Laserati

Two published poor man's lasers:

1. Poor man’s source for sub 7 fs: a simple route to ultrashort laser pulses and their full characterization.
2. Poor Man's Channel Waveguide Laser: KY(WO4)2:Yb.

A new report from Prof. Takashi Yabe: 100 W-class solar pumped laser for sustainable magnesium-hydrogen energy cycle, J. Appl. Phys. 104, 083104 (2008). They used a Fresnel lens (2×2 m, f=2000 mm) for collecting solar radiation, a Cr:Nd: YAG ceramic rod as gain medium, and get 80 W maximum laser power, corresponding to a 4.3% net conversion from solar light. That’s really a cool result.

I always say to my colleagues that solar pumped laser is my dream research project, because then I can do experiments under sunshine instead of in a basement lab. ;)

Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta, who runs a consulting company after a successful academic career, just published another book: SPIE Field Guide to Laser Pulse Generation. His first book is SPIE Field Guide to Lasers.

Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology, his notable and useful web project, also has a print version now.

He leads a very interesting career.

I found this presentation on Google Video: Active galactic nuclei with laser guide star adaptive optics. It is from the AAS 212th Meeting. The presenter is Claire Max.

The authors of the time lapse movie are Stéphane Guisard, Valère Leroy and Jean Pajus. It is fun to see the PARSEC laser pointing to different directions of the universe over the night. I wonder what the night sky would look like in Hawaii, where there are several guide star lasers.

We have a new publication online now: multiwatts narrow linewidth fiber Raman amplifiers. Basically, the paper shows fiber Raman amplifier can be used to amplify narrow linewidth laser to a useful power level, while linewidth keeping narrow. This would be a surprise to most laser researchers. In this specific report, we have obtained 4.8 W, ~10MHz 1178nm laser with 27dB gain and more than 10% efficiency. The tricks and reason are explained in the paper.

An update from OSA Podcast, on career in Optics. Worth listening.

Do you know how to use your membership in a professional society to its full benefit? Do you sometimes wonder what direction your life will take once you have decided to go into industry or academia? When you are looking at the long lists of publications that other people have accumulated, do you ponder your ability to achieve a publications list as prolific? In May 2008 at the CLEO/QELS conference in San Jose, California, four well-known OSA members gathered together to talk about these topics and to share tips from their own lives to benefit the young professionals who are now where they once were.

Career Podcast Part 1
Career Podcast Part 2

May 16, 2008. Above is today’s Google logo.

The first working laser was demonstrated on May 16, 1960 by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories.

According to Wikipedia.

The hottest buzz right now in technology blogosphere is that Mitsubishi unveils Laser TV at a Consumer Electronics Show 2008 in Las Vegas.

Photo from PopSci

It is not the first time a laser TV is unveiled. Be remindered that a Chinese company had unveiled a 120 inch laser TV last year. As for the advantage of laser TV, you can check this post and the wikipedia article.

January 2008 issue of Nature Photonics has a technology focus on fiber lasers. Some recent research highlights are presented, like report of millijoule femtosecond fiber laser from Jena University. Several people from companies (SPI Lasers, IPG Photonics, Koheras) are invited to write their perspective on fiber lasers. Prof. Andreas Tuennermann, head of the Fraunhofer Insititute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering in Jena, Germany, is interviewed on developments of fiber laser and his views on its future.

Among all the highlights, I think ultrashort pulse fiber laser is the center of spotlight. It seems suddenly, lot of companies emerge competing on femtosecond fiber lasers. Just point a few of them: IMRA, MenloSystem, Koheras, Toptica, Fianium, and FEMTO Lasers, etc.

Following is the Editorial of this Technology Focus: