Patent ID: 6625182
Filing Date: 2003-09-23
Classification: H01S

Abstract:
A laser system comprising:an optically active medium having a first and a second end, the optically active medium having sufficiently large lateral dimensions to support multiple transverse lasing modes; a back mirror attached to said first end to reflect light at a predetermined frequency; a mode-discriminating front mirror comprising an optical fiber having a core diameter sufficiently small to support only a single fundamental zero-order transverse mode, and a Bragg grating written in said optical fiber partially reflecting light at said predetermined frequency; and fiber coupling optics coupling light from said second end of said optically active medium to said optical fiber by reducing the width of a light beam from the width corresponding to the lateral dimensions of said optically active medium to the width corresponding to the core diameter of said optical fiber and compensating for beam divergence difference; wherein light at said predetermined frequency lases in an optical laser cavity defined between said back mirror and said mode-discriminating front mirror, and the optical feedback from said Bragg grating discriminates against lasing of higher-order transverse modes to stabilize high power lasing only at the fundamental zero-order transverse mode, and wherein said fiber coupling optics comprise anamorphic optics focusing light upon an input mirror formed on an input end of a solid-state rod having an output end coated with an anti-reflective coating.