François Gutty

Solid-state ring laser gyro behaving like its helium-neon counterpart at low rotation rates

Nonlinear couplings induced by crystal diffusion and spatial inhomogeneities of the gain have been suppressed over a broad range of angular velocities in a solid-state ring laser gyro by vibrating the gain crystal at 168 kHz and 0.4 microm along the laser cavity axis. This device behaves in the same way as a typical helium-neon ring laser gyro, with a zone of frequency lock-in (or dead band) resulting from the backscattering of light on the cavity mirrors. Furthermore, it is shown that the level of angular random-walk noise in the presence of mechanical dithering depends only on the quality of the cavity mirrors, as is the case with typical helium-neon ring laser gyros.

Multi-kW peak power acousto-optically tunable thulium-doped fiber laser system.

We demonstrate a core-pumped Q-switched thulium-doped fiber laser system with fast tunability capability over 100 nm without any movable part. With up to 7 kW peak power in a diffraction-limited beam, this source is well adapted for pumping a frequency agile mid-IR parametric oscillator or amplifier based on Quasi-Phase-Match single-period crystals.

Suppression of Nonlinear Interactions in Resonant Macroscopic Quantum Devices : The Example of the Solid-State Ring Laser Gyroscope

We report fine-tuning of nonlinear interactions in a solid-state ring laser gyroscope by vibrating the gain medium along the cavity axis. We demonstrate both experimentally and theoretically that nonlinear interactions vanish for some values of the vibration parameters, leading to quasi-ideal rotation sensing. We eventually point out that our conclusions can be mapped onto other subfields of physics such as ring-shaped superfluid configurations, where nonlinear interactions could be tuned by using Feshbach resonance.

First results of a QCL-OPA based standoff system, for detecting hazardous substances in the IR-fingerprint domain

Within the framework of the first European Defence Agency (EDA) call for protection against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats (CBRN Protection) we established a project on active multispectral reflection fingerprinting of persistent chemical agents (AMURFOCAL). A first paper on the project AMURFOCAL has been issued last year on the SPIE conference in Warsaw, Poland. This follow up paper will be accompanied by an additional paper that deals specifically with the aspect of the 100 W-level peak power laser system tunable in the LWIR. In order to close a capability gap and to achieve detection at stand-off distances our consortium built a high peak power pulsed laser system with fast tunability from 8 to 10 μm using an external-cavity quantum cascade laser and optical parametric amplification. This system had to be tested against different substances on various surfaces with different angles of inclination to evaluate the ability for an active stand-off technology with an eye-safe laser system to detect small amounts of hazardous substances and residues. The scattered light from the background surface interferes with the signal originating from the persistent chemicals. To account for this additional difficulty new software based on neutral networks was developed for evaluation. The paper describes the basic setup of the instrument and the experiments as well as some first results for this technology.

140 W peak power laser system tunable in the LWIR

We present a high peak power rapidly tunable laser system in the long-wave infrared comprising an external-cavity quantum cascade laser (EC-QCL) broadly tunable from 8 to 10 µm and an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) based on quasi phase-matching in orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs) of fixed grating period. The nonlinear crystal is pumped by a pulsed fiber laser system to achieve efficient amplification in the OPA. Quasi phase-matching remains satisfied when the EC-QCL wavelength is swept from 8 to 10 µm with a crystal of fixed grating period through tuning the pump laser source around 2 µm. The OPA demonstrates parametric amplification from 8 µm to 10 µm and achieves output peak powers up to 140 W with spectral linewidths below 3.5 cm-1. The beam profile quality (M2) remains below 3.4 in both horizontal and vertical directions. Compared to the EC-QCL, the linewidth broadening is attributed to a coupling with the OPA.

