The reliability and lifetime demanded by spacebased applications of 2-micron solid state lasers are beyond the capability of currently available laser diode arrays. This paper provides the status of an ongoing technology advancement effort toward long-lifetime high power laser diode arrays suitable for pumping Thulium and Holmium based solid state lasers.

The dynamics of chirped pulse amplification in thin-disk regenerative amplifiers relevant to the pumping of optical parametric chirp pulse amplification systems are described. It is shown that the suitability for reproducible pumping of subsequent nonlinear processes requires a balance between the demands of avoiding chaotic pulse train dynamics and providing a reproducible spectral phase. We d...

We have demonstrated an efficient high-peak-power AlGaInAs eye-safe wavelength disk laser at 1555 nm. The quantum defect and the thermal load are significantly reduced by pumping the quantum well directly. The overall conversion efficiency is enhanced over three times compared with the barrier pumping method. With a pump peak power of 3.7 kW, an output peak power of 0.52 kW is generated at a pu...

We study spontaneous quantum coherence in an out of an equilibrium system, coupled to multiple baths describing pumping and decay. For a range of parameters describing coupling to, and occupation of the baths, a stable steady-state condensed solution exists. The presence of pumping and decay significantly modifies the spectra of phase fluctuations, leading to correlation functions that differ b...

II We have developed laser sources ofsodium-resonance radiation based on the sumfrequency mixing ofNd:YAG laser radiation. The sources are suitable for generating a fluorescence spot in the earth's mesospheric sodium layer for use in adaptive optics compensation. Taking into account the sodium fluorescence lifetime, Doppler broadening, hyperfine structUre, radiative saturation, optical pumping,...

A strongly saturated waveguide-based optical-field-ionization soft-x-ray laser seeded by high harmonic generation was demonstrated for Ni-like Kr lasing at 32.8 nm. Compared with the same laser seeded only with spontaneous emission, seeding with high harmonics yields much smaller divergence, enhanced spatial coherence, and controlled polarization. The integration of high harmonic seeding, optic...

Single-stripe diode-laser-pumped operation of a continuous-wave 946-nm Nd:YAG laser with less than 10-mW threshold has been demonstrated. A slope efficiency of 16% near threshold was shown with a projected slope efficiency well above a threshold of 34% based on results under Rhodamine 6G dye-laser pumping. Nonlinear crystals for second-harmonic generation of this source were evaluated. KNbO(3) ...

A diode-end-pumped passively mode-locked femtosecond Tm-doped calcium lithium niobium gallium garnet (Tm:CLNGG) disordered crystal laser was demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. With a 790 nm laser diode pumping, stable CW mode-locking operation was obtained by using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The disordered crystal laser generated mode-locked pulses as short as 479...

The photophysical properties such as singlet absorption, molar absorptivity, fluorescence spectra, dipole moment, fluorescence quantum yields, fluorescence lifetimes and laser activity of 1,4-bis (β-Pyridyl-2Vinyl) Benzene (P2VB), 2,5-distyryl-pyrazine (DSP) and 1,4-bis(2-methylstyryl)benzene(MSB) diolefineic laser dyes have been measured in different restricted hosts. (P2VB), (DSP) and (MSB) a...

It is theoretically shown that an end-pumped microchip laser formed by a thin laser crystal with plane-plane but slightly tilted facets can emit, under appropriate pumping conditions and near a crystal edge, a truncated self-accelerating Airy output beam.