Large brightness enhancement for quasi-continuous beams by diamond Raman laser conversion

Power Scaling of CW Crystalline OPOs and Raman Lasers

Optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) and Raman lasers are two nonlinear-based laser technologies that extend the spectral range of conventional inversion lasers. Power and brightness scaling of lasers are significant for many applications in industry, medicine, and defense. Considerable advances have been made to enhance the power and brightness of inversion lasers. However, research around the power scaling of nonlinear lasers is lacking. This paper reviews the development and progress of output power of continuous-wave (CW) crystalline OPOs and Raman lasers. We further evaluate the power scalability of these two laser technologies by analyzing the cavity architectures and gain materials used in these lasers. This paper also discusses why diamond Raman lasers (DRLs) show tremendous potential as a single laser source for generating exceedingly high output powers and high brightness.

Comprehensive Thermal Analysis of Diamond in a High-Power Raman Cavity Based on FVM-FEM Coupled Method

Despite their extremely high thermal conductivity and low thermal expansion coefficients, thermal effects in diamond are still observed in high-power diamond Raman lasers, which proposes a challenge to their power scaling. Here, the dynamics of temperature gradient and stress distribution in the diamond are numerically simulated under different pump conditions. With a pump radius of 100 μm and an absorption power of up to 200 W (corresponding to the output power in kilowatt level), the establishment period of thermal steady-state in a millimeter diamond is only 50 μs, with the overall thermal-induced deformation of the diamond being less than 2.5 μm. The relationship between the deformation of diamond and the stability of the Raman cavity is also studied. These results provide a method to better optimize the diamond Raman laser performance at output powers up to kilowatt-level.

Investigation of a highly compact intracavity actively Q-switched cascade diamond Raman laser

A laser diode (LD) pumped intracavity chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond cascade Raman laser is reported here. By rotating a Brewster plate (BP) in the laser resonator, the Raman laser with tunable output coupling rate is achieved. The highly compact diamond laser emitted 1240 nm and 1485 nm Stokes light simultaneously via optimization of the pumping direction. The slope efficiency of the intracavity diamond laser is improved by optimizing the output coupling rate and adjusting the repetition rate of the 1064 nm fundamental laser. Ultimately, the maximum slope efficiency of the first Stokes light (1240 nm) is 16.8%, and the corresponding output power is about 0.6 W. The maximum peak power is 2.5 kW when the power of 808 nm LD is 34.7 W.

Diamond Raman oscillator operating at 1178 nm

In this contribution, we report high-power Raman frequency downconversion based on an Yb-doped fiber amplifier and a linear external diamond Raman cavity. A maximum output power of 136 W with nearly diffraction-limited beam quality was achieved by pumping in quasi-continuous-wave mode with 10% duty cycle and 10 ms on-time duration. For continuous-wave operation, we achieved record average power of 46 W centered at 1178 nm. The emergence of stimulated Brillouin scattering in diamond is further investigated. This technology shows the potential to extend the spectral range of fiber lasers to reach uncommon wavelengths at high power levels.

Analysis of a thermal lens in a diamond Raman laser operating at 1.1 kW output power

We report experimental observations of thermal lens effects in a diamond Raman laser operating up to 1.1 kW output power in a quasi- steady-state regime. Measured changes in the output beam parameters as a function of output power, including beam quality factor and beam divergence after a fixed focusing lens, are compared to modelling enabling us to track the development of a thermal lens up to 16 diopters at maximum output power. Analysis shows that good agreement between model and experiment is obtained by considering the power deposition profile and the spatial overlap with the laser mode. The results clarify previous work that raised questions about thermal lens effects in the diamond gain medium and provides increased confidence in thermal models for determining the power limits for the current design.

