'Solid State Laser Pumping For Non Linear Frequency Conversion'

ECE1007 OPTO ELECTRONICS DA 2

TEAM MEMBERS
• Ananya Kulshrestha (17BEC0022)

• Sankari B(17BEC0118)

• Akhil reddy(17BEC0648)

ABSTRACT
• INTRODUCTION:

• A solid-state laser is a laser that uses a gain medium that is a solid, rather than a liquid such
as in dye lasers or a gas as in gas lasers. Semiconductor-based lasers are also in the solid
state, but are generally considered as a separate class from solid-state lasers.

• The availability of laser radiation in new wavelengths is a research topic of permanent

interest.

• Nonlinear optical frequency conversion of a primary laser radiation is one of the widely
exploited resources for this purpose.

• Since the birth of nonlinear optics with the first demonstration of second harmonic
generation of laser radiation, new ways and new materials are seek. Due to the inherent low
conversion efficiency of nonlinear optical mixing

• related to the decreasing efficiency of higher order terms in the nonlinear Taylor expansion
of the optical polarization with the electric field, second-order nonlinear optics referred to
as three-wave mixing processes is in general preferred.

• It is well stated that nonlinear optical frequency conversion efficiency improves with
increasing power density –and thus amplitude- of the primary optical field, material
nonlinear response and interaction length as well as with providing a suitable phase relation
among the interacting electromagnetic waves (Armstrong et al., 1962).

• It was soon realized that conversion of pulsed lasers that emit high peak power pulses could
result efficient in a simple manner, by just single-passing the interacting waves through a
suitable nonlinear medium, generally an anisotropic crystal.

• CONTENT:

• Solid-state lasers are being developed as optional weapons for the F-35 Lightning II, and are
reaching near-operational status, as well as the introduction of Northrop Grumman's
FIRESTRIKE laser weapon system. In April 2011 the United States Navytested a high energy
solid state laser. The exact range is classified, but they said it fired "miles not yards".
Uranium-doped calcium fluoride was the second type of solid state laser invented, in the
1960s. Peter Sorokin and Mirek Stevenson at IBM's laboratories in Yorktown Heights (US)
achieved lasing at 2.5 µm shortly after Maiman's ruby laser. Solid state lasing media are
typically optically pumped, using either a flashlamp or arc lamp, or by laser diodes. Diode-
pumped solid-state lasers tend to be much more efficient and have become much more
common as the cost of high-power semiconductor lasers has decreased.
• The high power all-solid-state red, green and blue lasers have been developed by means of
Q-switched diode side-pumped Nd:YAG laser modules and the intracavity nonlinear
frequency conversion in the LBO nonlinear crystals. The red laser generates based on the
frequency doubled 1.3 μm Nd:YAG transition, and corresponding maximum output power is
64 W. The green output power of 218 W from frequency doubled 1064 nm Nd:YAG
transition have been obtained. The blue laser based on the frequency tripled 1.3 μm Nd:YAG
transition delivers the output power of 7.6 W. To best of our knowledge, this is the
maximum blue output power for the intracavity frequency tripled 1319 nm Nd:YAG laser.

• CONCLUSION:

• the main advantages of diode pumping are: A high electrical-to-optical efficiency of the
pump source (of the order of 50%) leads to a high overall power efficiency(wall-plug
efficiency) of the laser. Diode-pumped low-power lasers can be pumped with diffraction-
limited laser diodes.