100 W-level peak power laser system tunable in the LWIR applied to detection of persistent chemical agents

Through the European Defence Agency, the Joint Investment Programme on CBRN protection funded the project AMURFOCAL to address detection at stand-off distances with amplified quantum cascade laser technology in the longwave infrared spectral range, where chemical agents have specific absorptions features. An instrument was developed based on infrared backscattering spectroscopy. We realized a pulsed laser system with a fast tunability from 8 to 10 μm using an external-cavity quantum cascade laser (EC-QCL) and optical parametric amplification (OPA). The EC-QCL is tunable from 8 to 10 μm and delivers output peak powers up to 500 mW. The peak power is amplified with high gain in an orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs) nonlinear crystal. We developed a pulsed fiber laser acousto-optically tunable from 1880 to 1980 nm with output peak powers up to 7 kW as pump source to realize an efficient quasi-phase matched OPA without any mechanical or thermal action onto the nonlinear crystal. Mixing the EC-QCL and the pump beams within the OP-GaAs crystal and tuning the pump wavelength enables parametric amplification of the EC-QCL from 8 to 10 μm leading to up to 120 W peak power. The output is transmitted to a target at a distance of 10 – 20 m. A receiver based on a broadband infrared detector comprises a few detector elements. A 3D data cube is registered by wavelength tuning the laser emission while recording a synchronized signal received from the target. The presentation will describe the AMURFOCAL instrument, its functional units and its principles of operation.

100 W-level peak-power laser system tunable from 8 to 10 μm

There is an increasing demand for tunable laser sources in the 8–12 μm spectral range for stand-off detection of chemical traces. In addition to high peak power, fast and wide spectral tunability are required. Among direct sources, external-cavity quantum cascade lasers (EC-QCL) have demonstrated a broad tunability with narrow linewidths and excellent beam quality [1] but their limited peak power restricts the stand-off detection range to a few meters. Orientation patterned GaAs (OP-GaAs) is an excellent nonlinear crystal candidate to reach this wavelength range through a three waves mixing process. A widely tunable pulsed optical parametric oscillator (OPO) was demonstrated [2] at the expense of a complex pump at 3 μm. A narrow linewidth OPO was reported in [3] but the crystal temperature tuning range remains limited and slowly addressed. Recently, we reported on a ∼40 W laser system tunable from 7.5 to 9 μm using parametric amplification (OPA) of an EC-QCL and a fast tunable thulium-doped fiber pump [4]. We present here an improved laser system tunable from 8 to 10 μm and delivering up to 140 W peak power thanks to a more robust polarization maintaining pump laser.

Solid-state ring laser gyro for aerospace applications

We report on the development of a prototype solidstate ring laser gyro based on a diode-pumped neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet crystal as the gain medium. We describe in this paper how we circumvent mode competition between the counter-propagating modes using a feedback loop acting on the differential losses. We then show how the non-linear frequency response can be significantly improved by vibrating the gain medium along the laser axis, leading to a behavior similar as a typical Helium-Neon ring laser gyro. We finally discuss the undergoing improvements for achieving high inertial performance with this device, with significant potential benefits in terms of cost and robustness as compared to other highperformance gyro technologies.

High peak-power laser system tuneable from 8 to 10 μm

Abstract A high peak-power rapidly tuneable laser system in the long-wave infrared is obtained using an external cavity quantum-cascade laser (EC-QCL) broadly tuneable from 8 to 10 μm and an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) based on quasi phase-matching in orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs). To provide an efficient amplification, the nonlinear crystal is pumped by a pulsed fiber laser source. With a pump laser source tuneable around 2 μm, quasi phase-matching remains satisfied with a fixed grating period in the OP-GaAs crystal when the EC-QCL wavelength is swept from 8 to 10 μm. The OPA demonstrates parametric amplification from 8 to 10 μm and achieves output peak powers up to 140 W, with spectral linewidths below 3.5 cm−1 and a beam profile quality (M2) below 3.4 in both horizontal and vertical directions.

Fine tuning of nonlinear interactions in a solid-state ring laser gyroscope

We report a strong reduction of nonlinear interactions in a solid-state ring laser gyroscope when the gain medium is vibrated inside the cavity. This considerably improves the quality of rotation sensing for this device.