TITANIUM SAPPHIRE LASERS

AND FEMTOSECOND LASERS

FEATURES OF TI-SAPPHIRE LASER
Most widely used tunable solid-state laser.
Operating wavelength range is between 660nm-1180nm.
Broadest gain bandwidth
Relatively large stimulated emission cross section
Output power is nearly 50W
High thermal conductivity
Good chemical inertness
Good mechanical rigidity
High hardness
 Laser wavelength 660-1180nm
Laser transition probability 2.6 *10^5/s
Upper laser level lifetime 3.8 *10^-6s
Operating temperature 300K
Pumping method optical
Output power upto 50 W
Mode single or multi mode
 Stimulated emission cross section 3.4*10^-23 m^2
Gain bandwidth,FWHM 1*10^14/s
Inversion density 6*10^23/m^3
Small signal gain coefficient 20/m
Laser gain medium length 0.1m
Doping density 3.3*10^25/m^2
ABSORPTION AND EMISSION SPECTRA
 Pump absorption band ranges from less than 400 nm to beyond
630nm.
Peaks around 490nm.
Upper state lifetime is 3.8microseconds.
Comparatively Largest bandwidth of laser transition.
GENERATION

Ti ions are doped into aluminium oxide crystal .

The laser can be flashlamp pumped but it is not efficient.
Commercial ti sapphire lasers are pumped with argon ion lasers
or Nd:YAG or Nd:YLF lasers.
X FOLD CONFIGURATION
It uses an astigmatically compensated cavity for the cystal.
Output faces of crystal at Brewsters angle.
For getting high power output,
longer length crystal,
lower doping concentration,
higher pumping flux intensities are used.
A birefringent filter used for wavelength tuning.
X CAVITY FIGURE

x
MODIFICATION TO FEMTOSECOND LASER
 Two prisms are used for compensating intra cavity dispersion.
Kerr lens modelocking technique is used.
For stability,
alignment of cavity reflectors and
adjustment of cavity dimension is important.
Ultrashort pulses in the order of femtoseconds is generated using
passive mode locking in KLM.
MODELOCKING

Allows generation of optical pulses as short as 6 fs.

Combining in phase number of distinct longitudinal modes of a
laser
These having different frequencies.
Random phases are added.
Randomly distributed average output of both electric field and
intensity in time domain.
KLM TECHNIQUE

Klm takes advantage of non linear effect of self focusing.

Produces an intensity dependent change in refractive index of
material
With a guassian beam,focus inside the material
Short pulses having higher peak intensities are focussed more
tightly .
Lower intensities have greater losses.
KLM TECHNIQUE
Femtoscond laser is an infrared laser with a wavelength of 1053
nm.
These are safe to use in corneal surgeries which require exquisite
precision.
It is a laser which emits optical pulses with duration well below
1 ps ie in the domain of femtoseconds..
Thus belongs to ultrashort pulses.
EXCITATION MECHANISM

This laser and dye laser has same energy level structure.
The 2T2 state has broad overlapping vibrational levels extend
upward from lowest level.
The 2E state also has overlapping levels extend upward from first
excited level.
No d state energy level above upper laser level.
Absorption at excited state is eliminated.
 2T2 state is sufficiently populated at room temperature,
The excitation occurs from lowest vibrionic level of 2T2 to broad
range of excited vibrionic levels of 2E.
These are rapidly relaxes to lowest level of that state.
Then decays back to any one of vibrionic levels of ground state.
 Four level system.
The lowest vibrational level of 2E serve as upper laser level u.
This decays to excited vibrational level of 2T2 as l.
These levels rapidly relax to ground state 0.
FEMTOSECOND LASER IN LAB
APPLICATION OF GENERATING AND AMPLIFYING
FEMTOSECOND LASER PULSES
APPLICATIONS

Laser radars
Range finders
Infrared spectroscopy of semiconductors
Remote sensing
Photodynamic therapy in medical field
Focussing mode locked pulses on to targets
REFERENCES

Laser technology , K R Nambair

Laser fundamentals,William T Silfvast
Principles of lasers,4th edition,Orazia Svelto
Wikipedia
THANK YOU