chanelink logo
CHANELINK
English

Scientists use glass to create femtosecond lasers

192
2023-09-28 17:12:33
See translation

Image source: Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland

 

Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, September 27th (Reporter Zhang Jiaxin) Commercial femtosecond lasers are manufactured by placing optical components and their mounting bases on a substrate, which requires strict alignment of optical components. So, is it possible to manufacture femtosecond lasers entirely from glass? According to the latest issue of Optics magazine, scientists at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland have successfully achieved this, with lasers no larger than credit cards and easier to align.

Researchers stated that due to the lower thermal expansion of glass compared to traditional substrates, it is a stable material. Therefore, they chose glass as the substrate and used commercial femtosecond lasers to etch special grooves on the glass to accurately place the basic components of the laser. Even in precision manufacturing at the micron level, the grooves and components themselves are not precise enough to achieve laser quality alignment. In other words, the reflector is not fully aligned, so at this stage, their glass device cannot be used as a laser.

So, researchers further designed etching to position a mirror in a groove with micro mechanical bending, which can locally twist the mirror when irradiated by femtosecond laser. By aligning the mirror in this way, they ultimately created a stable, small-scale femtosecond laser.

Despite its small size, the peak power of the laser is about 1 kilowatt, and the time to emit pulses is less than 200 femtoseconds, which is so short that light cannot pass through human hair.

This method of permanently aligning free space optical components through laser material interaction can be extended to various optical circuits, with extreme alignment resolutions as low as sub nanometer level.

 

Reprinted from：LDWORLD

Related Recommendations

  • US blue laser company Nuburu plans to raise nearly $65 million in funding

    Recently, Nuburu, a high-power industrial blue light laser company in the United States, announced that the company has agreed to a new financing arrangement worth up to $65 million.This agreement was reached between Nuburu and the Delaware hedge fund Liquous LP, which claims to provide a "customized liquidity solution". According to the terms of the agreement, Nuburu will first receive an initial...

    2024-10-11
    See translation

  • A research team at City University of Hong Kong has developed a multispectral, ultra-low dose photoacoustic microscope system

    Optical resolution "photoacoustic microscope is a new biomedical imaging technology, which can be used in the research of cancer, diabetes, stroke and other diseases. However, insufficient sensitivity has always been a long-term obstacle to its wider application.According to Maims Consulting, a research team from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently developed a multispectral, ultra-lo...

    2023-09-21
    See translation

  • Construction of Advanced New Laser Research Centers in American Universities

    The ATLAS R&D center is expected to be completed by mid-2026!A powerful new laser research facility located on the Foothills campus of Colorado State University will begin construction this month. The facility is planned to be put into use in mid-2026 and is the result of 40 years of laser development research at Colorado State University. It is a collaboration with the Fusion Energy Science P...

    2024-10-30
    See translation

  • Optical Drive Magnetic Control: A Breakthrough in Memory Technology

    A recent study conducted by the Hebrew University suggests an undiscovered relationship between magnetism and light. This discovery may pave the way for extremely fast optical storage technology and creative optical magnetic sensor technology.It is expected that this discovery will completely change the way equipment is manufactured and data is stored in a range of fields.Amir Capua, Professor and...

    2024-01-06
    See translation

  • Xi'an Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has made new progress in the field of metasurface nonlinear photonics

    Recently, the Research Group of Nonlinear Photonics Technology and Applications in the State Key Laboratory of Transient Optics and Photonics Technology of Xi'an Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics has made important progress in the field of super surface nonlinear photonics. Relevant research results were published in the internationally famous journal Nanoscale Horizons. The first author of t...

    2024-09-27
    See translation