Patent ID: 8477410
Filing Date: 2013-07-02
Classification: G02F,H01S

Abstract:
1. Laser apparatus, comprising: a mode-locked laser including an ytterbium-doped solid state gain-medium and arranged to deliver mode-locked laser-radiation pulses having a fundamental wavelength, a first spectral bandwidth, and a first pulse-duration and a repetition period; a passive medium arranged to receive the mode-locked pulses from the mode-locked laser and broaden the spectral bandwidth of the pulses to a second spectral bandwidth; a pulse compressor arranged to compress the duration of the bandwidth-broadened pulses to a second duration shorter than the first duration; a first optically nonlinear crystal arranged to frequency-double the fundamental wavelength of the compressed pulses to provide frequency-doubled pump-pulses having a wavelength one-half that of the fundamental wavelength; and an optical parametric oscillator arranged to be optically pumped by the frequency-doubled pump-pulses, the optical parametric oscillator having a resonator including a second optically nonlinear crystal arranged to frequency-convert the frequency-doubled pump pulses to signal-pulses having a wavelength longer than that of the frequency-doubled pump-pulses and tunable within a predetermined range.