This application claims the benefit of Taiwan Patent Application No. 110108779, filed on Mar. 11, 2021, at the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference.
The present invention is related to a visible laser device, in particular a visible laser apparatus with a linear cavity being able to generate high power laser light.
Continuous wave (CW) lasers with a wavelength range of 550-590 nm have high practical value, such as applications in the field of biomedicine, spectroscopy, data processing, atmospheric detection, and even in remote sensing. Yellow lasers with a wavelength close to 577 nm can be realized in a variety of ways such as semiconductor yellow-orange lasers, second harmonic generating (SHG) for diode lasers, SHGs for fiber lasers and cavity SHG for optically pumped semiconductor lasers and etc.
The gain medium 120 receives the pumping light Lpump from the first optical component 130, and generates a first infrared base laser light Lbase1 having the first wavelength. For example, the diode laser source 1 provides the incident pumping light Lpump with a wavelength of 808 nanometer, and the gain medium 120 contains neodymium-doped vanadate (such as neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate Nd:YVO4), which can absorb the energy of the pumping light Lpump and convert it into the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 with a wavelength of about 1064 nm. When the reflectivity of the first optical component 110 and the second optical component 150 of the linear cavity 10 for the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 reaches above 99.8%, that is, the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 can be effectively locked in the first resonant cavity 12 in the linear cavity 10 to form a standing wave, the Raman medium 130 can rely on the excitation of stimulated Raman scattering to generate a second infrared base laser light Lbase2 with a wavelength of about 1159 nm.
The second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 is reflected back and forth in the second resonant cavity 14 in the linear cavity 10. The two basic laser lights existing in the linear cavity 10 can be used as tools to form different visible light wavelengths. The distance between the first optical component 110 and the second optical component 150 allows the two basic laser lights to form a standing wave and maintain a certain power. When the pump light Lpump is continuously injected into the linear cavity 10, the energy of the two basic laser lights is continuously increased.
The LBO crystal 140 can be an SHG crystal formed at a special cutting angle, which receives the first and second infrared base laser lights Lbase1, Lbase2, and generates visible laser light L1 with a third wavelength. Taking the embodiment described in the previous paragraph as an example, when the wavelength of the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 is 1159 nm, the visible laser light L1 generated due to SHG has a wavelength of about 579.5 nm.
Notably, both the first and second resonant cavities 12,14 employed to maintain the first and second infrared basic laser lights Lbase1, Lbase2 in the linear cavity 10 are composed of the same optical components. However, when the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 travels back and forth through the gain medium 120, losses will inevitably occur and its power will be reduced. As a result, the power of the visible laser light L1 after SHG or sum frequency based on the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 will be limited. Therefore, how to avoid the shortcomings of the above-mentioned devices is a technical problem that needs to be resolved.
To overcome problems in the prior art, the present invention provides a visible laser apparatus with minimized cavity loss for the strokes wave.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is a visible laser apparatus including a linear cavity having a first direction and a second direction opposite to the first direction. The linear cavity includes along the first direction: a first optical component, a gain medium, a second optical component, a Raman crystal, a double-harmonic crystal and a third optical component. The first optical component receives an incident pumping light in the first direction. The gain medium receives the pumping light from the first optical component, and generates a first infrared base laser having a first wavelength. The second optical component has a first high transmittance in a first wave band including the first wavelength in the first and the second directions. The Raman crystal receives the first infrared base laser, and generates a second infrared base laser having a second wavelength. The double-harmonic crystal receives the first and the second infrared base lasers, and generates a visible laser light having a third wavelength. The third optical component allows the visible laser light to transmit out along the first direction. The first optical component has a first high reflectivity in the first wave band in the second direction. The second optical component has a second high reflectivity in a second wave band including the second wavelength in the second direction. The third optical component has a third high reflectivity in the first and the second wave bands in the first direction and a second high transmittance in a third wave band including the third wavelength in the first direction.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a linear cavity for generating a high power visible laser light is provided. The linear cavity includes along a first direction: a first optical component, a gain medium, a Raman crystal, a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal and a second optical component. The first optical component allows a pumping light incident in the first direction to transmit therethrough. The gain medium receives the pumping light from the first optical component, and generates a first infrared base laser light having a first wavelength. The Raman crystal receives the first infrared base laser light, and generates a second infrared base laser light having a second wavelength. The LBO crystal receives the first and the second infrared base laser lights, and generates a visible laser light having a third wavelength. The second optical component allows the first visible laser light to emit thereout along the first direction, wherein the first optical component has a first reflectivity in a first wave band including the first wavelength in a second direction opposite to the first direction; the Raman crystal include a first surface facing the first direction, and the first surface has a second reflectivity in a second wave band including the second wavelength in the second direction; and the second optical component has a third reflectivity in the first and the second wavebands in the first direction.
