Diode-laser illuminator with interchangeable modules for changing irradiance and beam dimensions
Granted: December 10, 2013
Patent Number:
8602592
Projection apparatus for projecting a radiation spot on a working plane includes a plurality of stacks of diode-laser bars. Each stack provides a beam of laser radiation. The diode-laser bars in each stack are arranged one above another in the fast-axis direction of the diode-laser bars. A corresponding plurality of beam-expanders expands the beam from the corresponding diode-laser bar stack in the slow-axis direction of the diode laser bars only. A focusing lens collects the slow-axis…
Beam-combiner for fiber-delivered laser-beams of different wavelengths
Granted: December 3, 2013
Patent Number:
8599487
A beam combiner for combining laser-beams of different colors along a common path includes a directing-prism for each of the laser-beams and one combining-prism. The directing-prisms are arranged to transmit the laser-beams to the combining-prism. The directing-prisms and the combining-prism are configured and arranged with respect to each other such that the directing-prism transmits the beams along the common path.
Line-projection apparatus for arrays of diode-laser bar stacks
Granted: December 3, 2013
Patent Number:
8596823
In optical apparatus for illuminating a mask-plane with a line of light, a light source includes four fast-axis stacks of laser diode bars. One optical arrangement collects light beams from all of the diode-laser bar stacks, homogenizes and expands the beams in the fast-axis direction of the diode-laser bar stacks and partially overlaps the homogenized and expanded beams in the fast-axis direction. Another optical arrangement homogenizes the sum of the partially overlapped beams and…
Edge-emitting semiconductor laser with photonic-bandgap structure formed by intermixing
Granted: November 12, 2013
Patent Number:
8582616
A separate-confinement heterostructure, edge-emitting semiconductor laser having a wide emitter width has elongated spaced apart intermixed and disordered zones extending through and alongside the emitter parallel to the emission direction of the emitter. The intermixed zones inhibit lasing of high order modes. This limits the slow axis divergence of a beam emitted by the laser.
Frequency-tripled fiber-MOPA
Granted: November 12, 2013
Patent Number:
8582611
In a frequency-tripled fiber-MOPA, a pre-amplified plane-polarized seed-pulse having a fundamental frequency is divided into two pulse-components, plane-polarized in polarization-orientations at 90-degrees to each other. The fundamental-wavelength pulse-components are amplified in a common amplifier-fiber. The amplified components are separately propagated on different optical paths. One of the amplified components is frequency-doubled. The frequency-doubled component on one path and…
Single-mode intra-cavity frequency-doubled CW solid-state laser with volumetric gain-grating
Granted: October 15, 2013
Patent Number:
8559472
A solid state-gain medium is in the form of a thin disk backed by a reflective coating. A laser resonator is formed by the reflective coating and another mirror. Optical pump radiation is directed into the thin-disk gain-medium for energizing the gain-medium and generating a standing wave of fundamental-wavelength radiation in the resonator. The pump-radiation is directed into the gain-medium at an angle to the resonator axis and pump-radiation fringes are formed by interference between…
Laser printer with multiple laser-beam sources
Granted: October 15, 2013
Patent Number:
8558859
A laser printer arranged to print a pixellated image on laser sensitive tape includes a carriage on which are arranged two laser-beam sources delivering separately modulated laser-beams and optics for focusing the beams on the tape. The tape is mounted on a tape drive which drives the tape incrementally in one direction. The carriage is translated over the tape in a direction perpendicular to the tape-drive direction, while the modulated beams are focused. Two rows of the pixellated…
Frequency divider with synchronous range extension across octave boundaries
Granted: October 8, 2013
Patent Number:
8552770
A frequency divider based on a series of divide-by-2/3 cells and divide-by-1/2/3 cells using extended division range is disclosed. The frequency divider uses modified divide-by-1/2/3 cells and additional circuit elements to correctly divide an input frequency by a divisor on successive output cycles while the divisor transitions across an octave boundary. The frequency divider creates a divide-by-1 mode for unused divide-by-1/2/3 cells in the series of cells. The divide-by-1 mode passes…
Enhanced optical pumping of materials exhibiting polarization-dependent absorption
Granted: September 24, 2013
Patent Number:
8542713
An optically pumped laser oscillator or amplifier including a laser head including a gain medium exhibiting polarization-dependent absorption along two crystallographic axes and a pump source producing a pump beam. The medium's absorption coefficients along both of the crystallographic axes are equal or the difference between the absorption coefficients relative to the lowest absorption coefficients is reduced at least by a factor of two compared to the same relative difference between…
Fiber-laser pumped by stabilized diode-laser bar stack
Granted: September 17, 2013
Patent Number:
8537865
A fiber is laser is pumped by radiation from a plurality of diode-laser bars which are wavelength-locked by a single feedback mirror in combination with a single band-pass filter. The locked wavelength of the plurality of diode-laser bars is tunable by tilt-tuning the band-pass filter.
