Laser Phys. Lett. 9, No. 5, 363367 (2012) / DOI 10.7452/lapl.

201110141

Laser Physics Letters

363

Abstract: We demonstrate a novel method for active and passive Q-switching of a bulk laser source. The mechanism is based on the deection of laser light through an electric channel of plasma that is temporarily created inside the resonator. The channel of plasma consists of an electric spark in air actuated with a spark gap. It acts as a spatio-temporal prism that momentarily enables the laser light to oscillate resonantly, thus triggering the creation of a laser pulse. Nanosecond pulses from a microchip laser source have been obtained with a limited timing jitter.

Image of the electric spark that forms in the resonator of a Qswitched microchip laser
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Q-switching of a microchip laser using a plasma prism

A. Labruy` re, 1, L. Jaffres, 1,2 and V. Couderc 1 e
1 2

Xlim Institute, 123, avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges cedex, France Horus laser S.A.S., 37, rue Henri Giffard, 87280 Limoges, France

Received: 27 October 2011, Revised: 24 January 2012, Accepted: 28 January 2012 Published online: 25 March 2012

Key words: Q-switching; plasma prism; microchip lasers

1. Introduction
Microchip lasers have a wide range of applications including laser ranging, spectroscopy [1], supercontinuum generation [2], and lidar. Those miniaturized lasers have been demonstrated at various wavelengths of operation both in the continuous wave (CW) [3,4] and pulsed regimes [5 9]. Q-switched microchip lasers are capable of generating short pulses because of a miniaturized resonator. The pulse duration is typically ranging from hundreds of picoseconds to few nanoseconds [1012]. Microchip lasers can be passively or actively Q-switched. In passively Q-switched microchip lasers, a semiconductor saturable-absorber mirror (SESAM) or a saturable-absorber crystal is used in general [13]. But the performances of passively Q-switched microchip lasers are inherently impaired by signicant tim

ing jitter. The latter can be decreased when modulating the pump power, but usually remains too large to suit a number of applications for which a high degree of synchronism is needed. Signicant reduction of timing jitter can be obtained by means of active Q-switching [12,14]. More advantageously, combining active and passive Q-switching, also referred to as double Q-switching, has been demonstrated not only to avoid the limitation imposed by timing jitter, but also to generate much shorter optical pulses when compared to active Q-switching only [1522]. Implementing the passive Q-switching in microchip lasers is rather simple, whereas it is more challenging in general for the active Q-switching. Indeed active Q-switching requires the use of an actuator, such as an electro-optic or acousto-optic modulator that has to be miniaturized to be integrated in the tiny resonator of a microchip laser

Corresponding author: e-mail: alexis.labruyere@unilim.fr

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A. Labruy` re, L. Jaffres, and V. Couderc: Q-switching of a microchip laser e

Besides, such a method based on spark gap can potentially operate for any laser line as an active Q-switch with fast time response. We rst present the generation of an electric spark by a spark gap and report on the observation of a light beam deected through the spark. Then, we describe the implementation of the spark gap in a microchip laser that is passively Q-switched by means of a saturable absorber crystal thus achieving the combined operations of active and passive Q-switching.

Amplitude, a.u.

2. Laser deection through an electric spark

0 0.5 1.0 1.5

Time, s

Figure 1 (online color at www.lphys.org) Power variation of the light emitted by an electric spark generated by a spark gap

[14,17]. Here, we demonstrate a much simpler method that uses a plasma prism as an actuator for ultracompact and active Q-switching of a microchip laser. The principle of Q-switching is based on the refractive properties of electric plasma in atmospheric air. A light beam can be deected by a certain angle when propagating through a spark of plasma which introduces a spatial gradient of charges [23]. Here, the deection of light is triggered by a spark gap in order to control the lasing of the resonator. In other words, starting from initially nonresonant conditions for the laser oscillation, an electric spark is used for switching the path of light in the resonator thus enabling the light to oscillate resonantly. A spark gap is typically made of two electrodes separated by a gap lled with a gas, such as air, which is initially insulating but can be ionized by means of a sufcient applied voltage. That leads to the creation of an electric spark forming a conductive channel of plasma which connects both electrodes. Spark gaps are used to switch large amounts of current in a very short time and are often employed in power plants as well as for the triggering of nuclear weapons, but they are most commonly found in spark plugs. Here, we use a spark gap as an optical switch capable of deecting the light rather than for switching some electric current. The demonstration of light being deected through channels of plasmas created by a spark gap is not new and has been used more than thirty years ago as a method to probe the density of ionized gases with great precision [2325]. But the use of light deection through a spark has never been proposed for Q-switching a bulk laser source to our knowledge because of unstable properties in time. The main advantage of the method is the ease with which it can be integrated and miniaturized providing an ultracompact switching device for microchip lasers.