According to another aspect of the present invention, linear cavity having a first direction and a second direction opposite to the first direction is provided. The linear cavity includes along the first direction: a first optical component, a gain medium, a second optical component, a Raman crystal and a third optical component. The first optical component allows a pumping light incident in the first direction to transmit therethrough. The gain medium receives the pumping light from the first optical component, and generates a first infrared base laser light having a first wavelength. The second optical component has a first high transmittance in a first wave band including the first wavelength in the first and the second directions. The Raman crystal receives the first infrared base laser, and generates a second infrared base laser having a second wavelength, wherein the first optical component has a first reflectivity in the first waveband in the second direction; the second optical component has a second reflectivity in a second waveband including the second wavelength in the second direction; and the third optical component has a third high reflectivity in the first and the second wave bands in the first direction.
The linear cavity can be employed to provide visible lasers with high out powers, which is useful for medical treatment and industrial needs. Therefore, the present invention has industrial utility.
The objectives and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent to those ordinarily skilled in the art after reviewing the following detailed descriptions and accompanying drawings.
The present invention will now be described more specifically with reference to the following embodiments. It is to be noted that the following descriptions of the preferred embodiments of this invention are presented herein for purpose of illustration and description only; they are not intended to be exhaustive or to be limited to the precise form disclosed.
Please refer to
In
According to an embodiment, the gain medium 220 contains neodymium-doped vanadate (such as neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate Nd:YVO4), which can absorb the energy of the pumping light Lpump and converts it into the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 with a wavelength of about 1064 nm. In the linear cavity 200, when the reflectivity of the first optical component 210 and the fourth optical component 270 for the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 reaches 99.8% or above, that is, the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 can be effectively locked in the first resonant cavity 22 to form a standing wave. Notably, the length of the gain medium 220 provided by the present invention is controlled under a certain range to avoid the phenomena of self-stimulated Raman scattering, and thus will generate the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 with the mentioned wavelength only.
According to
As shown in
Under appropriate device arrangement, the first and the second infrared basic laser light Lbase1, Lbase2 can be reflected back and forth in the linear cavity 200. As shown in
Since the range of the second resonant cavity 24 does not overlap with the optical path between the first optical component 210 and the second optical component 230, the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 will not enter the gain medium 220 after it is formed and cause a chance of power loss, therefore the linear cavity 200 of the present invention can fully utilize the energy of the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2, and the power of the visible laser light L1 originated from the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 can be increased.
The functional features of the various optical components in
Please refer to
The optical characteristics of the first optical component 310, the first surface 331, the second surface 332 and the second optical component 350 in
As shown in
The gain medium 320 is the same as the gain medium 220 shown in
The function of the first surface 331 is equivalent to that of the second optical component 230 in
Under appropriate device arrangement, the first and the second infrared basic laser light Lbase1, Lbase2 can be reflected back and forth in the linear cavity 300. As shown in
In this embodiment, since the range of the second resonant cavity 34 does not overlap with the optical path between the first optical component 310 and the first surface 331, the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 will not enter the gain medium 320 after it is formed and cause a chance of power loss, therefore the linear cavity 300 of the present invention can fully utilize the energy of the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2, and the power of the visible laser light L1 originated from the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 can be increased.
The LBO crystal 340 receives the first and the second infrared basic laser lights Lbase1, Lbase2, and generates visible laser light L1 with the third wave length such as 579.5 nm, 556 nm or 532 nm. The LBO crystal 340 can be formed of an SHG crystal or a sum frequency generation crystal, depending on different cutting angle. When the LBO crystal 340 is configured as an SHG crystal, it can generate a wavelength of 579.5 nm (the second infrared base laser light Lbase2 with a wavelength of about 1159 nm) or 532 nm (the first infrared laser light Lbase1 with a wavelength of about 1064). When the LBO crystal 340 is used as a frequency doubling crystal, it can generate a visible laser light L1 with a wavelength of 556 nm (the first infrared basic laser light Lbase1 with a wavelength of about 1064 and the second infrared basic laser light Lbase2 with a wavelength of about 1159).
Refer to
Refer to
Comparing the data in
While the invention has been described in terms of what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred Embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention need not be limited to the disclosed Embodiments. On the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims, which are to be accorded with the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar structures.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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110108779 | Mar 2021 | TW | national |