Articles written in Pramana – Journal of Physics

• Thermal lens measurement technique in end-pumped solid state lasers: Application to diode-pumped microchip lasers

A simple derivation, which relates the thermal lens focal length in solid state lasers to pump power and a method for direct estimation of thermal lens focal length, is reported. This method is applicable to any type of stable resonator. The method is used for the measurement of the thermal lens focal length with an accuracy of 8% in an axially pumped microchip laser. The variation of focal length with pump power is also measured.

• Instrumentation for PSD-based neutron diffractometers at Dhruva reactor

Linear position sensitive detectors (PSDs) are widely used to configure neutron diffractometers and other instruments. Necessary front-end electronics and a data acquisition system [1] is developed to cater to such instruments built around the Dhruva research reactor in BARC. These include three diffractometers with multiple PSDs and four with single PSD. The front-end electronics consists of high voltage units, preamplifiers [2],shaping amplifiers, ratio ADCs (RDC) [3]. The data acquisition system consists of an interface card and software. Commercially available hardware like temperature controller or stepper motor controller connected over GPIB or RS232 are also integrated in the data acquisition system. The data acquisition is automated so that it can continue unattended for control parameter like temperature, thus enabling optimum utilization of available beam time. The instrumentation is scalable and can be easily configured for various instrumental requirements. The front-end electronics and the data acquisition system are described here.

• Femtosecond pulse generation and amplification in Yb-doped fibre oscillator–amplifier system

In recent times ytterbium (Yb) doped fibre-based mode-locked master oscillator and power amplifier have attracted a great deal of interest because of their inherent advantages like flexibility, reliability, compactness, high power handling capability and diffraction limited output beam quality as compared to the solid-state counterpart. But, to successfully develope of high-power femtosecond oscillator–amplifier system based on Yb- doped fibre, an appropriate choice of the mode-locking regime and the amplifier geometry are required. Development of an all-fibre integrated high-power Yb-doped fibre oscillator–amplifier system in which the advantages of a fibre-based system can be fully exploited remained a challenge as it requires the careful optimization of dispersion, nonlinearity, gain and ASE contribution.

In this article, femto-second pulse generation in Yb-doped fibre oscillator in different mode-locking regimes are reviewed and the details of development and characterization of an all-fibre, high-power, low-noise amplifier system seeded by an all-normal-dispersion mode-locked Yb-doped fibre laser oscillator is described. More than 10 W of average power is obtained from the fibre oscillator–amplifier system at a repetition rate of 43 MHz with diffraction-limited beam quality. Amplified pulses are de-chirped to sub-160 fs duration in a grating compressor. This is the first 10 W-level source of femtosecond pulses with completely fibre-integrated amplification comprised of commercially available components.

• Dual wavelength operation in diode-end-pumped hybrid vanadate laser

Dual wavelength operation at 1062.8 nm and 1064.1 nm in a diode-pumped hybrid laser comprising of Nd3+-doped birefringent YVO4 and GdVO4 crystals is demon-strated. A detailed characterization of the laser is performed under CW and pulsed operation. Under Q-switching, 4 W of average power at 5 kHz repetition rate is obtained with 32 ns FWHM pulse duration corresponding to 25 kW of the peak power. The intensity and the polarization of the individual spectral components can be easily controlled by changing the relative gain and the relative orientation of the two crystals. The resulting pulsed dual-wavelength laser has the potential to be used as a source for generating terahertz radiation.

• 101 W of average green beam from diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG/LBO-based system in a relay imaged cavity

Studies on intracavity frequency doubling of acousto-optically Q-switched Nd:YAG rod laser using 18 mm long type-II phase-matched LBO crystal in a relay-imaged cavity is reported. A single pump head comprised of Nd:YAG rod, diffusive reflectors and linear array laser diode bars is used. 101 W of average green power at a total diode pumping power of 700 W is obtained corresponding to 14.4% optical-to-optical conversion efficiency. The pulse repetition rate is 30 kHz with an individual pulse duration of 200 ns.

• Efficient and high-power green beam generation by frequency doubling of acousto-optic Q-switched diode-side pumped Nd:YAG rod laser in a coupled cavity

A 52-W green laser at 532 nm by extra-cavity second-harmonic generation in a coupled-cavity configuration is demonstrated. The fundamental laser is a diode-side-pumped acousto-optic (AO) Q-switched Nd:YAG rod laser producing 84 W of average power at 1064 nm at 8 kHz repetition rate. Type-II phase-matched polished KTP crystal is used as the nonlinear crystal for second-harmonic generation. The individual green pulse width is 50 ns and the fundamental to second harmonic conversion efficiency is 61.8%.

• Thermal birefringence-compensated linear intracavity frequency doubled Nd:YAG rod laser with 73 ns pulse duration and 160Wgreen output power

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.

• Efficient yellow beam generation by intracavity sum frequency mixing in DPSS Nd:YVO4 laser

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%.

• # Pramana – Journal of Physics

Volume 94, 2020
All articles
Continuous Article Publishing mode

• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019