Hamit Kalaycioglu

Ablation-cooled material removal with ultrafast bursts of pulses

The use of femtosecond laser pulses allows precise and thermal-damage-free removal of material (ablation) with wide-ranging scientific, medical and industrial applications. However, its potential is limited by the low speeds at which material can be removed and the complexity of the associated laser technology. The complexity of the laser design arises from the need to overcome the high pulse energy threshold for efficient ablation. However, the use of more powerful lasers to increase the ablation rate results in unwanted effects such as shielding, saturation and collateral damage from heat accumulation at higher laser powers. Here we circumvent this limitation by exploiting ablation cooling, in analogy to a technique routinely used in aerospace engineering. We apply ultrafast successions (bursts) of laser pulses to ablate the target material before the residual heat deposited by previous pulses diffuses away from the processing region. Proof-of-principle experiments on various substrates demonstrate that extremely high repetition rates, which make ablation cooling possible, reduce the laser pulse energies needed for ablation and increase the efficiency of the removal process by an order of magnitude over previously used laser parameters. We also demonstrate the removal of brain tissue at two cubic millimetres per minute and dentine at three cubic millimetres per minute without any thermal damage to the bulk.

Influence of doping concentration on the power performance of diode-pumped continuous-wave Tm/sup 3+/:YAlO/sub 3/ lasers

We investigated the effect of thulium ion concentration on the continuous-wave (CW) power performance of diode single-end-pumped thulium-doped YAlO/sub 3/ (Tm:YAP) lasers. Three samples with 1.5%, 3%, and 4% Tm/sup 3+/ concentration were examined at 18/spl deg/C. Lifetime and fluorescence measurements were further performed to assess the strength of cross relaxation and nonradiative decay. Our results showed that in single-end-pumped configurations, the best CW power performance was obtained with the 1.5% Tm:YAP sample, and laser performance of the samples degraded monotonically with increasing Tm/sup 3+/ concentration. By using 9.5 W of incident pump power at 797 nm, a maximum of 1430 mW of output power was obtained with the 1.5% Tm:YAP sample and 2% output coupler. We discuss how the effects of cross relaxation, reabsorption, nonradiative decay, and internal heating vary with increasing concentration. Spectroscopic measurements and rate-equation analysis suggest that cross relaxation should already be effective in samples with 1.5% Tm/sup 3+/ ion concentration and doping concentrations larger than 4% will lead to degradation in power performance due to higher nonradiative decay rates and larger reabsorption losses.

Texturing of titanium (Ti6Al4V) medical implant surfaces with MHz-repetition-rate femtosecond and picosecond Yb-doped fiber lasers

We propose and demonstrate the use of short pulsed fiber lasers in surface texturing using MHz-repetition-rate, microjoule- and sub-microjoule-energy pulses. Texturing of titanium-based (Ti6Al4V) dental implant surfaces is achieved using femtosecond, picosecond and (for comparison) nanosecond pulses with the aim of controlling attachment of human cells onto the surface. Femtosecond and picosecond pulses yield similar results in the creation of micron-scale textures with greatly reduced or no thermal heat effects, whereas nanosecond pulses result in strong thermal effects. Various surface textures are created with excellent uniformity and repeatability on a desired portion of the surface. The effects of the surface texturing on the attachment and proliferation of cells are characterized under cell culture conditions. Our data indicate that picosecond-pulsed laser modification can be utilized effectively in low-cost laser surface engineering of medical implants, where different areas on the surface can be made cell-attachment friendly or hostile through the use of different patterns.

Fiber amplification of pulse bursts up to 20 μJpulse energy at 1 kHz repetition rate

We demonstrate burst-mode operation of a polarization-maintaining Yb-doped fiber amplifier. Groups of pulses with a temporal spacing of 10 ns and 1 kHz overall repetition rate are amplified to an average pulse energy of ∼20 μJ and total burst energy of 0.25 mJ. The pulses are externally compressed to ∼400 fs. The amplifier is synchronously pulsed-pumped to minimize amplified spontaneous emission between the bursts. We characterize the influence of pump pulse duration, pump-to-signal delay, and signal burst length.