Diamond sodium guide star laser

Laser guide stars based on the mesospheric sodium layer are becoming increasingly important for applications that require correction of atmospheric scintillation effects. Despite several laser approaches being investigated to date, there remains great interest in developing lasers with the necessary power and spectral characteristics needed for brighter single or multiple guide stars. Here we propose and demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, approach based on a diamond Raman laser with intracavity Type I second-harmonic generation pumped using a 1018.4 nm fiber laser. A first demonstration with output power of 22 W at 589 nm was obtained at 18.6% efficiency from the laser diode. The laser operates in a single longitudinal mode (SLM) with a measured linewidth of less than 8.5 MHz. The SLM operation is a result of the strong mode competition arising from the combination of a spatial-hole-burning-free gain mechanism in the diamond and the role of sum frequency mixing in the harmonic crystal. Continuous tuning through the Na D line resonance is achieved by cavity length control, and broader tuning is obtained via the tuning of the pump wavelength. We show that the concept is well suited to achieve much higher power and for temporal formats of interest for advanced concepts such as time-gating and Larmor frequency enhancement.

Evolution of the Raman beam quality in a folded-coupled-cavity Nd:YVO4/YVO4 Raman laser

An end-pumped actively $Q$Q-switched ${\rm Nd}\!:\!{{\rm YVO}_4}/{{\rm YVO}_4}$Nd:YVO₄/YVO₄ Raman laser with a folded coupled cavity is demonstrated to study the evolution of Raman beam quality. The theoretical mechanism of the beam cleanup effect of stimulated Raman scattering is analyzed. The beam quality ($M^2$M²) of the Raman beam and the fundamental beams before and after the Raman conversion are measured experimentally. The results show that with the incident pump power increasing, the ${M^2}$M² of the fundamental beam increases from 1.85 to 3.08, while the ${M^2}$M² of the Raman beam increases from 1.21 to 1.69. The beam quality of the Raman laser and its degradation are better than that of the fundamental laser.

Dual-wavelength intracavity Raman laser driven by a coaxially pumped dual-crystal fundamental laser

An actively Q-switched dual-wavelength intracavity Raman laser based on a coaxially pumped dual-crystal (Nd:YAG and b-cut Nd:YAP) fundamental configuration was theoretically and experimentally investigated. Stable dual-wavelength Stokes output at 1176 nm and 1195 nm was subsequently obtained by the Raman conversion from an a-cut YVO₄ crystal. A total average power of 1.8 W was produced at 10 kHz pulse repetition frequency under an incident diode pump power of 15.8 W, in which the power levels at the two Stokes wavelengths were nearly equivalent. The power proportion and the interval between the dual-wavelength Stokes pulses could be manipulated actively by changing the pump focal position or pump wavelength.

1.2 kW quasi-steady-state diamond Raman laser pumped by an M2 = 15 beam

An external cavity diamond Raman laser with 1.2 kW output power is demonstrated for durations 7 times longer than the thermal lens time constant. An 83% slope efficiency and a 53% optical-to-optical efficiency were obtained for conversion from a 1.06 μm pump to the 1.24 μm first Stokes. The pump had an M² of 15, demonstrating that efficiency is maintained at the highest levels even when using exceptionally poor quality pumps. We show that a measured decrease in the output beam quality factor from M²=2.95 to M²=1.25 as power increased is evidence for thermal lens development in the diamond. The results foreshadow development of continuous-wave kilowatt-class lasers or amplifiers based on single diamond elements and pumped efficiently by lasers having poor spatial coherence such as line-narrowed diode laser arrays.

302 W quasi-continuous cascaded diamond Raman laser at 1.5 microns with large brightness enhancement

We report a second Stokes diamond Raman laser at 1.49 μm capable of high power and large-scale-factor brightness enhancement. Using a quasi-continuous 1.06 μm pump of power 823 W (0.85% duty cycle) and M² up to 6.4, a maximum output power of 302 W was obtained with an M² = 1.1 providing an overall brightness enhancement factor of 6.0. The pulse length of ~210 μs was selected to ensure operation was representative of steady-state continuous lasing conditions in the diamond bulk. Accompanying theoretical calculations indicate that even more strongly aberrated pumps may be used to efficiently generate high beam quality output and with higher brightness enhancement factors. This diamond-based beam conversion technique addresses needs for high brightness and efficient eye-safe sources using low-brightness 1 μm pumps and reveals a widely-applicable route to practical high brightness lasers of increased wavelength range.