5045results about "Optical resonator shape and construction" patented technology

Arrays of vertical extended cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) are disclosed. The functionality of two or more conventional optical components are combined into an optical unit to reduce the number of components that must be aligned during packaging.

A modular light emitting diode (LED) mounting configuration is provided including a light source module having a plurality of pre-packaged LEDs arranged in a serial array. The module is connected to a heat dissipating plate configured to mount to an electrical junction box. Thus, heat from the LEDs is conducted to the heat dissipating plate and to the junction box. A sensor is configured to detect environmental parameters and a driver is configured to illuminate the LEDs in response to the environmental parameters, thereby selectively configuring the LEDs to function in a wide variety of useful applications.

An external cavity laser has a mirror-based resonant tunable filter, such as a Fabry Perot tunable filter or Gires-Tournois interferometer tuning element, with the tunable filter being preferably used as a laser cavity mirror. A mirror-based resonant tunable filter is selected in which the spectral response in reflection has an angular dependence. A tilt scheme is used whereby by selecting an appropriate angle between the filter's nominal optical axis and the cavity optical axis, a narrowband peak spectral reflection is provided to the laser cavity. This tunable narrowband spectral reflection from the filter is used to lock and tune the laser output wavelength.

Apparatus and methods for altering one or more spectral, spatial, or temporal characteristics of a light-emitting device are disclosed. Generally, such apparatus may include a volume Bragg grating (VBG) element that receives input light generated by a light-emitting device, conditions one or more characteristics of the input light, and causes the light-emitting device to generate light having the one or more characteristics of the conditioned light.

The present invention provides a continuously-tunable external cavity laser (ECL) with a compact form factor and precise tuning. A novel interference filter which may be used to tune the ECL provides an absence of mode-hopping and reduced feedback from both spurious interference and reflections in the external cavity. A novel tuning mechanism is disclosed which provides for mechanical FM tuning of a wide range ECL tuning elements such as: an interference filter, a diffraction element, and a retroreflector. A novel feedback circuit is disclosed which provides closed loop feedback for selecting output wavelength in a laser.

A device and method for fabricating a high power laser diode device with an output emission with a nearly circular mode profile for efficient coupling into an optical fiber. A vertical taper waveguide and a window tolerance region are formed in a base structure of the device employing successive etching steps. Further regowth completes the device structure. The resultant laser device has a vertical and lateral tapered waveguide that adiabatically transforms the highly elliptical mode profile in an active gain section of the device into a substantially circular mode profile in a passive waveguide section of the device.

An external cavity laser has a wavelength of the laser output that is tuned by a rotary tuning element mounted on the axle of a motor. The rotary tuning element includes a variable thickness interference film for wavelength selection, and a variable thickness compensation prism to adjust the cavity length appropriately for the selected wavelength, to stable wavelengths and mode-hop-free tuning ranges as the tuning element is rotated.

A vertical extended cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL) includes intra-cavity frequency doubling. Conventional frequency control elements, such as etalons, are replaced with thin film interference filters or volume Bragg gratings.

Methods and systems for laser-based processing of materials are disclosed wherein a scalable laser architecture, based on planar waveguide technology, provides for pulsed laser micromachining applications while supporting higher average power applications like laser welding and cutting. Various embodiments relate to improvements in planar waveguide technology which provide for stable operation at high powers with a reduction in spurious outputs and thermal effects. At least one embodiment provides for micromachining with pulsewidths in the range of femtoseconds to nanoseconds. In another embodiment, 100W or greater average output power operation is provided for with a diode-pumped, planar waveguide architecture.

A modular, compact and widely tunable laser system for the efficient generation of high peak and high average power ultrashort pulses. Modularity is ensured by the implementation of interchangeable amplifier components. System compactness is ensured by employing efficient fiber amplifiers, directly or indirectly pumped by diode lasers. Peak power handling capability of the fiber amplifiers is expanded by using optimized pulse shapes, as well as dispersively broadened pulses. Dispersive broadening is introduced by dispersive pulse stretching in the presence of self-phase modulation and gain, resulting in the formation of high-power parabolic pulses. In addition, dispersive broadening is also introduced by simple fiber delay lines or chirped fiber gratings, resulting in a further increase of the energy handling ability of the fiber amplifiers. The phase of the pulses in the dispersive delay line is controlled to quartic order by the use of fibers with varying amounts of waveguide dispersion or by controlling the chirp of the fiber gratings. After amplification, the dispersively stretched pulses can be re-compressed to nearly their bandwidth limit by the implementation of another set of dispersive delay lines. To ensure a wide tunability of the whole system, Raman-shifting of the compact sources of ultrashort pulses in conjunction with frequency-conversion in nonlinear optical crystals can be implemented, or an Anti-Stokes fiber in conjunction with fiber amplifiers and Raman-shifters are used. A particularly compact implementation of the whole system uses fiber oscillators in conjunction with fiber amplifiers. Additionally, long, distributed, positive dispersion optical amplifiers are used to improve transmission characteristics of an optical communication system. Finally, an optical communication system utilizes a Raman amplifier fiber pumped by a train of Raman-shifted, wavelength-tunable pump pulses, to thereby amplify an optical signal which counterpropogates within the Raman amplifier fiber with respect to the pump pulses.