A high brightness diode laser package includes a plurality of flared laser oscillator waveguides arranged on a stepped surface to emit respective laser beams in one or more emission directions, a plurality of optical components situated to receive the laser beams from the plurality of flared laser oscillator waveguides and to provide the beams in a closely packed relationship, and an optical fiber optically coupled to the closely packed beams for coupling the laser beams out of the diode laser package.
A broad area semiconductor diode laser device includes a multimode high reflector facet, a partial reflector facet spaced from said multimode high reflector facet, and a flared current injection region extending and widening between the multimode high reflector facet and the partial reflector facet, wherein the ratio of a partial reflector facet width to a high reflector facet width is n:l, where n>l. The broad area semiconductor laser device is a flared laser oscillator waveguide delivering improved beam brightness and beam parameter product over conventional straight waveguide configurations.
Pulse power can be stabilized by applying spectrally narrow pulses to a laser diode during gain switching. An injection locking laser with a narrow emission bandwidth is tuned to a gain bandwidth of a laser diode to be gain switched. The injection locking emission is pulsed to provide locking pulses that are attenuated and then coupled to a laser diode. A gain switching pulse drive is applied to the laser diode in the presence of the attenuated locking pulses. The gain switched output is then stabilized with respect to pulse energy and pulse amplitude, and is suitable as a seed pulse for lasers to be used in materials processing.
H01S 3/10 - Controlling the intensity, frequency, phase, polarisation or direction of the emitted radiation, e.g. switching, gating, modulating or demodulating
4.
SPUN NON-CIRCULAR AND NON-ELLIPTICAL FIBERS AND APPARATUSES UTILIZING THE SAME
Optical fibers are provided for modal discrimination which include a central core and a cladding disposed about the central core. The central core has a non-circular and non- elliptical cross-section, and it is rotated about a central axis of the optical fiber along the length of the optical fiber at a selected pitch resulting in the capability of a fundamental mode beam output for large core sizes. An optical system includes a seed optical source configured to provide a seed beam and an optical amplifier configured to receive and amplify the seed beam. The optical amplifier also includes an active optical fiber having a large mode area non-circular and non-elliptical core rotated about a central axis of said active optical fiber to provide modal discrimination and fundamental mode output.
A processing system directs a laser beam to a composite including a substrate, a conductive layer, and a conductive border. The location of a focus of the laser beam can be controlled to bring the laser beam into focus on the surfaces of the conductive materials. The laser beam can be used to ablatively process the conductive border and non-ablatively process the conductive layer by translating a focus-adjust optical system so as to vary laser beam diameter.
A method of non-ablatively laser patterning a multi-layer structure, the multi-layer structure including a substrate, a first layer disposed on the substrate, a second layer disposed on the first layer, and a third layer disposed on the second layer, the method including generating at least one laser pulse having laser parameters selected for non- ablatively changing the conductivity a selected portion of the third layer such that the selected portion becomes non-conductive, and directing the pulse to the multi-layer structure, wherein the conductivity of the first layer is not substantially changed by the pulse.
A method for processing a transparent substrate includes generating at least one laser pulse having laser parameters selected for non-ablatively changing a conductive layer disposed on the transparent substrate into a non-conductive feature, and directing the pulse to said conductive layer. A protective film may be affixed to a surface of the transparent substrate and need not be removed during the processing of the substrate. After processing, processed areas can be visually indistinguishable from unprocessed areas.
H01C 17/22 - Apparatus or processes specially adapted for manufacturing resistors adapted for trimming
H01C 17/075 - Apparatus or processes specially adapted for manufacturing resistors adapted for coating resistive material on a base by thin-film techniques
H01C 17/26 - Apparatus or processes specially adapted for manufacturing resistors adapted for trimming by converting resistive material
8.
PULSED BIAS CURRENT FOR GAIN SWITCHED SEMICONDUCTOR LASERS FOR AMPLIFIED SPONTANEOUS EMISSION REDUCTION
Gain switched laser diode pulses are used as seed pulses for optical pulse generation. ASE is reduced by applying a prebias to the laser diodes at an amplitude less than that associated with a laser diode threshold. An electrical seed pulse having an amplitude larger than that associated with laser threshold is applied within about 10-100 ns of the prebias pulse. The resulting laser diode pulse can be amplified in a pumped, rare earth doped optical fiber, with reduced ASE.
Optical fibers that provide stable output beam sizes have core refractive indices that decrease non-monotonically from a core center to a core/cladding interface. A maximum refractive index of the core is situated at a radius of between about ½ and ¾ of the core radius so that a core center has a depressed refractive index. Such fibers are included in diode pumped solid state lasers to deliver pump laser power to a laser medium.
G02B 6/028 - Optical fibres with cladding with core or cladding having graded refractive index
G02B 6/10 - Light guidesStructural details of arrangements comprising light guides and other optical elements, e.g. couplings of the optical waveguide type
H01S 3/0941 - Processes or apparatus for excitation, e.g. pumping using optical pumping by coherent light of a semiconductor laser, e.g. of a laser diode
10.
ALL FIBER LOW DYNAMIC POINTING HIGH POWER LMA FIBER AMPLIFIER
High power fiber lasers include large or very large mode area active fibers. Mode preserving pump combiners are situated to counter-pump the active fiber using one or more pump sources. The mode preserving pump combiners preserve single mode propagation in a signal fiber, and such combiners can be identified based on optical spectra, beam quality, or temporal response. Active fibers can also be included in a pump combiner so that the active fiber is splice free from an input end that receives a seed pulse to an output end. Peak powers of over 100 kW can be obtained.
