Output details

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LASER PULSE CONTROL

This is a patent that was developed as a result of laser research in Prof Damzen’s laboratories in the Photonics Group of the Department of Physics. Prof Damzen’s group had developed and pioneered a novel diode-pumped solid-state laser technology (the “bounce” geometry) that gave high efficiency operation and whose exceptionally high gain allowed Q-switched pulse operation to remarkably high repetition rates (>1 MHz), an order of magnitude higher than that of other existing solid-state lasers. About 40 papers were published on this laser geometry. A problem however was that the exceptionally high gain of this laser prevented Q-switching at low repetition rates because practical intracavity loss modulator devices for Q-switching were unable to “hold-off” the lasing. This is a problem indeed for all high gain lasers.

The inventive step of this patent, developed by the patent authors (Prof Damzen and his PDRA (Dr Shardlow)) was to resolve this problem by placing a secondary laser cavity around the gain medium (laser amplifier) “clamping” the gain of the primary laser cavity and preventing ‘breakthrough’ at low repetition rate operation. The scientific demonstration of this patented technique has been publicly presented: “Laser Pulse Control of a Q-switched Nd:YVO4 Bounce Geometry Laser using a Secondary Cavity”, E. Arbabzadah, P. Shardlow, and M. Damzen, Paper CA-9.6, CLEO-Europe, Munich 2013. The patent has also been applied in the inventor’s (Prof Damzen’s) Spin-Out company, Midaz Lasers Ltd, where it is the key element used in the diode-pumped solid-state laser product (Flair-20) allowing pulse variation from single shot to 800 kHz. The patent was a key part of the Intellectual Property that led to the company’s successful sale to world-premier scientific laser company, Coherent Laser Inc, in 2012, for $3.8M.