chanelink logo
CHANELINK
English

Scientists use glass to create femtosecond lasers

1188
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

  • The breakthrough of coherent two-photon lidar overcomes distance limitations

    Schematic diagram of experimental setupNew research has revealed advances in light detection and ranging technology, providing unparalleled sensitivity and accuracy in measuring the distance of distant objects.This study was published in the Physical Review Letters and was the result of a collaboration between Professor Yoon Ho Kim's team at POSTECH in South Korea and the Center for Quantum Scienc...

    2023-12-08
    See translation

  • Unsupervised physical neural network empowers stacked imaging denoising algorithm

    In view of the reconstruction problem of stack imaging technology in noisy environment, Lin Nan's team from Shanghai Institute of Optics and Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, proposed an innovative method ProPtyNet based on unsupervised physical neural network, which is expected to be applied to chip CD measurement and defect detection. The article was published in Optics and lasers in engin...

    03-25
    See translation

  • Microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy prepared by dual ultrasonic vibration assisted directional energy deposition

    1. Research backgroundDirected energy deposition (DED), as an efficient and economical technology in the field of additive manufacturing (AM), is widely used in the manufacturing of metal materials. However, its high heating and cooling rates, as well as significant temperature gradients, often lead to rapid solidification, forming cross layer columnar grains and internal defects, seriously affect...

    03-21
    See translation

  • Trends and Reflections on the Laser Industry in 2025

    In 2024, the laser industry will still reach new heights, although some predicted concerns have been fulfilled! From beginning to end, the development path of the manufacturing industry has been full of uncertainty, but as time passes and we enter a new year, new technologies continue to emerge like mushrooms after rain.In 2025, practitioners in the laser and manufacturing industries still face ma...

    01-02
    See translation

  • Researchers improve laser behavior by tying laser knots

    Researchers have created a new type of laser that, despite environmental noise and manufacturing defects, still performs as expected. Technically speaking, researchers have created a topology, time, and mode-locked laser. This study has the potential to improve sensors and computing hardware.A mode-locked laser emits light with regular pulses instead of a continuous beam. Pulses can be very counta...

    2024-03-07
    See translation