Virtual Journal of Laser

Dominik Pudo, Hyunil Byun, Jian Chen, Jason Sickler, Franz X. Kärtner, Erich P. Ippen
We assess the scaling potential of high repetition rate, passively mode-locked erbium-doped soliton lasers. Our analysis focuses on three recently demonstrated lasers using saturable Bragg reflectors (SBR) as the mode-locking element. We use the soliton Area theorem to establish the limitations to ... [Opt. Express 16, 19221-19231 (2008)]

Hiroyuki Yoshida, Yusuke Miura, Kazuki Tokuoka, Satoshi Suzuki, Akihiko Fujii, Masanori Ozaki
A controlled helix pitch modulation in the in-plane direction of a planarly aligned cholesteric liquid crystal cell is demonstrated by using photopolymerizable cholesteric liquid crystals. By fabricating artificial
domains with a closed volume via two-photon excitation laser-lithography, the ... [Opt. Express 16, 19034-19042 (2008)]

Jiepeng Zhang, Gessler Hernandez, Yifu Zhu
We report an experimental study of quantum interference between two-photon Raman transitions and demonstration of the phase control of light attenuation/transmission in cold Rb atoms. By varying the phase and frequency of a weak control laser, either constructive interference or destructive ... [Opt. Express 16, 19112-19117 (2008)]

F. Fusari, A. A. Lagatsky, B. Richards, A. Jha, W. Sibbett, C. T. Brown
We report spectroscopic and bulk laser performance characteristics for Tm^3+-doped tellurite glasses when used as gain media operating around 1.9 µm. Two glass hosts studied are TZN and TZNG and their performances have been compared. In each case, well-characterized cw laser performance was ... [Opt. Express 16, 19146-19151 (2008)]

Bruno E. Schmidt, Waldemar Unrau, Aldo Mirabal, Shaohui Li, Marcel Krenz, Ludger Wöste, Torsten Siebert
A practicable and economic method for the generation and full characterization of laser pulses ranging down to sub 7 fs duration with
energies spanning the full μJ domain is presented. The method utilizes a self-induced and self-guiding filamentation of titanium-sapphire based, amplified ... [Opt. Express 16, 18910-18921 (2008)]

Richard P. Mildren, James E. Butler, James R. Rabeau
Recent progress in diamond growth via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has enabled the manufacture of single crystal samples of sufficient size and quality for realizing Raman laser devices. Here we report an external cavity CVD-diamond Raman laser pumped by a Q-switched 532 nm laser. In the ... [Opt. Express 16, 18950-18955 (2008)]

U. Graf, M. Fieß, M. Schultze, R. Kienberger, F. Krausz, E. Goulielmakis
We demonstrate that nonlinear frequency upconversion of few-cycle near-infrared (NIR) laser pulses, by means of harmonic generation in noble gases, is a promising approach for extending cutting-edge, few-cycle ultrafast technology into the deep ultraviolet and beyond, without the need
for UV ... [Opt. Express 16, 18956-18963 (2008)]

P. A. Quinto-Su, V. Venugopalan, C.-D. Ohl
We demonstrate a method using a spatial light modulator (SLM) to generate arbitrary 2-D spatial configurations of laser induced cavitation bubbles. The SLM acts as a phase hologram that controls the light distribution in the focal plane of a microscope objective. We generate cavitation bubbles over ... [Opt. Express 16, 18964-18969 (2008)]

Xiaohong Han, Heping Zeng
We demonstrate a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with an additional Yb^3+ doped Potassium Yttrium Tungstate crystal (Yb:KYW) in the laser cavity, where not only the pump threshold to start mode-locking but also the stable regions to maintain mode-locking can be well-controlled by varying ... [Opt. Express 16, 18875-18880 (2008)]

Chien-Hung Yeh, Chi-Wai Chow, Chia-Husan Wang, Fu-Yuan Shih, Yu-Fu Wu, Sien Chi
In this paper, we propose and experimentally investigate a simple self-injection Fabry-Perot laser scheme on each optical network unit (ONU) for 10 Gbps TDM passive optical networks (PONs). Based on the proposed four wavelength-multiplexed 2.5 Gbps lasers, the 10 Gbps uplink traffic can be achieved ... [Opt. Express 16, 18857-18862 (2008)]