KEY WORDS
• High power laser

• Solid state laser

• Red , green, blue lasers

• Non linear frequency conversions

• Laser pumping

• LBO crystal

INTRODUCTION
• The high power compact all-solid-state red laser can be used as a source for laser
therapy and pumping source for frequency conversion. The green lasers with high
power and high beam quality have in demand for precise material processing, bi-
medicine and scientific application as pumping source for parametric oscillations or
for fourth harmonic generation of solid-state lasers. For all-solid-state blue laser
sources, there exist numerous applications such as in high-density optical data
storage, biological and medical diagnostics, underwater communication or
underwater imaging. Also, the compact high power all-state-solid red-green-blue
(RGB) laser system is suitable for large image laser projection systems. Here we
report the high power quasi-continuous wave all-solid-state red, green and blue
lasers. The red and green lights are generated by means of intracavity frequency
doubled diode side-pumped 1064 nm and 1.3 μm Nd:YAG lasers with a LBO
nonlinear crystal, respectively. The blue laser is generated based on the diode side-
pumped intracavity frequency tripled 1.3 μm Nd:YAG laser with two LBO nonlinear
crystals. Here, one LBO is for the second harmonic generation and other LBO crystal
is for third harmonic generation. The maximum output power of the red laser is 64
W at 808 nm LD pump power of 650 W. The green laser reaches up to the output
power of 218 W at pump power of 930 W and the blue laser with the output power
of 7.6 W have been obtained at the pump power of 480 W.
 Implementation with side headings
• LASER :
• A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based
on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated
as an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation". The first
laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories,
based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.
• A laser differs from other sources of light in that it emits light coherently. Spatial
coherence allows a laser to be focused to a tight spot, enabling applications such
as laser cutting and lithography. Spatial coherence also allows a laser beam to stay
narrow over great distances (collimation), enabling applications such as laser
pointers and lidar. Lasers can also have high temporal coherence, which allows them
to emit light with a very narrow spectrum, i.e., they can emit a single color of light.
Alternatively, temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light with a
broad spectrum but durations as short as a femtosecond ("ultrashort pulses").
• Lasers are used in optical disk drives, laser printers, barcode scanners, DNA
sequencing instruments, fiber-optic and free-space optical communication, laser
surgery and skin treatments, cutting and welding materials, military and law
enforcement devices for marking targets and measuring range and speed, and
in laser lighting displays for entertainment. They have been used for
car headlamps on luxury cars, by using a blue laser and a phosphor to produce highly
directional white light
• Solid state laser :
• A solid-state laser is a laser that uses a gain medium that is a solid, rather than a
liquid such as in dye lasers or a gas as in gas lasers. Semiconductor-based lasers are
also in the solid state, but are generally considered as a separate class from solid-
state lasers.
• Generally, the active medium of a solid-state laser consists of a glass
or crystalline "host" material, to which is added a "dopant" such
as neodymium, chromium, erbium, thulium or ytterbium . Many of the common
dopants are rare-earth elements, because the excited states of such ions are not
strongly coupled with the thermal vibrations of their crystal lattices (phonons), and
their operational thresholds can be reached at relatively low intensities of laser
pumping.
• There are many hundreds of solid-state media in which laser action has been
achieved, but relatively few types are in widespread use. Of these, probably the
most common is neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd : YAG).
Neodymium-doped glass (Nd : glass) and ytterbium-doped glasses or ceramics are
 used at very high power levels (terawatts) and high energies (megajoules), for
multiple-beam inertial confinement fusion.
• The first material used for lasers was synthetic ruby crystals. Ruby lasers are still
used for a few applications, but they are not common because of their low power
efficiencies. At room temperature, ruby lasers emit only short pulses of light, but
at cryogenic temperatures they can be made to emit a continuous train of pulses.
• Some solid-state lasers can also be tunable using several intracavity techniques,
which employ etalons, prisms, and gratings, or a combination of these. Titanium-
doped sapphire is widely used for its broad tuning range, 660 to
1080 nanometers. Alexandrite lasers are tunable from 700 to 820 nm and yield
higher-energy pulses than titanium-sapphire lasers because of the gain medium's
longer energy storage time and higher damage threshold.
Nonlinear Frequency Conversion :
• Definition: the conversion of input light to light of other frequencies, using optical
nonlinearities
• Not all wavelength regions of interest are directly accessible with lasers. Therefore, it
is common e.g. to generate visible light by nonlinear conversion of infrared light
from one or several lasers.