Hybrid fiber-MOPA
Granted: August 13, 2013
Patent Number:
8508844
A master oscillator power-amplifier stages includes multiple stages of fiber-amplification with a final power amplifier stage in the form of a multi-pass amplifier. With a thin-disk gain medium in one example the thin-disk amplifier includes a common optical arrangement for providing multiple incidences of radiation to be amplified and multiple incidences of a pump-radiation beam on the thin-disk gain medium.
Large-field unit-magnification catadioptric projection system
Granted: July 23, 2013
Patent Number:
8493670
A unit magnification projection optical system includes, listed in order along a system axis, a mirror, a lens group having negative power and a lens group having positive power. The optical system is a symmetric system, with an object plane on one side of the system axis and an object plane on an opposite side of the system axis. The object and image planes are spaced apart from the positive lens group by a working distance greater than 100 millimeters.
Transmitting and receiving control information for use with multimedia streams
Granted: July 16, 2013
Patent Number:
8489762
First control information, generated according to a first protocol version, for configuring an audiovisual device to present a multimedia stream, may be generated. A first data structure specifying that the first control information is of the first protocol version may be generated. A plurality of packets, including a multimedia stream, the first control information, and the first data structure, may be generated and transmitted. Second control information, generated according to a…
Diode-laser bar package
Granted: July 9, 2013
Patent Number:
8483249
A diode-laser bar package includes a diamond composite heat-sink on which is soft-solder bonded a copper-pad having an area much greater than that of the diode-laser bar. A constraining-block of a metal having a CTE matching that of the diode-laser bar is hard-solder bonded to the conductive pad. The constraining-block is configured such that the conductive pad in the region of the diode-laser bar has a CTE about equal to that of the constraining-block, and, accordingly, the diode-laser…
Advanced shifting algorithm for prolonging the life of an optically nonlinear crystal
Granted: July 9, 2013
Patent Number:
8482846
In a shifting algorithm for an optically nonlinear crystal arranged to frequency-convert beam of radiation, the location of one or more defects in the crystal is recorded as an exclusion zone. The location of the beam is stepped incrementally over a surface around a closed or open loop path in increments less than a beam dimension. The path is arranged such that the beam does not enter the exclusion zone.
Stall propagation in a processing system with interspersed processors and communicaton elements
Granted: July 2, 2013
Patent Number:
8478964
A processing system includes processors and dynamically configurable communication elements (DCCs) coupled together in an interspersed arrangement. A source device may transfer a data item through an intermediate subset of the DCCs to a destination device. The source and destination devices may each correspond to different processors, DCCs, or input/output devices, or mixed combinations of these. In response to detecting a stall after the source device begins transfer of the data item to…
Polarization maintaining multi-pass imaging system for thin-disk amplifiers and oscillators
Granted: July 2, 2013
Patent Number:
8477825
Multi-pass optical imaging apparatus includes a concave mirror in combination with two retro-reflecting mirror pairs and at least one reflective surface. The mirror, the retro-reflecting mirror pairs and the reflecting surface are arranged such that a light-ray input into the apparatus parallel to and spaced apart from the optical axis of the concave mirror and incident on the concave mirror is caused to be incident on the thin-disk gain-medium at least four times, with each of the four…
Optical parametric oscillator pumped by femtosecond thin-disk laser
Granted: July 2, 2013
Patent Number:
8477410
Pulses from a mode-locked Yb-doped laser are spectrally broadened, and temporally compressed, then frequency-doubled and used to pump an optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The OPO output is tunable over a wavelength range from about 600 nm to about 1100 nm.
Carrier envelope phase stabilization of an optical amplifier
Granted: June 11, 2013
Patent Number:
8462427
A laser and amplifier combination delivers a sequence of optical pulses. Pulses from the laser are temporally stretched by a pulse stretcher before amplification and temporally compressed by a pulse compressed after amplification. The pulse stretcher includes a diffraction grating on which pulses being compressed are incident. An arrangement is provided for measuring the carrier-envelope phase of the pulses and adjusting the incidence angle of pulses on the grating cooperative with the…
Detection of low-amplitude echoes in a received communication signal
Granted: May 28, 2013
Patent Number:
8451933
A system and method for identifying minor echoes present in an input signal in the situation where a set of major echoes has already been identified from the input signal. The method includes: computing a spectrum F corresponding to a sum of the major echoes; computing a weighted power spectrum SM of the spectrum F; subtracting the weighted power spectrum SM from a weighted power spectrum PIN of the input signal to obtain a difference spectrum; performing a stabilized division of the…
