Injection Mode-Locked, Q-Switched Nd:YAG Laser at 1319 nm

Author

Simakov, Nikita ; Hosken, David J. ; Hamilton, Murray W. ; Munch, Jesper ; Veitch, Peter J.

Author_Institution

Univ. of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Volume

46

Issue

7

fYear

2010

fDate

7/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1086

Lastpage

1090

Abstract

There is currently no laser source that can provide both efficient excitation of mesospheric sodium and allow removal of the effects of guide-star elongation, as required for multi-conjugate adaptive optics in next-generation extremely large telescopes. We describe a Q-switched 1319 nm Nd:YAG laser that is mode-locked by injecting a short pulse into the Q-switched laser. It produces Q-switched mode-locked pulses that are synchronized to an external source. We also discuss how such pulses at 1064 nm and 1319 nm can be used to generate pulsed sodium-resonant guide stars via sum frequency generation, and thus satisfy the above requirements.

Keywords

Q-switching; adaptive optics; laser mode locking; neodymium; optical pulse generation; sodium; solid lasers; yttrium compounds; Q-switched laser; YAG:Nd; injection mode-locked laser; sodium-resonant guide stars; sodium-resonant guide-star lasers; sum frequency generation; wavelength 1064 nm; wavelength 1319 nm; Adaptive optics; Astronomy; Atmosphere; Frequency; Laser mode locking; Optical pulse generation; Optical pulses; Optical scattering; Telescopes; Ultraviolet sources; Injection mode-locked; Nd:YAG; Q-switched; laser guide star;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.2010.2043501

Filename

5440019