the fusion point and the maximum temperature of the gain fiber, we propose to use doping concentration varying along the gain fiber as a method to disperse the thermal effect of the gain fiber. A two stage single frequency all-fiber-integrated MOPA is demonstrated, the second stage of which has a hybrid gain fiber composed of high-doped and low-doped Yb fibers. The temperature of the gain fiber is measured by a thermal imaging camera. It is shown that compared with the constant doping fiber, temperature in the gradient doping fiber is greatly reduced when the output powers are approximately the same. Results indicate that the gradient doping of the gain fiber is an effective way to alleviate the thermal effect in high power fiber lasers.

Volume Bragg grating (VBG) can be used in laser resonator to control the transverse distribution due to its excellent Bragg selectivity. The coupled-wave theory is used to analyze the angular selectivity of VBG, and the output modes of the volume Bragg resonator are simulated with the fast Fourier transform (FFT) method and the coupled-wave theory. In this paper, the volume Bragg grating is inserted into a plane-parallel resonator, the intensity distribution and diffraction losses for the mode of TEM₀₀, TEM₁₀ and TEM₂₀ are simulated, and the loss difference for different modes at different angular selectivity of VBGs are discussed. At the VBG angular selectivity of 3 mrad, the diffraction loss for fundamental mode is of 6.3%, while the diffraction loss for TEM₁₀ and TEM₂₀ mode are 19.8% and 32.7%, respectively. Therefore, TEM₁₀ and TEM₂₀ can be easily suppressed if the gain is between 6.3% and 19.8%, and a fundamental transverse mode can be obtained.

Besides, the simulation results show that the intensity distribution profile of the transverse modes become smooth with the insertion of VBG, but the diffraction losses of transverse modes are increasing, and the diffraction loss increases with the order number of transverse modes increasing. Moreover, the loss difference between modes is getting large under the effect of VBG. The high loss difference between different modes is good for transverse mode selection, and VBG with reasonable angular selectivity in laser resonator will force the multi-mode to operate in a single transverse mode, which may has potential applications in lasers.

The self-starting soliton generate in a dual-core fiber without any external mode-locking mechanism with the numerical simulated and demonstrated. The low-intensity light can be transferred to the other and ejected from the laser cavity in the nonlinear coupling between the two cores. Then we propose and analyze a diode-pumped Yb:YAG solid modelocked laser based on an dual-core fiber, at the same time, the higher intensity light keeps propagation and remains largely unaffected have contrasted, and the impact of the cavity characteristics on output parameters has analyzed in order to obtain a better application in the actual experiment.

We experimentally investigated the polarization vector characteristics in an Er-doped fiber laser based on graphene that was deposited on microfiber. A variety of dynamic states, including polarization locked fundamental soliton, and polarization domain wall square pulses and their harmonic mode locked counterparts have all been observed with different pump powers and polarization states. These results indicated that the microfiber-based graphene not only could act as a saturable absorber but also could provide high nonlinearity, which is favorable for the cross coupling between the two orthogonal polarization components. It was worth to mention that it is the first time to obtain the polarization domain wall solitons in a mode locked fiber laser.

We demonstrated the formation of noise-like square-wave pulses in an Er-doped fiber laser, using a microfiber based topological insulator as a saturated absorber (SA). The SA guaranteed both excellent saturable absorption and high nonlinearity. The pulse width can be increased ranging from 0.985 to 5.503 ns by increasing the pump power from 212 to 284 mW with the polarization state fixed. Moreover, with the adjustment of the polarization controllers in the cavity, the pulse width can be adjusted obviously. Worth mentioning, it was the first time that the noise-like square-wave pulse formed in a microfiber based topological insulator fiber laser.

The high energy noise-like pulses (NLPs) were experimentally investigated in a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser with a long ring cavity by using nonlinear polarization rotation technique. Large net normal group-velocity dispersion of the cavity is estimated as high as 6.46 ps2, which is beneficial to formation of high-energy pulses. With the total pump power of 970 mW (the pump powers of forward pump and backward pump are set at the value of 455 mW and 515 mW, respectively), a stable ultrahigh energy rectangular-shape pulse emission with the pulse duration of 35 ns was observed. The energy of square packet with a fundamental repetition rate of 141.6 kHz is as high as 840 nJ. The signal-to-noise is higher than 60 dB in RF spectrum. The feature of NLPs is confirmed by the coherent spike of autocorrelation trace. When the pump power is beyond 970 mW, the mode locking operation with fundamental repetition rate cannot be achieved despite of the large range variation of polarization controller (PC) settings. However, the forthorder harmonic mode locking can be observed, the square pulse packet duration still remains at ∼ 35 ns. The experimental results demonstrated that the ultrahigh energy NLPs is only realized at the condition of special physical parameters and it is restricted by the number and intensity of ultra short pulses within the envelope to some extent.

