We present a high-power tunable deep-ultraviolet (DUV) laser that uses two consecutive cavity enhanced doubling stages with LBO and CLBO crystals to produce the fourth harmonic of an amplified homebuilt external cavity diode laser. The system generates up to 2.75 W of 261.5 nm laser light with a ∼2 W stable steady-state output power and performs second harmonic generation in a largely unexplored high intensity regime in CLBO for continuous wave DUV light. We use this laser to perform fluorescence spectroscopy on theA1Π ← X1Σ+transition in a cold, slow beam of AlCl molecules and probe the A1Π|v′ = 0,J′ = 1〉 state hyperfine structure for future laser cooling and trapping experiments. This work demonstrates that the production of tunable, watt-level DUV lasers is becoming routine for a variety of wavelength-specific applications in atomic, molecular and optical physics.
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High peak power, sub-ps green emission in a passively mode locked W-cavity VECSEL
We report on the experimental results of a passively mode-locked vertical external cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL), implemented in a W-cavity configuration, using a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal for intra-cavity second harmonic generation (SHG) at 528 nm. The W-cavity configuration allows separation of the crystal from the semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), enabling independent control over the Gaussian beam sizes at the crystal, chip, and SESAM. This optimized cavity demonstrated a second harmonic pulse width of ~760 fs at a frequency of 465 MHz and 230 mW average output power, resulting in a peak pulse power of 580 W.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1709918
- PAR ID:
- 10134691
- Publisher / Repository:
- Optical Society of America
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Optics Express
- Volume:
- 28
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1094-4087; OPEXFF
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 5794
- Size(s):
- Article No. 5794
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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