Single-Frequency Tunable IR Laser Development

There are no single-frequency laser devices yet available that continuously cover the 1400 nm to 1700 nm wavelength range. If such a device was developed, it could be used for several applications in telecommunications, LIDAR, and spectroscopy. One of these applications could be OPO seeding. To address this need, we propose to develop and demonstrate a tunable, single-frequency, solid-state laser capable of being directly diode-laser-pumped to generate output powers up to 100 mW in the 1300 nm to 1750 nm region. This project will address the issues of tunability, spectral purity, lowering pump threshold, and optimized conversion efficiency. A robust unidirectional ring reasonator design using birefringent filter tuning will be optimized for the laser material and wavelength region. The optical pumping aspect of the design will be optimized for 1 W diode-laser pumping, but could be scaled to multi-Watt pump power levels.