In the rst experiment, we use a spark gap made of two copper pin electrodes separated by a gap of 7 mm and connected to a high voltage generator equipped with a current limiter. In this conguration, an electric discharge occurs spontaneously whenever the applied voltage exceeds 6 kV as the air becomes conductive and the current is suddenly avalanching through the gap. A conductive channel of plasma is thus created connecting both electrodes and the voltage rapidly drops. But as the current eventually exceeds a certain value, it is switched off by the current limiter and subsequently the channel of plasma progressively vanishes. Therefore, the applied voltage starts increasing again until reaching a sufcient level to trigger the next current discharge. That process occurs repeatedly at a rate of 1.5 Hz. Each time a channel of plasma is created between the two electrodes, an intense white light pulse is emitted at the same pulse rate of 1.5 Hz as the rate of electric discharges. By measuring the duration of those light pulses we can thus determine the lifetime of the channel of plasma. Fig. 1 shows the temporal prole of a light pulse emitted by the plasma measured with a fast photodiode connected to an oscilloscope. It is worth noticing that the light pulses have a similar prole from one pulse to another. The pulse prole features a peak response with a short rise time of 11 ns that was directly measured from Fig. 1, during which the electric current is avanlanching in the gap. Subsequently, the emitted power decreases almost exponentially as the ionized gas is progressively returning to a neutralized state. At half maximum of the peak, the duration of light emission is 50 ns also measured from Fig. 1 that corresponds more or less to the lifetime of the plasma. Note that the weak oscillations in the trail of the signal are artifacts caused by some electromagnetic perturbation induced by rapid variations of the intense current and multiple reections in the wire that connect the photodetector to the oscilloscope. The lifetime of the plasma can be tuned by adjusting the limiting current of the high voltage generator. To observe the deection of a light beam by a spark gap, we used the beam originating from a 1064-nm Nd:Y3 Al5 O12 (Nd:YAG) laser. The beam is passed inbetween the two electrodes in the drilled hole of the mounting cylinder. The laser beam is then observed with

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Laser Physics Letters

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(a)

Mirror 1: HR@1064 nm AR@808 nm Laser diode 808 nm Plasma

Mirror 2: HR@1064 nm AR@808 nm

Nd:YAG
Cr:YAG

Output

Figure 3 (online color at www.lphys.org) Schematic of the microchip laser. The path of light within the cavity is schematically represented by a dotted line when the applied voltage is zero and by a solid line when the plasma prism is actuated. The dashed circle indicates the position where the plasma prism is created
5 mm

(b)

lishes during the current owing [24]. That typically corresponds to the rise time measured precedently. Another gradient of refractive index eventually arises after several tens of microseconds, because of the change in the neutral gas density caused by heat of the shock [25]. The latter is considered to be negligeable here. Special attention must be paid to the spatial shape of the incident infrared beam, which is not distorted transversally by the plasma discharge thus preserving the initial Gaussian energy prole. The charge gradient obtained during a short time close to the electrodes acts as a spatio-temporal prism modifying the laser beam path only. No signicant defocusing effect is observed.
5 mm

3. Actively and passively Q-switched microchip laser

Figure 2 (online color at www.lphys.org) Observation of laser beam angular deection by a spark gap. (a) no current is passing through the gap and (b) current is passing

an infrared real-time camera placed at 72 cm from the spark gap. When a spark is created in the gap, we observed that the laser beam is deected in the plane perpendicular to the axis of the electric discharge. To illustrate this experiment we have represented in Fig. 2a and Fig. 2b, the position of the laser beam on the screen before and during the ow of electric current in the gap, respectively. When the current stops passing between electrodes as the spark vanishes, the laser spot returns to its initial position, indicated by the cross. Here, the angular deection measured on the screen is 3.2 mm that corresponds to an angle of 4.5 mrad. In fact, the ray of the laser passing through the channel of plasma that forms the electric spark is deected by gradients of refractive index perpendicularly to the axes of the electric discharge. The origin of these gradients is potentially dual. One gradient of refractive index is due to the change in the density of electrons and estab-

