Fianium Limited

Nkt Photonics A/s

Pascal Dupriez

John Redvers Clowes

Anatoly Borisovich Grudinin

Michael Yarrow

Paulo Almeida

Christophe Andre Codemard

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

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 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

An optical sourcecomprising an optical output, a pump optical source, an optical splitter arranged to receive an optical signal from the pump optical source and to split the optical signal into a pump signal and a seed pump signal. A seed signal forming apparatusis arranged to receive the seed pump signal at the pump wavelength and to transform the seed pump signal into a seed signal at a seed wavelength. A first microstructured optical fiber (MSF)is arranged to receive the pump signal and the seed signal. MSFis arranged to cause the pump signal to undergo four-wave mixing seeded by the seed signal on transmission through MSFsuch that a first optical signal at a signal wavelength and second optical signal at an idler wavelength are generated. One of the signal wavelength and the idler wavelength are the seed wavelength and one of the first and second optical signals are provided to the optical output.

A source of femtosecond optical pulses comprises a seed pulse source arranged to generate seed pulses; an optical amplifier downstream of the seed pulse source, the optical amplifier having a gain bandwidth; a nonlinear optical element downstream of the amplifier, the optical element spectrally broadening optical pulses via a non linear process to have a spectral bandwidth that exceeds the gain bandwidth of the optical amplifier; and a pulse compressor downstream of the nonlinear optical element and arranged to reduce the temporal duration of optical pulses so as to provide output optical pulses having a femtoseconds time duration.

Seeded optical amplifier apparatus for producing Femtosecond pulses

A supercontinuum optical source comprises a laser source apparatus comprising at least one laser, the laser source apparatus configured for providing first and second signals; a modulator apparatus downstream of at least one laser of the laser source apparatus for modulating at least one of the first and second signals, the modulator apparatus including at least one modulator; a combiner downstream of the modulator apparatus for combining the first and second signals; an amplifier downstream of the combiner for amplifying the first and second signals after combination; a nonlinear element downstream of the amplifier for receiving the first and second signals after amplification, the nonlinear optical element providing spectral broadening responsive to the first signal and wherein the second signal does not substantially contribute to spectral broadening; and an output for outputting spectrally broadened light from the optical supercontinuum source.

Optical systems

An optical sourcecomprising an optical output, a pump optical source, an optical splitter arranged to receive an optical signal from the pump optical source and to split the optical signal into a pump signal and a seed pump signal. A seed signal forming apparatusis arranged to receive the seed pump signal at the pump wavelength and to transform the seed pump signal into a seed signal at a seed wavelength. A first microstructured optical fiber (MSF1)is arranged to receive the pump signal and the seed signal. MSF1 is arranged to cause the pump signal to undergo four-wave mixing seeded by the seed signal on transmission through MSF1 such that a first optical signal at a signal wavelength and second optical signal at an idler wavelength are generated. One of the signal wavelength and the idler wavelength are the seed wavelength and one of the first and second optical signals are provided to the optical output.

A source of femtosecond laser pulses () comprising a 980 nm picosecond seed pulse source (), a Ytterbium (Yb) doped fiber amplifier () operating in the three-level regime, a passive air-clad fiber () and a pulse compressor (). The seed pulses are spectrally broadened due to self phase modulation (SPM) in the air-clad Yb doped fiber () and further broadened due to SPM in the passive core of the passive air-clad fiber (), to produce sufficient spectral broadening to allow the pulses to be compressed in the dispersion compensator () into femtosecond pulses. The Yb doped fiber may have a phosphosilicate host composition in order to mitigate photodarkening.

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Leognan, France

Pascal Dupriez