AsianScientist (Feb. 6, 2018) – An international team of scientists has produced a high-powered, randomly polarized laser beam with a ‘Q switch’ laser, which typically emits pulses of light so brief that they are measured in nanoseconds. They published their findings in Scientific Reports.
Lasers are a critical part of modern technology—they are used in everything from automobiles to medical equipment to the satellites orbiting Earth. To broaden the potential applications of lasers, researchers are seeking to miniaturize lasers while still producing a high power output.
In this study, a team of scientists from Toyohashi University of Technology and the Laser Research Centre in Japan, in collaboration with researchers from Iowa State University in the US, developed a laser a tenth of the size of an American penny but is ten times more powerful than previously reported with a larger laser.
A technique called Q switching produces short but high-powered pulse outputs. As in other lasers, an electric current excites electrons in a laser medium—in this case, it is a crystal used in solid-state lasers—and emits the resulting energy as amplified light. Assistant Professor Taichi Goto of Toyohashi University of Technology and his team used Q switching and adjusted the magnetic material through which light travels to amplify a small laser and produce a powerful pulse. With the addition of a neodymium-yttrium-aluminum-garnet, the researchers could also use magnetic fields and optics to better control how the light moved within the laser cavity.
The researchers plan to increase the peak power of their system, according to Goto. They also intend to apply the system as an integrated micro laser for further testing.
“There are two advantages to actively controlling integrated micro lasers. The size is small, and mass production technique can be used. The price of one piece of Q switch laser can be decreased by the integration,” said Goto. “The experimental evidence provided in this study advances this research field toward the realization of actively controllable integrated micro lasers.”
The article can be found at: Morimoto et al. (2018) Randomly Polarized Beam Produced by Magnetooptically Q-switched Laser.
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Source: Toyohashi University of Technology; Photo: Shutterstock.
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