LASER PUMP SOURCE

LITRON LASERS FOR LASER PUMP SOURCE

Pulsed Nd:YAG lasers are frequently used to pump other laser and parametric sources. Examples include dye lasers, Ti:Sapphire lasers, optical parametric oscillators and Raman devices. These devices are typically, though not always, tunable to different wavelengths and possess other desirable characteristics, such as narrow linewidths or ultrashort pulse durations.

Dye lasers are the original tunable laser sources. Usually pumped with the second or third harmonic (532nm or 355nm) of an Nd:YAG laser, they have broadly tunable, narrow linewidth outputs from the near UV to the near IR. Typical Nd:YAG lasers have pulse durations in the region of 5-8ns. As most laser dyes have very short fluorescent lifetimes, a longer pump pulse is desirable as this leads to narrower linewidth. Litron’s telescopic resonators have longer pulse durations, typically 8-10ns.

OPOs are solid state tunable sources, typically with visible and IR outputs, that require a uniform pump beam with low divergence. Litron’s Gaussian coupled and telescopic lasers are well suited to OPO pumping.

The wavelength ranges of OPOs and dye lasers is extended via sum and difference frequency mixing of their output and can access wavelengths from around 200nm to several microns.

Ti:Sapphire is widely used as a source of ultrafast (femtosecond) pulses for applications requiring terawatt peak powers. Their requirements from a 532nm pump laser are mainly for good spatial uniformity, as well as fairly long pulse duration. Litron’s birefringence compensated telescopic lasers provide excellent uniformity in 10-12ns pulses up to 200Hz, while its diode pumped 527nm Nd:YLF sources are used for kHz repetition frequencies.