Journal article
Influence of pump beam shaping and noise on performance of a direct diode-pumped ultrafast Ti:sapphire laser
Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark1
Biomedical Engineering, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark2
Biophotonic Imaging, Nano and Bio-physical Systems, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark3
Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark4
Diode Lasers and LED Systems, Department of Photonics Engineering, Technical University of Denmark5
Optofluidics, Nano and Bio-physical Systems, Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark6
One of the major factors that limits the widespread use of ultrafast titanium sapphire (Ti:S) lasers in life science is its expensive and complex pump source. Broad area diode laser (BA-DL) based pump sources have high potential to solve this problem, since they are compact, inexpensive and very efficient.
However, their non-diffraction limited beam profile makes it challenging to achieve high powers in Kerr-lens mode-locked (KLM) operation of Ti:S lasers. In this work, we show that the ideal way to beam shape two spectrally combined BA-DLs with different beam qualities is to aim for a compromise between matching to the cavity mode diameter and the cavity mode Rayleigh range.
We furthermore conclude that the relative intensity noise (RIN) of the BA-DL pumped Ti:S laser, another important parameter for imaging applications, is sufficiently low for a wide range of life science applications. However, for applications that are highly sensitive to noise, new laser diode designs are likely necessary to reduce inherent noise originating within the laser diode.
Language: | English |
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Year: | 2020 |
Pages: | 31754-31762 |
ISSN: | 10944087 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1364/OE.404968 |
ORCIDs: | Hansen, Anders Kragh , Jensen, Ole Bjarlin , Tawfieq, Mahmoud and Andersen, Peter Eskil |