Radially polarized cylindrical vector beams from a monolithic microchip laser

Monolithic microchip lasers consist of a thin slice of laser crystal where the cavity mirrors are deposited directly onto the end faces. While this property makes such lasers very compact and robust, it prohibits the use of intracavity laser beam shaping techniques to produce complex light fields. W...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optical engineering 2015-11, Vol.54 (11), p.111304-111304
Main Authors: Naidoo, Darryl, Fromager, Michael, Ait-Ameur, Kamel, Forbes, Andrew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beams (radiation)
Laser beams
Lasers
Light (visible radiation)
Mathematical analysis
Oscillations
Polarization
Vectors (mathematics)
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Summary:Monolithic microchip lasers consist of a thin slice of laser crystal where the cavity mirrors are deposited directly onto the end faces. While this property makes such lasers very compact and robust, it prohibits the use of intracavity laser beam shaping techniques to produce complex light fields. We overcome this limitation and demonstrate the selection of complex light fields in the form of vector-vortex beams directly from a monolithic microchip laser. We employ pump reshaping and a thermal gradient across the crystal surface to control both the intensity and polarization profile of the output mode. In particular, we show laser oscillation on a superposition of Laguerre-Gaussian modes of zero radial and nonzero azimuthal index in both the scalar and vector regimes. Such complex light fields created directly from the source could find applications in fiber injection, materials processing and in simulating quantum processes.
ISSN:0091-3286
1560-2303
DOI:10.1117/1.OE.54.11.111304