• Examples of nonlinear conversion processes are:
• frequency doubling and sum and difference frequency generation in crystals with
a nonlinearity
• parametric oscillation and amplification (also in nonlinear crystal materials)
• optical rectification for generating terahertz pulses from optical picosecond or
femtosecond pulses
• Raman conversion in bulk crystals or in optical fibers, exploiting a nonlinearity
• supercontinuum generation, e.g. in photonic crystal fibers, where a range of
different optical nonlinearities simultaneously contributes to the generation of new
frequency components
• high harmonic generation in gases, occurring at extremely high optical intensities of
the order of 1014 W/cm2 or higher
• Many but not all of these processes can be efficient only with phase matching and
with polarized light. Laser radiation is usually polarized, but some devices (e.g.
some high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers) do not emit with a stable linear
polarization state and are therefore not very suitable for nonlinear frequency
conversion.
 Efficient Conversion at High Optical Intensities:
• As nonlinear frequency conversion can be efficient only at sufficiently high optical
intensities, the intensities often have to be increased with one or several of the
following methods:
• A pulsed (e.g. mode-locked or Q-switched) laser can have a peak power which is
much higher than the average power.
• For single-frequency lasers and for mode-locked lasers, a resonant enhancement
cavity can be used.
• Nonlinear conversion can also be done inside a laser resonator.
• Another possibility is to increase the interaction length by using a waveguide (e.g.
made of LiNbO3) or a fiber (the latter usually for χ(3) processes only). Particularly
waveguides with small effective mode area can lead to high conversion efficiencies
even with low optical powers.
• Applicable intensities are often limited by the damage threshold of the materials.
There are situations where this limitation does not allow one to achieve highly
efficient frequency conversion. An example is frequency doubling of ultrashort
pulses into the ultraviolet spectral region, where the large group velocity
mismatch limits the interaction length while the damage threshold is relatively low.
LBO CRYSTAL:
• Lithium triborate (LiB3O5) or LBO is a non-linear optics crystal. It has a
wide transparency range, moderately high nonlinear coupling, high damage
threshold and desirable chemical and mechanical properties. This crystal is often
used for second harmonic generation(SHG, also known as frequency doubling), for
example of Nd:YAG lasers (1064 nm → 532 nm). LBO can be both critically and non-
critically phase-matched. In the latter case the crystal has to be heated or cooled
depending on the wavelength.
• Lithium triborate was discovered and developed by Chen Chuangtian and others of
the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of
Sciences. It has been patented.
RED LASER:
• The all-solid-state red laser is generated by using the intracavity frequency doubled
1.3 μm Nd:YAG laser.
• A L-shaped cavity laser resonator is composed of an acousto-optic Q-switch, two
side-pumped Nd:YAG laser module, a quartz 90° polarization rotator and a 4 x 4 x 40
mm3 LBO nonlinear crystal with type-II noncritical phase matching (θ = 0o , Φ = 0o )
at a temperature of 315.3 K.
• The LBO crystal was coated dual-wavelength antireflection around 1.3 μm and 660
nm simultaneously. The quartz 90° polarization rotator is placed between two
Nd:YAG rods of the laser modules for polarization dependent birefringence
compensation.
• The red output power as function of the 808 nm LD pump power is shown in Fig.3.
The maximum average output power of the red laser is 64 W for the pump power of
650 W at repetition rate of 5 kHz and pulse width of 161 ns.
• We observe a roll over effect, i.e. output power up to the maximum and then falls
with increasing pump power because of the Nd:YAG rods thermal effect. As well
known, 1.3 μm Nd:YAG laser radiation contains two fundamental wavelengths. One
is the R2→X1 transition at the wavelength of 1.319 μm and the other is the R2→X3
transition at the wavelength of 1.338 μm. Their effective stimulated emission cross
section is nearly same ,which is one third of the R2→Y3 transition for the wavelength
of 1.064 μm. Therefore, the red light obtained by using the frequency doubled 1.3
μm Nd:YAG laser includes both 659.5 nm and 669 nm wavelengths while without
wavelength selection element is employed. Also，we have demonstrated the single
wavelength 659.5 nm red light by using one side-pumped Nd:YAG laser module, and
a etalon is inserted in the cavity in order to suppress the Nd:YAG laser 1.338 nm
oscillation. The etalon was made of polished thin YAG without coating. YAG material,
not silica, is selected because of its high refractive-index and perfect laser
performance. It can improve the transmission difference between 1.319 μm and
1.338 μm from12% to 28% than silica etalon. The insertion loss for the etalon at
1.319 μm has been calculated to be less than 0.1%. We have measured the spectrum
distribution of the red light by using Avantes mini fiber spectrum meter
AvaSpec2048 with resolution power of 0.5 nm. Under pump power of 500 W, only
single red spectrum at 659.5 nm can be seen as shown in Fig 4. The average output
power of 28 W at 659.5 nm with beam quality factor of M2 =22 is obtained for the
pump power of 500W at repetition rate of 5 kHz and pulse width of 250 ns.9)

