Various Technical Issues

Doped insulator solid-state

lasers are most suitable for Q
switching.
Since their gain media have long
upper-state lifetimes and high
saturation energies.
Hence the capability to store
large amounts of energy.
Bulk lasers are normally
preferable over fiber lasers.
Since their larger mode areas allow
more energy to be stored, and their
shorter resonators allow for
shorter pulses.
For both active and passive Q
switching, higher pulse repetition
rates usually imply longer pulses.
This is because the reduced pulse
energy leads to a weaker
modulation of the net gain, and
thus to a slower rise and decay of
When the pulse repetition rate of an
actively Q-switched laser falls below
the inverse upper-state lifetime, the
maximum pulse energy is achieved.
But the average power is reduced
due to increased losses via
spontaneous emission.
Pumping does not have to occur in a
continuous-wave fashion; it is also
possible to use flash lamps or quasi-
cw laser diodes, fired shortly before
the Q switch is opened.
This reduces the energy losses via
spontaneous emission and thus allows
the use of gain media with shorter
upper-state lifetimes.
In most cases, the pulses in a Q-
switched laser are generated by
amplifying noise from spontaneous
emission in many resonator round
trips.
Therefore, there is usually no phase
The nonlinear dynamics of Q
switching sometimes lead to
unexpected phenomena, such as
the generation of double pulses
and/or certain instabilities.
Numerical simulations of pulse
generation can be very helpful in
understanding such effects and
identifying the right cure.
The Q-switched pulse train must be
switched off for certain time
This often introduces the problem
that the first pulse has a higher
energy, if the pump source is
continuously operated during the
time without pulse emission.
Various methods have been
developed to solve or mitigate this
problem.
Qua si-contin uou s- wave Op era tio n
Operation mode of lasers (e.g.
diode bars) where the pump power
is switched on for short time
intervals in order to limit thermal
effects.
Pump source is switched on only for
certain time intervals, which are
short enough to reduce thermal
effects significantly.
Still long enough that the laser
process is close to its steady state,
The duty cycle, a few percent, thus
strongly reducing the heating and
thermal effects, such as thermal
lensing and damage through
overheating.
Therefore, quasi-cw operation
allows the operation with higher
output peak powers at the expense
of a lower average power.
Quasi-continuous-wave operation is
Such devices are sometimes even
designed specifically for quasi-cw
operation.
Their cooling arrangement is
designed for a smaller heat load,
and the emitters can be more
closely packed in order to obtain a
higher brightness and beam quality.
Some doped-insulator solid-state
lasers are also operated in quasi-cw
operation. Such lasers are also
Ult rafa st L aser s
The primary goal in designing and
fabricating an ultrafast laser is to
make its pulse as short as possible.
The fastest ultrafast lasers are
capable of producing pulses of only
a few femto seconds (10-15 sec) in
duration. 
Frequency Spectrum, Coherence &
Gain vs. Loss Mechanisms.
Mo del ockin g
In the comparison of ultrafast and normal
lasers, that an ultrafast laser simultaneously
lases in many different modes.
But that the phases of the different modes are
completely uncorrelated.  This will produce
random (unpredictable) fluctuations in the
intensity over time. 
Mode locking describes the set of techniques
that are used to generate a known correlation
between the phases and therefore make it
possible to predict when the intensity maxima
will occur. 
Active mode locking: a physical device is placed
Passive modelocking:  an intensity
dependent loss-mechanism
(satruable absorber) placed in the
cavity causes less intense radiation
to be damped out, leaving only a
single, intense pulse oscillating
back and forth in the cavity.
Self-modelocking: (really a special
kind of passive mode-locking) the
lasing medium itself has an
Laser Amplifiers
Most optical amplifiers are laser
amplifiers, where the amplification is
based on stimulated emission.
Here, the gain medium contains some
atoms, ions or molecules in an excited
state, which can be stimulated by the
signal light to emit more light into the
same radiation modes.
Such gain media are either insulators
doped with some laser-active ions, or
In addition to stimulated emission,
there also exist other physical
mechanisms for optical amplification,
which are based on various types of
optical nonlinearities.
Optical parametric amplifiers are
usually based on a medium with χ(2)
nonlinearity,
But there are also parametric fiber
devices using the χ(3) nonlinearity of a
fiber.
Other types of nonlinear amplifiers
An important difference
between laser amplifiers and
amplifiers based on
nonlinearities is that laser
amplifiers can store some
amount of energy.
whereas nonlinear amplifiers
provide gain only as long as the
pump light is present.
Multi pass Arrangements, Regenerative
Amplifiers, and Amplifier Chains
A bulk-optical laser amplifier often
provides only a moderate amount of
gain.
Typically only few decibels.
This applies particularly to ultra-short
pulse amplifiers.
The effective gain may then be
increased either by arranging for
multiple passes of the radiation
through the same amplifier medium,
Gain S atura tion
For high values of the input light
intensity, the amplification factor of a
gain medium saturates.
This is a natural consequence of the
fact that an amplifier cannot add
arbitrary levels of energy or power to
an input signal.
However, as laser amplifiers store
some amount of energy in the gain
medium, this energy can be extracted
within a very short time.
Therefore, during some short time
Detrimen tal Ef fects
For high gain, weak parasitic
reflections can cause parasitic
lasing, i.e., oscillation without an
input signal, or additional output
components not caused by the
input signal.
This effect then limits the
achievable gain.
Even without any parasitic
reflections, amplified spontaneous
A related effect is that amplifiers
also add some excess noise to the
output.
This applies not only to laser
amplifiers, where excess noise can
partly be explained as the effect of
spontaneous emission.
But also to nonlinear amplifiers.
Ultrafast Amplifiers
Amplifiers of different kind may also
be used for amplifying ultra short
pulses.
In some cases, a high repetition rate
pulse train is amplified, leading to a
high average power while the pulse
energy remains moderate.
In other cases, a much higher gain is
applied to pulses at lower repetition
rates, leading to high pulse energies