ORC Seminar Series

Speaker: Professor Guenter Huber, Institute of Laser Physics, Hamburg University

Date: 12 May 2010

Time: 2pm

Venue: B46 L/T B

Abstract:

The research on rare earth ion doped laser materials has opened the way to new laser applications at various wavelengths and power regimes For high average power operation in the near infrared spectral region Yb3+-doped crystals are most interesting due to small Stokes-losses between pump and laser photons yielding high efficiencies and reduced heat generation in the laser crystal. New Yb3+-doped laser crystals based on sesquioxides possess high thermal conductivities and have been operated at record slope efficiencies of 80% for continuous wave operation and at more than 100 W of average power in mode-locked operation. Breakthroughs in efficient visible coherent light generation have been achieved with near infrared diode pumped up-conversion lasers based on Er3+-doped fluorides and directly GaN diode pumped Pr3+-lasers operating in the green, orange, and red spectral region. Recently we have realized Nd3+- and Yb3+-doped oxide laser waveguides fabricated by pulsed laser deposition of thin films (epitaxial growth on an atomically smooth scale) and by micro-structuring of bulk crystals directly with ultrafast laser pulses.

Biography:

Guenter Huber received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of Stuttgart/Germany (1975). He was research staff member of the Max-Planck-Institute for Solid-State Research in Stuttgart/Germany, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Applied Physics of Hamburg University (1976). Since 1982 he is Professor of Physics at the University of Hamburg, where he became Director of the newly established Institute of Laser Physics at Hamburg University (1991), Vice Dean (2000), and Dean of the Faculty of Physics at Hamburg University (2003). Since 2008 he is board member of the Council of Hamburg University.

His research activities in experimental laser physics are focused on the development and fundamental characterisation of new transition metal and rare earth ion doped solid-state lasers, including crystal growth of oxides and fluorides, preparation of dielectric waveguides by pulsed laser deposition and micro-structuring of bulk crystals with ultrashort laser pulses, optical spectroscopy (near IR, VIS, UV, VUV, X-ray), new diode pumped lasers for various applications in the near IR and visible spectral region, up-conversion lasers, as well as non-linear frequency conversion of solid-state lasers. The results of these activities have been documented in more than 230 journal papers.

Guenter Huber is Fellow of the Optical Society of America and the European Physical Society. He received the Quantum Electronics and Optics Prize of the European Physical Society in 2003.