chanelink logo
CHANELINK
English

Scientists use glass to create femtosecond lasers

1071
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 University of Rochester has received nearly $18 million to build the world's highest power laser system

    After receiving a $14.9 million contract from the US Department of Defense (DOD) last month to study the pulse laser effect, the University of Rochester recently received nearly $18 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the key technology design and prototype of the EP-OPAL, also known as the OMEGA EP coupled optical parametric amplifier line (OPAL).EP-OPAL is a new fac...

    2023-09-28
    See translation

  • Feasibility Study on Composite Manufacturing of Laser Powder Bed Melting and Cold Casting

    It is reported that researchers from the Technical University of Munich in Germany have reported a feasibility study on the composite manufacturing of EN AC-42000 alloy by combining laser powder bed melting and cold casting. The related research titled "Feasibility study on hybrid manufacturing combining laser based powder bed fusion and chill casting on the example of EN AC-42000 alloy" was publi...

    2024-06-06
    See translation

  • Showcasing the world's fastest photonics alignment system for SiPh chips on Photonics West

    With its proprietary fast multi-channel photon alignment algorithm and professional high-precision machinery, PI helps customers improve production efficiency to participate in the rapidly growing silicon photonics market. Over the past decade, PI has been continuously expanding its range of automatic photon alignment engines and will launch new systems at both ends of the spectrum in this year's ...

    2024-01-19
    See translation

  • High power blue laser manufacturer NUBURU launches related working group

    Recently, high-power blue laser manufacturer NUBURU announced the official launch of a working group consisting of a joint management team from the company and the target defense technology enterprise, which was part of the previous acquisition plan. According to the joint research and development agreement signed by NUBURU in March, the working group will also be responsible for overseeing the ...

    05-24
    See translation

  • German laser company Marvel Fusion recently raised 62.8 million euros in funding

    Recently, Marvel Fusion, a private German company dedicated to commercializing fusion energy through its own laser technology, announced that it has recently raised 62.8 million euros in Series B funding. This round of investors includes HV Capital, b2venture, Earlybird Venture Capital, Athos Venture, Primepulse, Plural Platform, and Deutsche Telekom. Meanwhile, Marvel Fusion has also received add...

    2024-10-12
    See translation