In order to measure the change of laser energy coupling coefficient with temperature in mid-infrared wave band, reflectance integrating sphere experiment system was designed and set up. 915nm CW laser was used to heat samples and the wavelength of probe laser is 3.8μm. Chopper and phase-locked amplifier were adopted in the system. Thermal imager was used to measure and record the temperature of samples during laser irradiation. The reflectance of steel and aluminum plates to 3.8μm was measured during 915nm laser irradiation. EDS analysis was done to investigate the change of elemental composition in the samples respectively. The experimental results show that, the results of reflectance and radiation temperature measured by this system are relatively accurate during laser irradiation. In the process of temperature rising from 300K to 785K, the color of 45# steel plates turns blue and black, while the color of aluminum alloy plates is basically unchanged. When temperature reaches about 700K, reflectance of 45# steel decreases obviously with the increase of temperature, while reflectance of aluminum is almost constant. The reflectance is probably determined by the oxide in the surface of samples which is consistent with the results of EDS analysis. Reflectance decreases with the increase of the content of oxygen in the surface. The reason of why the reflectance of aluminum is almost constant is that aluminum oxide is not generate massively under 750K.

Optimization for the wavefront distortion based on volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) recorded in photothermorefractive glasses (PTR) is simulated. A beam with different wavefront distortions is the incident on VBGs at the Bragg angle. The wavefront distribution of diffracted beam through two orthogonal VBGs is simulated based on the angular spectrum theory and the coupled wave theory. Four VBGs with different angular selectivity are used to simulate and optimize the wavefront distribution. The simulation results show that the wavefront distribution can be optimized with the VBGs of suitable angular selectivity. The PV value and the RMS value can be improved. The far field quality of laser beams is optimized.

The surface damage processes of fused silica are studied by a new photo-acoustic probe with Anti-Emi (Electron-Magnetic Interference), easy-adjusted and non-damage for the samples, and the damage thresholds is detected according to the rapid increase of the acoustic signals. Experimental results show that the damage threshold of fused silica samples is 13.86 J/cm² at the wavelength of 1064 nm and the pulse width of 10 ns. This work may provide an effective technical support for the laser-induced damage detection.

Ion Mobility Spectrometry (IMS), having an advantage in real-time and on-line detection, is an atmospheric pressure detecting technique. LA-IMS (Laser Ablation Ion Mobility Spectrometry) uses Nd-YAG laser as ionization source, whose energy is high enough to ionize metal.

In this work, we tested the signal in different electric field intensity by a home-made ion mobility spectrometer, using silicon wafers the sample. The transportation of metal ions was match with the formula: T_d = d/K • 1/E, when the electric field intensity is greater than 350v/cm. The relationship between signal intensity and collection angle (the angle between drift tube and the surface of the sample) was studied. With the increasing of the collection angle, signal intensity had a significant increase; while the variation of incident angle of the laser had no significant influence. The signal intensity had a 140% increase when the collection angle varied from 0 to 45 degree, while the angle between the drift tube and incident laser beam keeping the same as 90 degree. The position of ion gate in LA-IMS(Laser Ablation Ion Mobility Spectrometry) is different from the traditional ones for the kinetic energy of the ions is too big, if the distance between ion gate and sampling points less than 2.5cm the ion gate will not work, the ions could go through ion gate when it closed. The SNR had been improved by define the signal when the ion gate is closed as background signal, the signal noise including shock wave and electrical field perturbation produced during the interaction between laser beam and samples is eliminated when the signal that the ion gate opened minus the background signal.

An numerical model considering solder viscoplasticity is developed to analyze the thermal deformation of laser disk with indium bonded. The characteristic of soft bonding material is described using Anand viscoplasticity model. The Finite Element Method analytical results show that the back surface of laser disk with pumping will deform more significantly with time and finally be steady. Correspondingly the refraction power increase gradually and diffraction loss induced by aspherical aberration decrease gradually. Futhermore when pump spot is larger the refraction power and aspherical aberration will change more due to solder viscoplasticity.

In this paper, a thin disk multi-pass amplification system is designed based on the conjugated double parabolic mirror pumping thin disk laser module, which realizes 20 passes transmitting through the thin disk crystal. The light transmission matrix is used to optimize optical mode matching of seed laser spot size and pumping spot size during the multi-pass transmission. At the same time, anti-misalignment stability of the thin disk multi-pass amplification system and the aberration of output laser beam are analyzed in deeply.

Fiber cladding mode stripper is one of key devices in high-power fiber lasers and high-power transmission fiber. We report a new kind of mode stripper using quartz tubes with etched dots on the surface. We studied the waveguide property of the mode stripper both the dots on the outer surface and on the inner surface of the tube. Then we produced some quartz tubes using green laser for the experiments, which demonstrated that the new model strippers can reduce the cladding light and improve the axial temperature distribution obviously.