Pulsed light sources
First Claim
1. A source of pulses of coherent radiation at a wavelength of approximately 1 μ
- m, comprising;
a pump source for producing pump light;
a laser cavity comprising an Yb3+-doped gain medium arranged to receive the pump light, the laser cavity being modelocked to generate laser pulses at a defined repetition rate;
a pulse detector arranged to generate a pulse selection signal indicative of the repetition rate;
a pulse selector arranged to reduce the repetition rate of the laser pulses responsive to the pulse selection signal from the pulse detector by passing only selected ones of the laser pulses; and
at least one optical amplifier for amplifying the laser pulses of reduced repetition rate.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A source of pulses of coherent radiation at a wavelength of approximately 1 μm, comprises a pump source for producing pump light; a laser cavity comprising an Yb3+-doped gain medium arranged to receive the pump light, the laser cavity being modelocked to generate laser pulses at a defined repetition rate; a pulse detector arranged to generate a pulse selection signal indicative of the repetition rate; a pulse selector arranged to reduce the repetition rate of the laser pulses responsive to the pulse selection signal from the pulse detector by passing only selected ones of the laser pulses; and at least one optical amplifier for amplifying the laser pulses of reduced repetition rate. The at least one optical amplifier can be configured for chirped or parabolic pulse amplification.
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Citations
51 Claims
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1. A source of pulses of coherent radiation at a wavelength of approximately 1 μ
- m, comprising;
a pump source for producing pump light;
a laser cavity comprising an Yb3+-doped gain medium arranged to receive the pump light, the laser cavity being modelocked to generate laser pulses at a defined repetition rate;
a pulse detector arranged to generate a pulse selection signal indicative of the repetition rate;
a pulse selector arranged to reduce the repetition rate of the laser pulses responsive to the pulse selection signal from the pulse detector by passing only selected ones of the laser pulses; and
at least one optical amplifier for amplifying the laser pulses of reduced repetition rate. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
- m, comprising;
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35. A source of pulses of coherent radiation at a wavelength of approximately 1 μ
- m, comprising;
a laser oscillator system operable to generate laser pulses at a defined repetition rate; and
a cascade of sequentially arranged optical amplifiers arranged to receive and amplify the laser pulses, each optical amplifier comprising an amplifier pump source for producing amplifier pump light and an amplification medium comprising Yb3+-doped optical fiber having a cladding and a core and arranged to receive the amplifier pump light and the laser pulses, the cascade comprising a first pre-amplifier followed by a second pre-amplifier followed by a power amplifier, the amplification media of the pre-amplifiers comprising single mode optical fibers arranged to receive amplifier pump light into the core of the optical fibers, each pre-amplifier further comprising a Yb3+-doped indirectly pumped optical fiber coupled to the optical fiber of its amplification medium to absorb amplified spontaneous emission arising from the amplification medium, and arranged so that it does not receive amplifier pump light, and the amplification media of the power amplifier comprising a large mode area optical fiber having an inner cladding and arranged to receive amplifier pump light into the inner cladding. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49)
- m, comprising;
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50. A method of generating pulses of coherent radiation at a wavelength of approximately 1 μ
- m, comprising;
generating pulses having a defined repetition rate from a modelocked laser oscillator having an Yb3+-doped gain medium;
generating a pulse selection signal indicative of the pulse repetition rate;
activating a pulse selector with the pulse selection signal;
reducing the repetition rate of the pulses by passing the pulses through the activated pulse selector; and
amplifying the pulses by passing them through at least one optical amplifier. - View Dependent Claims (51)
- m, comprising;
Specification