Direct Diode Pumped Blue-Green Laser

Present Blue-Green lasers are inefficient (0.5 – 2.0 %) owing to the losses incurred by using multiple/cascaded solid-state and two or more nonlinear optical frequency conversion stages. We propose to develop a simpler approach to a blue-green efficient system: Single-state diode laser pump light in = blue-green laser pulses out To achieve this we will bring together advances in diode lasers/super-luminescent LEDs to provide “in-band” pumping of pulsed and frequency tunable gain media. The candidate systems emerged from a long term internal effort at SARA to identify new systems with output in the blue-green and other regions of the visible spectrum. SARA’s corporate mission is to pursue new technologies and develop highly innovative applications for existing technologies. Within our laser system development projects we focus upon realizing the performance and efficiency inherent in entirely new and previously not well developed laser systems. In addition SARA is well versed in laser detection and tracking systems for applications with technologies including reflected light detection (optical LIDAR type missions), and the challenges facing the applications of lasers to underwater detection and tracking and optical communication in water.