Nonlinear optical studies in semiconductor-doped glasses (SDGs) are performed under femtosecond laser pulse excitation. Z-scan experiments with 800 nm wave- length pulses are used to excite SDG samples in the resonance and non-resonance regimes. Schott colour glass filter OG 515 shows stronger two-photon absorption than GG 420 and both the samples exhibit positive nonlinearity. However, in resonantly excited RG 850 the intensity-dependent Z-scan shows transition from saturable to reverse saturable absorption behaviour with the increase in intensity.

We report the work on erbium:ytterbium-doped double clad fibre laser (EYDFL), that is pumped at 976 nm. The maximum output power generated is 13.6Win 1550 nm region with a slope efficiency of about 21%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power reported from an EYDFL, that uses commercially available off-the-shelf large mode area Er:Yb-doped double-clad fibre.

We propose a novel type of cavity design to generate single longitudinal mode laser known as LOPUT cavity. LOPUT cavity stands for linear orthogonally polarized modes resulting in unidirectional travelling wave cavity. The technique can be applied to both isotropic as well as anisotropic gain mediums. In the present paper, we applied the technique to anisotropic gain medium such as a-cut Nd:YVO₄. Using the LOPUT cavity, we demonstrated nearly 2 W of single longitudinal mode laser with nearly diffraction-limited spatial profile. Linewidth measurement using a custom-made Fabry Perot interferometer revealed instrument-limited linewidth of ∼5 MHz at 1064 nm.

In a thermally birefringence-compensated linear cavity configuration, ∼160 W of average green power by intracavity frequency doubling of AO Q-switched Nd:YAG/LBO-based laser is demonstrated. The corresponding optical to optical conversion efficiency is estimated to be ∼12.7%. The pulse repetition rate is 20 kHz with the individual pulse duration of 73 ns. The beam quality parameter is measured to be 18.

We present our studies on dual wavelength operation using a single Nd:YVO₄ crystal and its intracavity sum frequency generation by considering the influence of the thermal lensing effect on the performance of the laser. A KTP crystal cut for type-II phase matching was used for intracavity sum frequency generation in the cavity at an appropriate location for efficient and stable yellow output power. More than 550 mW of stable CW yellow-orange beam at 593.5 nm with beam quality parameter ($M^2$) ∼ 4.3 was obtained. The total pump to yellow beam conversion efficiency was estimated to be 3.83%.

Fretting-fatigue is an important factor influencing service life of turbine blades. The present paper describes laser shock peening of potential crack nucleation site in the root region of steam turbine blade for its enhanced service life. The experimental study, performed with an in-house developed 2.5 J/7 ns Nd:YAG laser demonstrated that laser peening introduced a residual surface compressive stress of −260 to −390 MPa. Case depth of laser peened surface layer was found to be more than 900 𝜇m.

In this paper we report linearly polarized high average power passive Q-switched ytterbium-doped photonic crystal fibre laser with a Cr⁴⁺:YAG crystal as a saturable absorber. An average output power of 9.4 W with pulse duration of 64 ns and pulse repetition rate of 57.4 kHz with a slope efficiency of 52% was achieved. Measured polarization extinction ratio (PER) of the Q-switched laser output was 10.5 dB.