Fianium Limited

Nkt Photonics A/s

Spi Lasers UK Limited

University of Southampton

Reflekron Ltd.

Institucio Catalana De Recerca I Estudis Avancats

Fundacio Institut De Ciencies Fotoniques

Reflekron Oy

Anatoly Borisovich Grudinin

John Redvers Clowes

Ian Michael Godfrey

Pascal Dupriez

Kestutis Vysniauskas

Morten Ibsen

Michael Kevan Durkin

Michael Nickolaos Zervas

Lars Johan Albinsson Nilsson

Paul William Turner

Adam Devine

Dave Neil Payne

Michael Yarrow

Paulo Almeida

Stephen Banister Green

Mridu Kalita

Jonathan William Gill

David Neil Payne

Christophe Andre Codemard

Valerio Pruneri

Oleg Okhotnikov

Mircea Guina

Igor Andreevich Goncharenko

Mehmet Alican Noyan

Ian Godfrey

A method of tuning the time duration of laser output pulses, the method including spectrally dispersing optical pulses and further comprising providing an optical pulse having a time duration and a spectral bandwidth; spectrally dispersing () the optical pulse so as to provide a selected change in the time duration of the pulse responsive to the spectral bandwidth of the pulse; outputting () an optical output pulse having a first time duration that is responsive to the selected change in time duration; providing another optical pulse; changing the amount of spectral bandwidth of the another optical pulse () to be different than that of the optical pulse or changing the amount of spectral dispersion so that spectrally dispersing the another optical pulse provides a change in time duration that is different than the selected change; and outputting () another optical output pulse having a second time duration that is responsive to the different change in time duration, the second time duration of the another optical output pulse being different than the first time duration of the optical output pulse.

Tunable pulse width laser

A coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering apparatus for imaging a sample includes an optical output; an optical source arranged to generate a first optical signal at a first wavelength; and a nonlinear element arranged to receive the first optical signal, where the nonlinear element is arranged to cause the first optical signal to undergo four-wave mixing on transmission through the nonlinear element such that a second optical signal at a second wavelength and a third optical signal at a third wavelength are generated, wherein an optical signal pair including two of the first, second and third optical signals is provided to the optical output for imaging the sample.

Optical sources

The invention can include an optical pulse source apparatus that includes the nonlinear generation of wavelengths, wherein the optical pulse source can comprise an oscillator for producing optical pulses, the optical pulses having a first wavelength; an optical fiber amplifier for amplifying optical pulses having the first wavelength; a nonlinear optical fiber receiving amplified optical pulses having the first wavelength to nonlinearly produce optical pulses that include wavelengths that are different than the first wavelength; and wherein the optical pulse source is configured so as to be operable to reduce the optical pulse frequency of the nonlinearly produced optical pulses.

Optical pulse source apparatus with nonlinear fibre and operable to reduce the optical pulse frequency of optical output pulses

A supercontinuum optical pulse source provides a combined supercontinuum, and can comprise one or more seed pulse sources; first and second optical amplifiers arranged along first and second respective optical paths, wherein the first and second optical amplifiers are configured to amplify one or more optical signals generated by the one or more seed pulse sources; a first microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the first optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along the first optical path; a second microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the second optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along the second optical path; a supercontinuum-combining member to combine supercontinuum generated in at least the first and second microstructured light-guiding members to form a combined supercontinuum; wherein the supercontinuum-combining member comprises an output fibre, wherein the output fibre comprises a silica-based multimode optical fibre supporting a plurality of spatial modes at one or more wavelengths of the combined supercontinuum; wherein the supercontinuum-combining member has one or more input fibres which support no more than four spatial modes at any wavelength within the combined supercontinuum; and wherein the output fibre of the supercontinuum-combining member supports no more than four spatial modes at any wavelength within the combined supercontinuum.

Supercontinuum source

A coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering apparatus for imaging a sample comprises an optical output; an optical source arranged to generate a first optical signal at a first wavelength; and a nonlinear element arranged to receive the first optical signal, where the nonlinear element is arranged to cause the first optical signal to undergo four-wave mixing on transmission through the nonlinear element such that a second optical signal at a second wavelength and a third optical signal at a third wavelength are generated, wherein an optical signal pair comprising two of the first, second and third optical signals is provided to the optical output for imaging the sample.

A method of providing optical supercontinuum pulses can comprise generating optical pump pulses with an optical pump laser, the optical pump pulses having a pump pulse repetition rate; launching optical pump pulses into a nonlinear optical element comprising an optical fiber; generating optical supercontinuum pulses from the optical pump pules via spectral broadening within the optical fiber; selectively providing a plurality of different repetition rates for the optical pump pulses so as to generate optical supercontinuum pulses having different repetition rates; and providing nominally identical spectral broadening of the optical supercontinuum pules having the different repetition rates.

Variable repetition rate supercontinuum pulses

Variable repetition rate and wavelength optical pulse source, comprising a fixed or variable repetition rate source of supercontinuum pulses; a wavelength tunable optical bandpass filter to filter the supercontinuum pulses at two or more wavelengths, wherein said source of supercontinuum pulses and said wavelength tunable optical bandpass filter are configured such that the optical pulse source can provide variable repetition rate and variable wavelength optical pulses including a series of repetition rates with selected wavelength-varying pulse trains.