•
• Green laser
• High power green laser can be achieved by external frequency doubling or
intracavity frequency doubling a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. In general, the former has
better beam quality but its laser system is complicated. The later is simple and has
higher conversion efficiency. In recent years, many more than 100-W intracavity-
 frequency-doubled green lasers have been developed. Also, more than 200-W
intracavity- frequency-doubled green laser obtained; however, the green beam
exported out of two directions and the beam quality was not reported. Here, a 218
W all-solid-state 532 nm green laser is obtained with Q-switched intracavity
frequency doubled 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser based on a LBO nonlinear crystal. A
thermally near-unstable resonator with two Nd:YAG rods in a L-shaped flat-flat
cavity with a total length of 1050 mm is designed for the high output power and high
beam quality. As same as the red laser system, a quartz 90° polarization rotator is
placed between two Nd : YAG rods of the laser modules for polarization dependent
birefringence compensation. Two orthogonal acousto-optic Q-switches are used to
sustain fully holding off the laser gain in order to keep the pulse operation under
high pomp power.
• A type II phase-matched 5 × 5 × 20 mm3 LBO (θ = 27.20o , Φ = 90o ) a temperature
of 373 K is employed for the second harmonic generation.
• The LBO crystal was coated dual-wavelength antireflection at 1064 nm and 532 nm,
simultaneously. To achieve high power and high beam quality green laser, a
thermally near-unstable resonator is used In a thermally near-unstable resonator,
the laser operates near the unstable region at the border of the thermally stable
zones.
• The flat-flat cavity used in our experimental acts as a unstable resonator, which leads
to more diffraction loss for high order transverse modes and the fundamental mode
size at the gain medium is large.
• Then, both high beam quality and high average output power can be expected.
• Figure 5 illustrates the dependence of the fundamental mode radius ω0 at the
center of the rods on the pump power.
• The fundamental mode radius is calculated by using the standard ABCD ray
propagation matrix as the function of the thermal lens focal length for the diode-
pumped Nd:YAG rod.
• The dependence of the thermal lens focal length of the rod on the pump power is
experimentally confirmed with the unstable-resonator method.
• Figure 6 shows the dependence of 532nm green output power versus the 808 nm
diode pump power. The maximum average output power of the green laser reaches
218 W with pulse width of 86 ns and repetition rate of 12.5 kHz under pump power
of 930 W, which operates just at the border of the thermally stable zones as seen in
Fig.5.
• The measured green beam quality factor is M2 = 6.2 at output power of 120 W11)
and M2 =20.2 at output power of 218 W, respectively. To our knowledge, those
beam quality is best results for hundred W level all-state-solid 532 nm green lasers
with intracavity frequency doubling.
•
• Blue laser :
• Power levels up to 2.8 W have previously been achieved for blue lasers based on
frequency doubling of a neodymium laser, but are limited to lower power levels due
to considerable reabsorption and thermal losses.
• Power levels up to 10.1 W have been reported by frequency doubling of tunable
lasers in the near-IR region or by blue lasers produced directly through optical
parametric oscillators (OPOs); however, these lasers are expensive and often too
complicated for routine operation.
• Here, a simpler blue laser has been developed, that is based on frequency tripling of
a compact Nd:YAG 1319 nm diode-pumped solid-state laser. The all-solid-state blue
laser is performed by using Q-switched intracavity frequency tripled 1319 nm
Nd:YAG laser. Figure 7 depicts the typical experiment configuration for the blue
generation.
• The laser resonator is composed of four mirrors, a acousto-optic Q-switch, two side-
pumped Nd:YAG laser modules, a quartz 90° rotator, a thin YAG etalon, a Brewster
plane and two LBO nonlinear crystals.
• Here, one LBO crystal is for the second harmonic generation, which was cut into a 4 x
4 x 20 mm3 with type I phase matching (θ = 84o , Φ = 0 o) at a temperature of 330 K.
• Other LBO crystal is for third harmonic generation, which was cut into a 4 x 4 x 40
mm3 with type-II noncritical phase matching (θ = 0o , Φ = 0o ) at a temperature of
433.1 K. Both LBO crystals were coated three-wavelength antireflection around 1.3
μm, 660 nm and 440 nm, respectively.
• Other LBO crystal is for third harmonic generation, which was cut into a 4 x 4 x 40
mm3 with type-II noncritical phase matching (θ = 0o , Φ = 0o ) at a temperature of
433.1 K. Both LBO crystals were coated three-wavelength antireflection around 1.3
μm, 660 nm and 440 nm, respectively.
• In order to reach optimum second harmonic generation and third harmonic
generation simultaneously, a special Z-type resonator, which has two focuses, was
designed.
 • Because Nd:YAG is an isotropic laser medium and emits unpolarized radiation, it is
necessary to polarize the laser beam with a Brewster plane in order to meet the
phase matching for maximize frequency conversion efficiency.
• The LBO crystals are set close to those focuses, respectively. In the first LBO crystal
(named as SHG-LBO in Fig. 7), some fraction of the fundamental radiation at 1319
nm is converted to the second harmonic radiation at 659.5 nm.
• In another LBO crystal (named as THG-LBO in Fig.7), unconverted fundamental
radiation is mixed with second harmonic to produce the third harmonic blue light at
439.7 nm. The conversion efficiency and the stability of the blue laser output power
are both improved through the suppression of 1338 nm Nd:YAG laser operation by
means of the YAG etalon.

