Patent application number | Description | Published |
20140168755 | Methods and Apparatus Pertaining to Picosecond Pulsed Fiber Based Lasers - 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. | 06-19-2014 |
20140218789 | Seeded Optical Amplifier Apparatus for Producing Femtosecond Pulses - 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. | 08-07-2014 |
20140233091 | Supercontinuum Source - A supercontinuum optical pulse source provides a combined supercontinuum. The supercontinuum optical pulse source comprises one or more seed pulse sources, and first and second optical amplifiers arranged along first and second respective optical paths. The first and second optical amplifiers are configured to amplify one or more optical signals generated by said one or more seed pulse sources. The supercontinuum optical pulse source further comprises a first microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the first optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along said first optical path, and a second microstructured light-guiding member arranged along the second optical path and configured to generate supercontinuum light responsive to an optical signal propagating along said second optical path. The supercontinuum optical pulse source further comprises a supercontinuum-combining member to combine supercontinuum generated in at least the first and second microstructured light-guiding members to form a combined supercontinuum. The supercontinuum-combining member comprises an output fibre, wherein the output fibre comprises a silica-based multimode optical fibre supporting a plurality of spatial modes at one or more wavelengths of the combined supercontinuum. | 08-21-2014 |
20140369370 | Apparatus and Method for the Generation of Supercontinuum Pulses - Optical pulse source, for generating optical supercontinuum pulses at a repetition rate, comprising: an optical pump laser operable to generate a number of optical pump pulses at a pump pulse repetition rate; a nonlinear optical element arranged to receive the optical pump pulses and configured to generate therefrom optical supercontinuum pulses; and a gating device provided between the pump laser and the nonlinear optical element and operable to selectively limit the number of optical pump pulses received by the nonlinear optical element in order to generate optical supercontinuum pulses at a user selectable repetition rate lower than the pump pulse repetition rate, wherein the optical pulse source further comprises a second gating device provided after the nonlinear optical element. | 12-18-2014 |
20150055962 | Laser or Amplifier Optical Device Seeded with Nonlinearly Generated Light - An optical apparatus comprising an optical source for providing output light for providing input signal light can comprise a pump source for pumping a four wave mixing (FWM) process with light pulses (“FWM pump light”); a FWM element in optical communication with said pump source, said FWM element configured for hosting the FWM process to generate, responsive to the FWM pump light, pulses of FWM signal light and FWM idler light having different wavelengths; and a laser or amplifier optical device comprising a gain material for providing optical gain at a gain wavelength via a process of stimulated emission responsive to optical pumping with pump light, said laser or amplifier optical device in optical communication with said optical source and receiving one of the FWM signal light and the FWM idler light as input signal light having the gain wavelength for optically seeding with input signal light the laser or amplifier optical device. | 02-26-2015 |
20150131144 | HYBRID OPTICAL PULSE SOURCE - The invention can include and optical pulse source, comprising a master oscillator comprising a mode locked fibre oscillator producing optical pulses having an optical pulse frequency; at least one optical fibre amplifier optically coupled to the master oscillator, the at least one optical amplifier including a final optical fibre amplifier; a bulk optic amplifier optically coupled to the output of the final optical fibre amplifier; a nonlinear optical fibre for nonlinearly producing light, the nonlinear optical fibre optically coupled to the output of the bulk optic element; an optical pulse compressor optically coupled to the output of the nonlinear optical fibre; and a pulse picker operable to reduce the optical pulse frequency of optical pulses. | 05-14-2015 |
20150218746 | Methods and Apparatus for Laser Cleaning of Fabric Materials - Disclosed are methods and apparatus for cleaning a substrate, such as a fabric material, involving the application of optical energy to the substrate, typically in the form of a beam of light, where the energy of the beam causes removal of the contaminant from substrate, such as from the fibres of a fabric material. The cleaning may occur via any mechanism, including one or more of, alone or in any combination, ablation, melting, heating or reaction with the substrate or contaminant or agent introduced to aid in the cleaning. The optical energy is typically applied to a selected area of the substrate (e.g., as a beam), and the substrate and beam or optical energy source moved relative to one another so as to clean a larger area of the substrate, either by moving the substrate or the beam, or both. Movement of the beam with respect to the substrate can be attained through a beam scanning mechanism or through movement of the optical source itself. | 08-06-2015 |
20150225891 | Methods and Apparatus for Laser Cleaning - A method of cleaning a substrate ( | 08-13-2015 |