Planar Waveguide and Slab Lasers

The Planar Waveguide and Slab Lasers group is led by Dr Jacob Mackenzie, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering 2004-2009. www.raeng.org.uk

Our group investigates the advantages of the planar geometry for novel laser sources. Current work capitalises on the excellent thermal management properties that the planar waveguide/slab geometry offers and compatibility with high-power diode-laser pump sources. Coupled with crystalline gain media exciting opportunities are possible for realising laser sources not achievable via standard routes, thus enabling difficult or weak laser transitions. While constantly emerging applications continue to be a foundation for new developments, our current emphasis is placed on increasing the range of accessible wavelengths and demonstrating power-scalable solutions in both pulsed and CW regimes.

• Efficient, compact, and powerful solid-state laser systems, difficult to realise using other laser-media geometries
• Visible laser devices
• Novel waveguide structures for robust spatial mode selection
• Cryogenic operation of lasers at high powers
• Devices, compatible with high average-power diode-pumping
• Original resonator and laser configurations that demonstrate the key benefits offered by waveguide, slab, and hybrid laser architectures
• Pulsed planar waveguide lasers with high-peak powers
• Waveguide amplifiers

High-power planar waveguide visible-lasers.

Ultrafast Multi-GHz Waveguide Lasers

Multi-plume Pulsed Laser Deposition for Advanced 3-d Micro-structuring (MULTIPLE)

Power-scaling the ND:YAG three-level laser transition

In collaboration with Onyx Optics, California USA, we are currently investigating power-scaling of end-pumped double-clad planar waveguide lasers. More

Within the ORC the Planar Waveguide and Slab Lasers group collaborates closely with the

• Advanced Solid State Sources Group

• Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) Group

Externally, the group has support from companies such as:

Onyx Optics a company which developed a technique for robust bonding of dissimilar materials suitable to waveguide geometries.

Laser Quantum a world-class manufacturer of high quality solid-state laser sources.

• Axisymmetric Laser Sources with Planar Gain Media
• Ultra-cool hybrid lasers
• Multi-watt in-plane diode-pumped waveguide lasers
• High-power, ND-INDIFFUSED-YVO4, tapped waveguide lasers
• Mid-Infra-Red fluoride waveguide lasers fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy

For a list of selected recent publications, including invited papers, refereed conference papers and refereed journal papers, please click here.