The University of Southampton

Other

Spi Lasers UK Limited

Commonwealth of Australia Represented by Department of Defence, Defence Science and Technology Organisation

William Andrew Clarkson

David Neil Payne

Malcolm Paul Varnham

Mikhail Nicholaos Zervas

David Colin Hanna

Jae Daniel

Nikita Simakov

Rafal Cieslak

Anthony Brian Neilson

An active optical fibre, including: a core; an inner cladding substantially surrounding the core, whereby the core and the inner cladding form an area configured to propagate pump radiation; an outer cladding comprised of at least a third material with at least a third refractive index substantially surrounding the inner cladding, the third refractive index being smaller than the second refractive index, whereby the outer cladding confines pump radiation to the core and the inner cladding; and a coating comprised of a thermally conductive material substantially surrounding the outer cladding, wherein the inner cladding is configured to reduce impact of spatial hole-burning on absorption of the pump radiation as the pump radiation propagates through the active optical fibre, and wherein the thermally conductive material of the coating supports a reduced temperature increase between the area and an outer surface of the coating.

Active optical fibre

A fiber gain medium provided by a rare-earth doped fiber () is contained in a first resonant cavity by end reflectors (). The reflector () is wavelength selective to limit the frequency band of the first resonant cavity. The first resonant cavity also contains a second resonant enhancement cavity () with multiple transmission bands lying within the first resonant cavity's frequency band. Multiple standing wave modes of the first resonant cavity lie within both the frequency band of the first resonant cavity and the transmission bands of the second resonant cavity, and it is these standing wave modes that support laser action when the rare-earth doped fiber is suitably pumped by pump lasers ().

Optical fiber lasers

Apparatus for providing optical radiation () comprising a pump array () for providing pump radiation (), a first pump combiner (), and a waveguide (), wherein the pump radiation () from the pump array () is coupled into the waveguide () via the first pump combiner (), and wherein the waveguide () comprises a pump guide () for guiding the pump radiation (), and a gain medium () which emits the optical radiation () when it is pumped by the pump radiation ().

Apparatus for providing optical radiation

A beam shaping device for a laser device is provided. The laser device has a beam with a first beam quality factor M.sub.x.sup.2 in a first direction, and a second beam quality factor M.sub.y.sup.2 in an orthogonal direction. The beam shaping device includes at least one reflecting surface diverting at least a first part of the beam in order to reconfigure at least one of the first and second beam qualities M.sub.x.sup.2 and M.sub.y.sup.2.

Beam shaper

Growing community of inventors

Southampton, United Kingdom

William Andrew Clarkson