The thing is that the generation of ultrashort laser beam pulses needs careful monitoring of the light’s dispersion provided by a fiber laser. To be more precise, there is a dependency of phase velocity and frequency, so a real laser beam pulse includes a spread in frequency, it will enlarge as it goes through an optical medium. Thus, simple, low-cost sources of sub-picosecond laser beam pulses, soliton fiber laser systems, including a laser diode and an optical fiber, are considered to become an ideal solution.
It should be noted that such laser systems allow decreasing the spread by “balancing it against Kerr focusing—the narrowing of a laser beam pulse caused when light’s electric field alters the medium’s refractive index—so each pulse travels as a soliton, and its duration remains unchanged.” Soliton fiber lasers are regarded as very promising because of such benefits as simple construction, however, they are not able to reach the high energies of techniques, for instance, chirped-pulse amplification.
Nonetheless, new fiber laser technology allows overcoming these limitations. The operating principle of the fiber laser is based on the application of a spatial light modulator to manage the light’s dispersion relation to enabling higher laser beam energy pulses. It should be noted that a dispersion relation demonstrates how a wave’s frequency is relevant to its wavelength. “For light in a conventional soliton laser, the function is approximately quadratic, and its second derivative describes how a laser beam pulse would spread in the absence of Kerr focusing.”
Researchers from Australia have demonstrated that higher-order dispersion provides real benefits. Therefore, a photonic crystal waveguide based on fiber laser technology has been developed where the effects of second- and third-order dispersion were suppressed due to the waveguide’s geometry. Herewith, the balancing process of fourth-order dispersion with Kerr focusing is connected to soliton formation.
The soliton fiber laser system acts by applying the same principle. Nonetheless, the researchers employed a programmable spatial light modulator instead of a specially designed waveguide to produce the required dispersion profile. Additionally, the researchers claim that the energy of the quartic laser beam pulses is regarded as proportional to τ−3, as predicted for fourth-order dispersion solitons.
If you are looking for a compact highly-efficient laser system, the Optromix company is ready to manufacture it. Optromix is a manufacturer of laser systems, optical fiber sensors, and optical monitoring systems. We develop and manufacture a broad variety of fiber lasers, high powered fiber lasers, and other types. We offer simple laser products, as well as sophisticated fiber laser systems with unique characteristics, based on the client’s inquiry.
Moreover, our fiber lasers are exceptionally light and compact and can be embedded in other devices or used in mobile applications. Our company offers single-mode Erbium lasers and Ytterbium lasers as well as single-frequency fiber lasers (similar to DFB lasers), wavelength-tunable fiber laser systems, and unique DUV fiber laser system.
We manufacture laser modules using our technologies based on the advanced research work and patents of the international R&D team. Laser processes are of high quality, high precision, easily-automated manufacturing solutions that provide repeatability and flexibility. If you have any questions or would like to buy a fiber laser system, please contact us at info@optromix.com
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