Nonlinear optics concept for high-peak-power lasers

High-peak-power efficient edge-emitting photonic crystal nanocavity lasers.

Record-high edge-emitted peak power was collected from L3 and finite-waveguide two-dimensional photonic crystal nanocavity quantum well membrane lasers at room temperature under single-mode operations. Peak power levels of 230 microW and 540 microW were collected from L3 and finite-waveguide edge-emitters, and their quantum differential efficiencies are 11% and 27%, respectively, limited by the...

Lasers and the Growth of Nonlinear Optics

Nonlinear optical effects were seen long before the laser was invented. In 1926, Russians Sergey Vavilov and Vadim L. Levishin observed optical saturation of absorption when they focused bright microsecond pulses to power densities of kilowatts per square centimeter. Vavilov introduced the term “nonlinear optics” in 1944, and during World War II Brian O’Brien put saturation to practical use in ...

Adaptive Optics for High-Peak-Power Lasers – An Optical Adaptive Closed-Loop Used for High-Energy Short-Pulse Laser Facilities: Laser Wave-Front Correction and Focal-Spot Shaping

High-Power High-Brightness Lasers

High power high brightness diode lasers are gaining more and more interest for applications previously dominated by expensive and inefficient solid-state lasers due to their better efficiency, brightness and compactness. The significant fact about conventional high brightness optical sources is that they exhibit about an order of magnitude higher brightness than broad-area semiconductor lasers....

High power ultrafast lasers

In this article, we review progress in the development of high peak-power ultrafast lasers, and discuss in detail the design issues which determine the performance of these systems. Presently, lasers capable of generating terawatt peak powers with unprecedented short pulse duration can now be built on a single optical table in a small-scale laboratory, while large-scale lasers can generate peak...