• Experimentally, we measured the 439.7 nm blue output power by a laser meter

(Ophir F300A). Figure 8 shows the blue output power as function of the 808 nm LD
pump power. The blue output started at a pumping power around 170 W. The blue
laser delivers output power of 7.6 W at diode pump power of 480 W with the
repetition rate of 5 kHz and pulse width of 170 ns.
• The slope efficiency is about 2.1%.To best of our knowledge, this is the maximum
blue output power for the intracavity frequency tripled 1319 nm Nd:YAG laser. We
have measured the spectrum distribution of the blue light by using Avantes mini
fiber spectrum meter AvaSpec2048 with resolution power of 0.5 nm. Under pump
power of 480 W, the spectrum only shows a single blue line at 439.7 nm.
The far field intensity distribution of the 439.7 nm blue beam is exhibited in Fig.9, and the
corresponding beam quality factor is measured to be M2 = 12 for both horizontal and
vertical directions. At a lower output, the beam quality becomes better. For example, under
an output power of 3 W, the value of M2 is reduced to about 8. The long-term power
fluctuation is less than 1% at output power of 6 W
RESULTS ANALYSIS :
• The high power all-solid-state quasi-continuous wave red, green and green lasers are
generated by means of the acousto-optic Q-switched diode side-pumped Nd:YAG
laser modules and intracavity nonlinear frequency conversion in the LBO nonlinear
crystals.
• The acousto-optic Q-switch has an active aperture of 5 mm, and their RF power is up
to 100 W. Pulsed operation is necessary for efficient of the intracavity frequency
conversion.
• The high efficiency laser module consists of a Nd:YAG rod with Nd 3+ doping
concentration of 0.6 at.% and five-fold symmetry diode arrays. Each array contains
six 20 W continuous-wave diode bars.
• The diffusive reflector made of gold-filled copper is used for the homogeneous
pumping. Figure 1 exhibits the schematic cross section of a diode-side-pumped laser
module.

•
• Figure 2 shows a typical fluorescence intensity distribution of a laser module
measured with a CCD camera. Obviously, the fluorescence intensity distribution is
uniform for our laser module.
• Effective and uniform pumping of the laser module is important for high average
power and high beam quality laser generation.
• All of nonlinear crystals for second harmonic generation and third harmonic
generation are the LBO because of its high optical damage threshold, low absorption
at whole fundamental, second harmonic and third harmonic wavelength region,
moderate nonlinear coefficients and sufficient birefringence to provide phase
matching needed in our experiment. The LBO nonlinear crystal is placed in an oven,
whose temperature is maintained by a precise temperature controller to a precision
 of ± 0.1 K. The beam quality factor M2 is measured by a laser beam analyzer (Model
M2 -200, Spiricon, Inc.).

CONCLUSION :
• The high power all-solid-state red and green lasers are developed by means of intracavity
frequency doubled 1064nm Nd:YAG laser and 1.3μm Nd:YAG lascrystals with type-II phase
matching and type-II noncritical phase matching, respectively.

• The high power all-solid-state blue light is generated based on the intracavity frequency
tripled 1.3 μm Nd:YAG laser with two LBO nonlinear crystals, one LBO is for the second
harmonic generation with type I phase matching and other LBO crystal is for third harmonic
generation with type-II noncritical phase matching.

The maximum average output power of the red laser reach 64W at 808 nm diode pump power
of 650 W. The green laser output power is up to 218 W at pump power of 930 W. The blue laser
delivers the power of 7.6W at pump power of 480 W. To best of our knowledge, this is the
maximum blue output power for the intracavity frequency tripled 1319 nm Nd:YAG laser.

FUTURE ADVANCEMENTS
The advancements in laser sources and materials maybe
Polycrystalline materials – transparent ceramics New laser host materials. New SSL
architectures . High powers in the Mid IR
ceramic lasers New infra-red materials Diode pump sources in the visible and mid-IR
Future laser modalities maybe
• Phase and Spectral beam combining Phase and mode control multi-pulse and multi-
wavelength regimes
In Fiber Architectures
LMA fiber designs. Holey fiber and HOM designs New fiber preform and fabrications
techniques Next generation of ultrafast lasers Fiber-based systems. Increased reliability,
efficiency Reductions in cost, complexity, footprint. Manufacturing market-leverage
development
A new era in SS laser technology
Light engines of the future Approaching light-bulb efficiencies Monolithic integrated
architectures
Many new application areas
• Precision machining for electronics, medical, aeronautics SSL enter medical therapy,
imaging and surgery Multiple applications in the defense and security fields
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