We have experimented the usage of a spark gap to Qswitch a microchip laser. The microchip laser which is schematically represented in Fig. 3 is basically made of a 225-mm3 Nd:YAG crystal with antireection coating at 808 nm and Rmax at 1064 nm on one face whereas the second one is cut at Brewster angle to minimize intracavity losses for a single linear polarization state. A 223-mm3 Cr4+ :YAG crystal cut at the Brewster angle on one face and coated for reection (80%) at 1064 nm acts both as a saturable absorber and output end mirror. The resonator is pumped through the end of the Nd:YAG crystal by a multimode laser diode emitting up to ten watts at 808 nm. The crystals are not bonded but separated by a sufcient distance that a spark can form in between. To initiate the spark, the ends of electrodes separated by a gap of 2 mm are placed transversally so that the light which crosses the space between crystals passes as well through the gap. Hence the two mirrors are separated by a distance of 9 mm. Note that the distance between crystals can be adjusted thus providing a mean to tune the duration of the laser pulses, though we will not discuss this issue in this letter. We proceeded to the experiment as follow: rst, we

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A. Labruy` re, L. Jaffres, and V. Couderc: Q-switching of a microchip laser e

(a)

(a)

Amplitude, a.u.
0

Time, s
(b)

(b)

Figure 4 (online color at www.lphys.org) Observation of an electric spark created in the microchip laser resonator. (a) no current is passing through the gap and (b) current is passing

Amplitude, a.u.

-2

Time, ns

Figure 5 (online color at www.lphys.org) Oscilloscope measurements. (a) upper trace: power emitted by the spark; lower trace: output power of the laser and (b) detail of the pulse prole

have set the applied voltage to zero so that no electric discharge occurs. The relative orientation of the two mirrors is rendered parallel and thus the laser oscillates. In this situation, the laser is passively Q-switched and delivers nanosecond pulses. Subsequently, the orientation of mirror 2 is slightly modied so as to form an angle in the order of few mrad with the mirror 1 that is sufcient to avoid laser oscillations, and hence no laser radiation is measured at the output. Next, the applied voltage is increased up to the value of 5 kV sufcient to trigger an electric discharge that deects light within the resonator thus providing resonant oscillations and hence the emergence of a laser pulse at the output. This situation is schematically represented in Fig. 3, where the dotted and the solid lines indicate the path of light when the applied voltage is zero and when the plasma prism is actuated, respectively. The dashed circle shows the position where the plasma prism is created.

To illustrate the experiment, we have represented in Fig. 4a and Fig. 4b, two subsequent photographs taken before and during the ow of the current in the spark gap respectively, showing the emergence of an electric spark in the laser resonator. In Fig. 4a the voltage applied to the electrodes is zero and the laser is holding off since the relative orientation of the two mirrors is slightly non parallel so that the oscillations are not resonant and no output pulse is emitted. In Fig. 4b the voltage is increased up to 5 kV and the creation of a spatio-temporal prism due to the passage of charges between electrodes. The obtained spatial deection allows intracavity laser oscillation with the generation of a single pulse at the output of the microchip laser. Using an oscilloscope, we have measured simultaneously intensities of both the light emitted by the

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Laser Physics Letters

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electric spark and the laser output. The upper oscillogram in Fig. 5a is associated with the radiation of incoherent light from the spark while the lower oscillogram represents the output of the laser. Note that we used the radiation of light from the spark to trigger the record of the laser output. The measurement is then performed ten times for different shots and the resulting oscillograms are superimposed for visualizing the timing jitter and the average pulse creation delay. Hence, the average pulse creation delay is about 3.5 s and the timing jitter is approximatively 300 ns. One of those shots is used to represent the laser pulse prole in more detail in Fig. 5b. The pulse duration is about 1.5 ns full width at half maximum for the energy of 10.5 J.

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4. Conclusion
We have demonstrated the feasibility of active and passive Q-switching of microchip laser by using a spatio-temporal prism created from an intracavity electrical plasma discharge. Nanosecond pulses of more than 10 J have been obtained at 1064 nm. We have identied the deection of light through a spark as the driving mechanism responsible for the active Q-switching. No spatial spreading of the intracavity beam is observed during the switching process which allows to extract a large amount of the absorbed pump energy in the Nd:YAG crystal. The main advantage of the method is the ease, with which it can be implemented as well as a reduction of the cost of microchip lasers since the efforts required for miniaturizing the actuator are considerably reduced. Another green advantage which is however not discussed in this letter is the possibility of decreasing the amount of power that is necessary for driving the active Q-switching. Indeed, the breakdown voltage could be strongly decreased if the gap separating the electrodes is made sufciently small, only limited by the size of the optical beam, which passes in between.

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