Variable repetition rate and wavelength optical pulse source

A laser system for generating optical pulses at an operating wavelength of the laser system. The system has an optical resonator comprising first and second reflectors, and a tapered optical fiber disposed between the first and second reflectors. The tapered optical fiber has a core which has a tapered input section which tapers from single mode to multimode at the laser operating wavelength, an inner section of substantially constant diameter capable of supporting multiple modes at the laser operating wavelength and a tapered output section which tapers from a first diameter to a second diameter that is smaller than the first diameter.

Fiber laser having optical resonator comprising tapered element

A supercontinuum optical pulse source provides a combined supercontinuum. The supercontinuum optical pulse source comprises one or more seed pulse sources, and first and second optical amplifiers arranged along first and second respective optical paths. The first and second optical amplifiers are configured to amplify one or more optical signals generated by said one or more seed pulse sources. The supercontinuum optical pulse source further comprises a first microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the first optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along said first optical path, and a second microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the second optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along said second optical path. The supercontinuum optical pulse source further comprises a supercontinuum-combining member to combine supercontinuum generated in at least the first and second microstructured light-guiding members to form a combined supercontinuum. The supercontinuum-combining member comprises an output fiber, wherein the output fiber comprises a silica-based multimode optical fiber supporting a plurality of spatial modes at one or more wavelengths of the combined supercontinuum.

Combined supercontinuum source

Optical pulse source for generating optical supercontinuum pulses, comprising an optical pump laser operable to generate optical pump pulses at a pump pulse repetition rate Rf; a nonlinear optical element comprising a microstructured optical fiber arranged to receive the optical pump pulses and configured to spectrally broaden the optical pump pulses to generate optical supercontinuum pulses; an optical modulator provided between the optical pump laser and the microstructured optical fiber and operable to selectively control the launch of optical pump pulses into the microstructured optical fiber at a variable, reduced repetition rate Rr=Rf/N, wherein N is a positive integer, to thereby control the repetition rate of optical supercontinuum pulses generated within the nonlinear optical element; and wherein the optical pulse source is configured to provide a plurality of different repetition rates and nominally identical spectral broadening for the different repetition rates.

Method and apparatus for providing supercontinuum pulses

A method of providing supercontinuum illumination in applications involving the excitation of fluorescence, comprising generating, at an optical pump laser, optical pump pulses at a pump pulse repetition rate; selectively controlling with an optical modulator the launch of pump pulses into a nonlinear optical element comprising an optical fiber at a variable, lower repetition rate to thereby selectively control the repetition rate of supercontinuum pulses generated within the optical fiber; and illuminating a sample with supercontinuum pulses to excite fluorescence. The supercontinuum pulses can be wavelength filtered such that the fluorescence is excited with wave length filtered supercontinuum pulses.

Method for illuminating a sample with supercontinuum pulses

Optical pulse source, for generating optical supercontinuum pulses, comprising: an optical pump laser operable to generate a number of optical pump pulses at a pump pulse repetition rate; a nonlinear optical element arranged to receive optical pump pulses and configured to generate therefrom optical supercontinuum pulses; and a gating device provided between the pump laser and the nonlinear optical element and operable to selectively limit the number of optical pump pulses received by the nonlinear optical element in order to generate optical supercontinuum pulses at a user selectable repetition rate lower than the pump pulse repetition rate, wherein the optical pulse source further comprises a second gating device provided after the nonlinear optical element.

Apparatus and method for the generation of supercontinuum pulses

A pulsed fiber laser apparatus for outputting picosecond laser pulses can comprise a fiber delivered pulsed seed laser for providing picosecond optical seed pulses, and at least one optical fiber amplifier in optical communication with the fiber delivered pulsed seed laser. The optical fiber amplifier can comprise a gain optical fiber that receives and optically amplifies picosecond optical pulses by operating in a nonlinear regime wherein the picosecond optical pulses can be spectrally broadened by a factor of at least 8 during amplification thereof. The apparatus can further comprise a pulse compressor apparatus in optical communication with the optical fiber amplifier for providing compressed picosecond optical pulses. The pulse compressor apparatus can provide a dispersion of at least 50 ps/nm and can provide a compression ratio of the time duration of the picoseconds optical pulses received by the pulse compressor apparatus to the time duration of the compressed picosecond optical pulses of no greater than about 50.

Methods and apparatus pertaining to picosecond pulsed fiber based lasers

The invention can include an optical pulse source for providing optical output pulses, comprising a master oscillator comprising a mode locked fiber oscillator producing optical pulses having an optical pulse frequency; at least one optical fiber amplifier optically coupled to the master oscillator, the at least one optical amplifier including a final optical fiber amplifier; a bulk optic amplifier element optically coupled to the output of the final optical fiber amplifier; a nonlinear optical fiber for nonlinearly producing light, the nonlinear optical fiber optically coupled to the output of the bulk optic amplifier element; an optical pulse compressor optically coupled to the output of the nonlinear optical fiber; and a pulse picker operable to reduce the optical pulse frequency of the optical output pulses to be less than the optical pulse frequency of the optical pulses produced by the master oscillator.

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Southampton, United Kingdom

Anatoly Borisovich Grudinin