Laser pulses from pulsed fiber lasers are directed to an amorphous silicon layer to produce a polysilicon layer comprising a disordered arrangement of crystalline regions by repeated melting and recrystallization. Laser pulse durations of about 0.5 to 5 ns at wavelength range between about 500 nm and 1000 nm, at repetition rates of 10 kHz to 10 MHz can be used. Line beam intensity uniformity can be improved by spectrally broadening the laser pulses by Raman scattering in a multimode fiber or by applying varying phase delays to different portions of a beam formed with the laser pulses to reduce beam coherence.
A laser system capable of producing a stable and accurate high-power output beam from one or more input beams of corresponding laser sources comprises one or more optical elements configured to receive the input beams wherein at least one of said one or more optical elements is made of high purity fused silica.
H01S 3/10 - Controlling the intensity, frequency, phase, polarisation or direction of the emitted radiation, e.g. switching, gating, modulating or demodulating
Nonlinear optical systems include fiber amplifiers using tapered waveguides such as optical fibers that permit multimode propagation but produce amplification and oscillation in a fundamental mode. The tapered waveguides generally are provided with an active dopant that is pumped with an optical pump source such as one or more semiconductor lasers. The active waveguide taper is selected to taper from a single or few mode section to a multimode section, and a seed beam in a fundamental mode is provided to a section of the waveguide taper associated with a smaller optical mode. An amplified beam exits the waveguide taper at a section associated with a larger optical mode. The amplified beam is directed to nonlinear conversion optics such as one or more nonlinear crystals to produce high peak power and high beam quality converted light using second or third harmonic generation, or other nonlinear processes. Hybrid laser systems include fiber amplifiers using tapered waveguides and solid-state amplifiers. Typically, such systems represent a technically simple and low cost approach to high peak power pulsed laser systems. The tapered waveguides generally are provided with an active dopant such as a rare earth element that is pumped with one or more semiconductor lasers. The active waveguide taper is selected to taper from a single or few mode section to a multimode section. A seed beam in a fundamental mode is provided to a section of the waveguide taper associated with a smaller optical mode, and an amplified beam exits the waveguide taper at a section associated with a larger optical mode. The waveguide taper permits amplification to higher peak power values than comparable small mode area fibers. The fiber amplified beam is then directed to a solid state amplifier, such as a thin disk or rod-type laser amplifier.
Fiber amplifiers and oscillators include tapered waveguides such as optical fibers that permit multimode propagation but produce amplification and oscillation in a fundamental mode. The tapered waveguides generally are provided with an active dopant such as a rare earth element that is pumped with an optical pump source such as one or more semiconductor lasers. The active waveguide taper is selected to taper from a single or few mode section to a multimode section, and seed beam in a fundamental mode is provided to a section of the waveguide taper associated with a smaller optical mode, and an amplified beam exits the waveguide taper at a section associated with a larger optical mode.
A semiconductor laser that includes a single mode semiconductor laser coupled to a flared power amplifier is provided, the device including an internal or an external optical element that reinforces the curved wave front of the flared section of the device through phase-matching. By reinforcing the curved wave front via phase-matching, the device is less susceptible to thermal and gain-index coupled perturbations, even at high output powers, resulting in higher beam quality. Exemplary phase-matching optical elements include a grating integrated into the flared amplifier section; an intra-cavity, externally positioned binary optical element; and an intra-cavity, externally positioned cylindrically curved optical element.
An exposure apparatus for skin treatment includes a laser diode module controller that is configured to operate one or more laser diodes that are situated to provide optical radiation to an exposure aperture A two dimensional position sensor is secured to the exposure aperture and provides an exposure aperture translation signal that is coupled to the laser diode module controller Delivery of optical radiation to the exposure aperture by the laser diode module controller is based on an exposure aperture translation or velocity that is estimated based on the exposure aperture translation signal A clock or timer is coupled to the laser diode module controller to permit selection of laser diode pulse duty cycle or to provide safe or comfortable skin treatment The two dimensional position sensor can be based on optical sensing such as provided in an optical mouse, and can also provide proximity sensing for safe, efficient operation
A61B 18/18 - Surgical instruments, devices or methods for transferring non-mechanical forms of energy to or from the body by applying electromagnetic radiation, e.g. microwaves
An extremely versatile diode laser assembly is provided, the assembly comprised of a plurality of diode laser subassemblies (100) mounted to a stepped cooling block (700, 900, 1100, 1400, 1700 and 1800). The stepped cooling block allows the fabrication of a close packed and compact assembly in which individual diode laser subassembly output beams do not interfere with one another.
An optical source comprised of a stack of at least two laser diode subassemblies (600) is provided. Each laser diode subassembly (600) includes a submount (601) and a multi-mode, single emitter laser diode (603). Each of the at least two laser diode subassemblies is mounted to a mounting member (800). Means are included to vertically displace the output beams from the individual laser diode subassemblies to form an optical source output beam. In at least one embodiment, the mounting member (800) performs the function of the vertically displacing means.
A single piece optic (301) for coupling the output of a diode laser array (101) into an optical fiber array (109) is provided. The coupling optic (301) has a planar back surface (309) which, during use with a diode laser array, is positioned substantially parallel to the front face (205) of the laser array. The coupling optic (301) is fabricated from a single substrate and comprised of a plurality of optical elements (303). Depending upon the technique used to fabricate the optical elements, the individual optical elements may be trapezoidally-shaped or rectangularly-shaped. The front surface (305) of each optical element is tilted, thus preventing reflected laser radiation from resonating within the diode laser's emitters. Additionally each optical element (301) is shaped to reduce the divergence of the emitters in the fast axis, thus allowing the output from each emitter (103) to be effectively coupled into the corresponding optical fiber (109).
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