TY - GEN
T1 - Generation of 3.5 W of diffraction-limited green light from SHG of a single tapered diode laser in a cascade of nonlinear crystals
AU - Hansen, Anders Kragh
AU - Jensen, Ole Bjarlin
AU - Sumpf, Bernd
AU - Erbert, Götz
AU - Unterhuber, Angelika
AU - Drexler, Wolfgang
AU - Andersen, Peter E.
AU - Petersen, Paul Michael
N1 - Copyright 2014 Society of Photo Optical Instrumentation Engineers. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic electronic or print reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modification of the content of the paper are prohibited.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Many applications, e.g., within biomedicine stand to benefit greatly from the development of diode laser-based multi- Watt efficient compact green laser sources. The low power of existing diode lasers in the green area (about 100 mW) means that the most promising approach remains nonlinear frequency conversion of infrared tapered diode lasers. Here, we describe the generation of 3.5 W of diffraction-limited green light from SHG of a single tapered diode laser, itself yielding 10 W at 1063 nm. This SHG is performed in single pass through a cascade of two PPMgO:LN crystals with re-focusing and dispersion compensating optics between the two nonlinear crystals. In the low-power limit, such a cascade of two crystals has the theoretical potential for generation of four times as much power as a single crystal without adding significantly to the complexity of the system. The experimentally achieved power of 3.5 W corresponds to a power enhancement greater than 2 compared to SHG in each of the crystals individually and is the highest visible output power generated by frequency conversion of a single diode laser. Such laser sources provide the necessary pump power for biophotonics applications, such as optical coherence tomography or multimodal imaging devices, e.g., FTCARS-OCT, based on a strongly pumped ultrafast Ti:Sapphire laser.
AB - Many applications, e.g., within biomedicine stand to benefit greatly from the development of diode laser-based multi- Watt efficient compact green laser sources. The low power of existing diode lasers in the green area (about 100 mW) means that the most promising approach remains nonlinear frequency conversion of infrared tapered diode lasers. Here, we describe the generation of 3.5 W of diffraction-limited green light from SHG of a single tapered diode laser, itself yielding 10 W at 1063 nm. This SHG is performed in single pass through a cascade of two PPMgO:LN crystals with re-focusing and dispersion compensating optics between the two nonlinear crystals. In the low-power limit, such a cascade of two crystals has the theoretical potential for generation of four times as much power as a single crystal without adding significantly to the complexity of the system. The experimentally achieved power of 3.5 W corresponds to a power enhancement greater than 2 compared to SHG in each of the crystals individually and is the highest visible output power generated by frequency conversion of a single diode laser. Such laser sources provide the necessary pump power for biophotonics applications, such as optical coherence tomography or multimodal imaging devices, e.g., FTCARS-OCT, based on a strongly pumped ultrafast Ti:Sapphire laser.
U2 - 10.1117/12.2038965
DO - 10.1117/12.2038965
M3 - Article in proceedings
VL - 8964
T3 - Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
BT - Proceedings of SPIE
PB - SPIE - International Society for Optical Engineering
T2 - SPIE Photonics West LASE 2014
Y2 - 1 February 2014 through 6 February 2014
ER -