Laser Focus World Articles, February 2010

Laser Focus World


Table of Contents

Features

QUANTUM CASCADE LASERS: Advances push QC lasers into the mainstream

Performance breakthroughs and ease of use lead to commercial availability of multiwatt mid-wave infrared lasers.

PHOTONICS APPLIED: PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS: Optics take center stage in concentrating photovoltaic systems

Concentrating photovoltaic systems use lower-cost optics to reduce the use of high-cost semiconductor material.

PC/MICROSTRUCTURED FIBERS: mPOF has what's needed for fiber sensing

Microstructured optical fibers can be made with polymer processing techniques, opening up new areas of sensing.

FLUORESCENCE IMAGING: Optical filters optimize laser-based fluorescence imaging systems

The advent of lasers as fluorescence light sources imposes new constraints and demands on the optical filters required for optimal operation of these laser-based imaging systems.

BEAM CHARACTERIZATION: Beam profiling rises to the challenge of increasingly sophisticated laser systems

Several techniques—including aperture-based methods and two-dimensional detector-array profilers—can provide detailed beam measurements to optimize system performance in a variety of situations.

Newsbreaks

Photonic-crystal-based spectrometer is small and simple

Although photonic crystals (PCs) are inherently intricate, they can result in optical devices of great simplicity.

Ultrashort laser pulses selectively kill viruses

While UV light can reduce the spread of tuberculosis (see http://bit.ly/5Oct5x), UV radiation unfortunately targets both nucleic acids and proteins, killing both the viral particles and healthy mammalian cells.

SHG light from graphene shows whether it's single- or multilayer

Light can serve as a probe of material structure, sometimes as a result of nonlinear effects.

Miracle-Plate technology brings ultrafast lasers into printing industry

In computer-to-plate lithographic printing (which still dominates ink-jet methods for high quality), an aluminum plate is coated with a chemical resist in which an image is lithographically applied.

Light within turbid zinc oxide is optimally focused

In turbid materials (which scatter light due to spatial variations in refractive index), a converging wavefront that would come to a sharp focus in free space is obviously prevented from doing so.

Fiber lasers trump DPSS for thin-wafer slicing

In 2008, Mobius Photonics (Mountain View, CA) introduced UV laser sources based on the harmonic-wavelength conversion of the output of a seeded optical fiber amplifier.

World News

FIBER LASERS: Erbium-doped fibers produce a single cycle of light

To date, dye and Ti:sapphire laser oscillators working in concert with chirped-pulse amplifiers, hollow fibers, and broadband optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) have produced very short pulses between 2.6 and 7.8 fs at a variety of wavelengths; however, each of these pulses contains fewer than 2.0 and more than 1.3 cycles of the electromagnetic field.

INTERFEROMETERS: Radial-polarization interferometer tops Michelson capabilities

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new radial-polarization interferometer (RPI) that is able to measure smaller phase changes than a conventional Michelson interferometer.

ELECTROFLUIDIC DISPLAYS: Liquid-gallium light valve is fast, high-contrast

With decades of development resulting in long life and beautiful, high-resolution imaging, the backlit liquid-crystal display (LCD) has the ruling position in the laptop-computer market, and dominates the television market as well.

HOLLOW-CORE FIBERS: Waveguide mode with dark center becomes atom guide

Guiding atoms, and keeping them away from the walls of the conduit while doing so, is essential in many physics experiments; it also allows quantities of free atoms to be used to produce valuable effects such as slow light.

UV OPTICS: EUV mirror shows near-zero reflectance at CO2 laser wavelength

In a collaborative effort between researchers at Philips Research Laboratories (Eindhoven, The Netherlands), the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology (IWS; Dresden, Germany), Lambda Research Optics Europe (Eke, Belgium), and ASML (Veldhoven, The Netherlands), an extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) multilayer mirror has been developed with near-zero IR reflectance at the critical CO2 laser wavelength of 10.6 µm—the wavelength used to produce an EUV-emitting plasma that serves as the light source for EUV lithography applications.

ULTRAFAST LASERS: Femtosecond fiber CPA system puts out 830 W average power

A train of femtosecond pulses with an average power of nearly a kilowatt emitted from a fiber is now a reality, thanks to a femtosecond-fiber chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) system created by researchers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Jena, Germany), NKT Photonics (Birkeroed, Denmark), JT Optical Engine (Jena, Germany), and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (Jena, Germany).

FIBER LASERS: Thulium-fiber laser performs atmospheric-propagation testing

Compact and robust laser sources capable of long-range atmospheric propagation are needed for applications ranging from free-space optical communication to directed energy.

Columns

The Editor's Desk

Leading-edge lasers

Fiber lasers rapidly gained traction in the market after their introduction as an industrial tool.

Business Forum

How can I get capital to develop a new laser?

Q: I have a lab prototype of a laser that operates at a new wavelength that enables new medical procedures.

In My View

Danger: Mad DARPA scientists at work?

There is a book that needs to be written that would analyze the successes and failures of DARPA and the implications for the future of non-military research.

Departments

New Products

The OD-469L blue LED has a narrow beam angle for fluorescence in medical, scientific testing instruments, and forensic applications.

Manufacturers' Product Showcase

The model 8310 closed-loop Picomotor actuator is ideal for applications where closed-loop control and absolute position calibration is required.

Exclusive Features

PHOTONIC FRONTIERS: FIBER LASERS: Fiber lasers bring femtoseconds to the masses

Femtosecond fiber lasers can give you almost anything you want, from ultraprecise machining and femtosecond frequency combs to pulses spanning only a single cycle of light.

NONLINEAR OPTICS: All-optical method upconverts 2-D images

A full image of one color is optically upconverted to an image of a different color; the technique shows promise for imaging at wavelengths where direct, fast detection is difficult.

CCD & CMOS DECTECTORS & CAMERAS: TDI CCDs are still the sensors of choice for demanding applications

Despite continuing advances in CMOS technology, inherent CCD advantages such as noiseless charge transfer and high signal-to-noise ratio, as well as the unique features of time-delay integration (TDI) present a case for the continued dominance of CCD sensors in challenging environments.

Current Magazine

Volume 46
Issue 2
February 2010
 

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