Novel fabrication technique for planar glass waveguides

A novel technique has been developed for the deposition of low-loss planar glass waveguides by directly spin coating from the liquid, thus overcoming the problems of reproducing glass stoichiometry when depositing from the vapour

Towards an all-integrated MOPA configuration using Yb-doped ion-exchanged waveguides

In this paper, we present an ion-exchanged Yb-glass waveguide amplifier, seeded by an ion-exchanged Yb-glass waveguide laser demonstrating a gain as high as 10 dB. We also present multi-GHz, mode-locked ion-exchanged waveguide lasers and discuss the development of a fully integrated high-power, multi-GHz waveguide sourc

1.5W diode-pumped monolithic planar waveguide laser

We describe a compact and efficient Nd:YAG waveguide laser pumped by a diode-bar. An output of 1.5W is obtained for 6W incident power, with significant brightness enhancement

Towards high-power multi-GHz waveguide lasers

There has been a growing interest in the development of laser sources with high (>GHz) pulse repetition rates owing to their potential applications in areas such as nonlinear microscopy, optical sampling, frequency metrology, optical communications, optical arbitrary waveform generation and for the calibration of astronomical spectrographs (astro-combs). Ultrafast lasers based on low-loss waveguide geometry offer a combination of features (low-threshold operation, high efficiency and moderate non-linearities) which make them attractive for development of compact, low-cost, multi-GHz femtosecond sources

Efficient, high repetition-rate femtosecond blue source using a compact Cr:LiSAF laser

We present a practical route to designing a portable femtosecond blue light source that is rugged, compact and battery-powered. An opticaloptical second-harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of 30% is reported using a diode-pumped, femtosecond Cr:LiSAF laser requiring only ~1.2W of electrical drive. 12mW of blue average power is generated using a 3mm KNbO3 crystal in a simple, single-pass extracavity geometry. The corresponding electrical-blue efficiency of 1% is, to our knowledge, the highest reported efficiency of any femtosecond blue source. Despite conditions of large group velocity mismatch, we show that the temporally-broadened blue pulses remain well within the femtosecond regime, at ~540fs

Electrically-controlled rapid femtosecond pulse duration switching and continuous picosecond pulse duration tuning in an ultrafast Cr4+:forsterite laser

This work recieved funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council through EP/E064450/1 and EP/E06440X/1 grants.We demonstrate rapid switching between picosecond and femtosecond operational regimes in a Cr4+:forsterite laser, using an electrically-contacted GaInNAs SESAM with saturable absorption characteristics controlled via the quantum-confined Stark effect. Additionally, continuous picosecond pulse duration tuning by over a factor 3 is reported.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A diode-pumped, high gain, planar waveguide, Nd:Y₃Al₅O₁₂ amplifier

We report the use of a 5 mm long planar Nd:YAG waveguide grown by liquid-phase epitaxy as an amplifier at 1.064 µm. In a double-pass configuration pumped by a 1.2 W diode-laser, small signal gains of 686 (28 dB) have been observed and efficient power extraction demonstrated with output powers of up to 290 mW being obtained