United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

Quantum Photonics Corporation

Covega Corporation

Anthony W Yu

Peter J S Heim

Kenji Numata

Stewart W Wilson

Jeffrey W Nicholson

Mario Dagenais

Dennis P Bowler

Scott A Merritt

Mark A Stephen

Michael A Krainak

Mahmooda Sultana

Mary J Li

Branimir Blagojevic

Sarah L Jones

Diego Janches

A master oscillator configured as a seed laser for a laser optical module includes a reduced size, temperature controlled non-planar ring oscillator, a piezo-electric transducer mounted on the non-planar ring oscillator, a pump laser diode, and coupling optics configured to couple a laser output of the pump laser diode to an end face of the non-planar ring oscillator. The pump laser diode may operate as a single-mode pump.

Micro non-planar ring oscillator with optimized output power and minimized noise in a reduced size package

Coating-less nonplanar ring oscillator lasers are disclosed. Such lasers may eliminate the need for thin-film optical coatings from a laser cavity, solving the problem of optical damage to the coatings, and thus, providing a longer useful lifetime for the laser for space or terrestrial applications. Such lasers may be compact, ultra-stable, and highly reliable, enabling a low phase noise, single frequency laser in a compact package. Such lasers may be used in CW and/or in pulse mode.

Coating-less nonplanar planar ring oscillator laser

The disclosed subject matter relates to a polarization-maintaining very large mode area (PM VLMA) Erbium-doped fiber and a polarization maintaining, Er-doped VLMA amplifier.

Polarization maintaining, large mode area (PMVLMA) erbium-doped optical fiber and amplifier

The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing large area graphene for graphene-based photonics devices such as bolometric graphene detectors, or for use as a saturable absorber in ultra-high bandwidth detectors for producing ultrafast laser pulses. The method includes: growing a first graphene layer on one side of a metal substrate, and a second graphene layer on another side of the metal substrate; coating the first graphene layer with a plurality of resist layers including a low molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate, and a high molecular weight polymethylmethacrylate; removing the second graphene layer and the metal substrate to reveal the first graphene layer; disposing the first graphene layer on an optical substrate; and removing the plurality of resist layers from the first graphene layer to reveal a final graphene layer, which can be used as the basis to manufacture a multilayer graphene structure for graphene detectors.

Method of manufacturing large area graphene and graphene-based photonics devices

The present invention relates an apparatus and method for measuring range-resolved atmospheric sodium temperature profiles using a space-based Lidar instrument, including a diode-pumped Q-switched self-Raman c-cut Nd:YVOlaser with intra-cavity frequency doubling that could produce multi-watt 589 nm wavelength output. The c-cut Nd:YVOlaser has a fundamental wavelength that is tunable from 1063-1067 nm. A continuous wave narrow linewidth diode laser is used as an injection seeder to provide single-frequency grating tunable output around 1066 nm. The injection-seeded self-Raman shifted Nd:VOlaser is tuned across the sodium vapor Dline at 589 nm. In one embodiment, a space-qualified frequency-doubled 9 Watt at 532 nm wavelength Nd:YVOlaser, is utilized with a tandem interference filter temperature-stabilized fused-silica-etalon receiver and high-bandwidth photon-counting detectors.

Space-based sodium Lidar instrument and method of operation

High power, low degree of polarization superluminescent diodes (SLDS) are described. A semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) which amplifies light in substantially one polarizaton state can be used to create a SLD by combining the output from both sides of this polarization sensitive SOA in a manner which results in a depolarized output.

Methods and devices for high power, depolarized superluminescent diodes

An optical amplification device includes a depolarizer for reducing the polarization sensitivity requirements on an SOA by changing the input to the SOA from having an arbitrary (unknown) polarization state to a known (depolarized) state. The depolarizer receives an input optical signal and outputs a depolarized, optical signal, and a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) receives the depolarized optical signal and outputs an amplified optical signal.

Growing community of inventors

Spencerville, MD, United States of America

Anthony W Yu