Pulse dynamics in SESAM-free electrically pumped VECSEL.

Self-starting pulsed operation in an electrically pumped (EP) vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting-laser (VECSEL) without intracavity saturable absorber is demonstrated. A linear hemispherical cavity design, consisting of the EP-VECSEL chip and a 10% output-coupler, is used to obtain picosecond output pulses with energies of 2.8 pJ and pulse widths of 130 ps at a repetition rate of 1.

Two-chip power-scalable THz-generating semiconductor disk laser.

We demonstrate a compact two-chip terahertz-emitting vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser source, which provides 1 THz output based on intracavity frequency conversion of dual-wavelength emission in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal. The type-I frequency conversion scheme at room temperature highly benefits from the power-scaling possibilities in a multi-chip cavity with intracavity powers in excess of 500 W.

3D laser nano-printing on fibre paves the way for super-focusing of multimode laser radiation.

Multimode high-power laser diodes suffer from inefficient beam focusing, leading to a focal spot 10-100 times greater than the diffraction limit. This inevitably restricts their wider use in 'direct-diode' applications in materials processing and biomedical photonics. We report here a 'super-focusing' characteristic for laser diodes, where the exploitation of self-interference of modes enables a significant reduction of the focal spot size.

Femtosecond Alexandrite laser passively mode-locked by an InP/InGaP quantum-dot saturable absorber.

An Alexandrite laser passively mode-locked using an InP/InGaP quantum-dot semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (QD-SESAM) was demonstrated. The laser was pumped at 532 nm and generated pulses as short as 380 fs at 775 nm with an average output power of 295 mW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on a passively mode-locked femtosecond Alexandrite laser using a SESAM in general and a QD-SESAM in particular.

Tunable single- and dual-wavelength SHG from diode-pumped PPKTP waveguides.

A compact, all-room-temperature, widely tunable, continuous wave laser source in the green spectral region (502.1-544.2 nm) with a maximum output power of 14.

Efficient yellow-green light generation at 561 nm by frequency-doubling of a QD-FBG laser diode in a PPLN waveguide.

A compact high-power yellow-green continuous wave (CW) laser source based on second-harmonic generation (SHG) in a 5% MgO doped periodically poled congruent lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide crystal pumped by a quantum-dot fiber Bragg grating (QD-FBG) laser diode is demonstrated. A frequency-doubled power of 90.11 mW at the wavelength of 560.

Self-mode-locked quantum-dot vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting laser.

We present the first self-mode-locked optically pumped quantum-dot semiconductor disk laser. Our mode-locked device emits sub-picosecond pulses at a wavelength of 1040 nm and features a record peak power of 460 W at a repetition rate of 1.5 GHz.

Broadly tunable high-power InAs/GaAs quantum-dot external cavity diode lasers.

A record broadly tunable high-power external cavity InAs/GaAs quantum-dot diode laser with a tuning range of 202 nm (1122 nm-1324 nm) is demonstrated. A maximum output power of 480 mW and a side-mode suppression ratio greater than 45 dB are achieved in the central part of the tuning range. We exploit a number of strategies for enhancing the tuning range of external cavity quantum-dot lasers.