The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Nov. 19, 1996
Filed:
Sep. 13, 1994
James Kafka, Mountain View, CA (US);
Vincent J Newell, Pleasanton, CA (US);
Michael Watts, Union City, CA (US);
Spectra-Physics Lasers, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
An oscillator system which produces a single mode output from a multimode seed beam and a multimode optical power source. The seed source employed in the oscillator system produces a multimode seed beam that is used to injection seed a multimode optical power source. The optical power source has a short cavity such that the longitudinal modes of the multimode optical power source are sufficiently spaced apart that a mode of the optical power source can be positioned relative to the multimode seed beam such that the seed beam does not significantly overlap with neighboring longitudinal modes of the optical power source. By positioning a single longitudinal mode to overlap with the seed beam where the seed beam does not significantly overlap with neighboring longitudinal modes of the optical power source, a high energy single longitudinal mode output is produced. The multimode seed beam preferably has a bandwidth, defined as the full width half maximum of the spectral output, of between about 0.025 cm.sup.-1 and 2.5 cm.sup.-1. The seed beam most preferably has a bandwidth of about 0.2 cm.sup.-1. The optical power source should have an optical cavity length that is sufficiently short to cause the longitudinal modes of the multimode optical power source to be sufficiently spaced apart so that the multimode seed beam does not overlap with neighboring longitudinal modes of the optical power source. Since the spacing of the longitudinal modes equals c/2 L where c is the speed of light and L is the optical length of the cavity, the optical power source preferably has an optical cavity length less than or equal to about c/2 bw where c is the speed of light and bw is the bandwidth of the multimode seed beam. It is preferred that the optical power source have a cavity length of between about 0.2 cm and 20 cm.