1 mJ pulse bursts from a Yb-doped fiber amplifier

We demonstrate burst-mode operation of a polarization-maintaining Yb-doped fiber amplifier capable of generating 60 μJ pulses within bursts of 11 pulses with extremely uniform energy distribution facilitated by a novel feedback mechanism shaping the seed of the burst-mode amplifier. The burst energy can be scaled up to 1 mJ, comprising 25 pulses with 40 μJ average individual energy. The amplifier is synchronously pulse pumped to minimize amplified spontaneous emission between the bursts. Pulse propagation is entirely in fiber and fiber-integrated components until the grating compressor, which allows for highly robust operation. The burst repetition rate is set to 1 kHz and spacing between individual pulses is 10 ns. The 40 μJ pulses are externally compressible to a full width at half-maximum of 600 fs. However, due to the substantial pedestal of the compressed pulses, the effective pulse duration is longer, estimated to be 1.2 ps.

Doping management for high-power fiber lasers: 100 W, few-picosecond pulse generation from an all-fiber-integrated amplifier

Thermal effects, which limit the average power, can be minimized by using low-doped, longer gain fibers, whereas the presence of nonlinear effects requires use of high-doped, shorter fibers to maximize the peak power. We propose the use of varying doping levels along the gain fiber to circumvent these opposing requirements. By analogy to dispersion management and nonlinearity management, we refer to this scheme as doping management. As a practical first implementation, we report on the development of a fiber laser-amplifier system, the last stage of which has a hybrid gain fiber composed of high-doped and low-doped Yb fibers. The amplifier generates 100 W at 100 MHz with pulse energy of 1 μJ. The seed source is a passively mode-locked fiber oscillator operating in the all-normal-dispersion regime. The amplifier comprises three stages, which are all-fiber-integrated, delivering 13 ps pulses at full power. By optionally placing a grating compressor after the first stage amplifier, chirp of the seed pulses can be controlled, which allows an extra degree of freedom in the interplay between dispersion and self-phase modulation. This way, the laser delivers 4.5 ps pulses with ~200 kW peak power directly from fiber, without using external pulse compression.

Microjoule-energy, 1 MHz repetition rate pulses from all-fiber-integrated nonlinear chirped-pulse amplifier

We demonstrate generation of pulses with up to 4 microJ energy at 1 MHz repetition rate through nonlinear chirped-pulse amplification in an entirely fiber-integrated amplifier, seeded by a fiber oscillator. The peak power and the estimated nonlinear phase shift of the amplified pulses are as much as 57 kW and 22pi, respectively. The shortest compressed pulse duration of 140 fs is obtained for 3.1 microJ of uncompressed amplifier output energy at 18pi of nonlinear phase shift. At 4 microJ of energy, the nonlinear phase shift is 22pi and compression leads to 170-fs-long pulses. Numerical simulations are utilized to model the experiments and identify the limitations. Amplification is ultimately limited by the onset of Raman amplification of the longer edge of the spectrum with an uncompressible phase profile.

Spectroscopic analysis of Tm3+:LuAG

We studied the spectroscopic properties of two thulium-doped Lu3Al5O12 (Tm:LuAG) samples with Tm3+ concentrations of 0.5 and 5 at.%. Judd–Ofelt theory was used to analyse the absorption spectra and to determine the radiative transition rates. Fluorescence measurements were further performed to determine the luminescence quantum efficiencies. The average radiative lifetimes of the 3H4 and 3F4 levels were calculated to be 1041 ± 143 µs and 17.7 ± 3.4 ms, respectively. We observed a sharp increase in the strength of cross relaxation for the 5% Tm:LuAG sample evidenced by the much shorter fluorescence lifetime of 42.3 µs for the 3H4 level, in comparison with 851 µs for the 0.5% Tm:LuAG sample. This was further supported by the relative emission measurements at 1470 and 1800 nm. The measured fluorescence lifetime of the 3F4 level showed a smaller decrease from 11.2 ms (0.5% doping) to 7.1 ms (5% doping). By using the Judd–Ofelt theory, the stimulated emission cross section was further calculated to be 1.2 ± 0.2 × 10−21 cm2 at 2023 nm, corresponding to the free running wavelength of Tm:LuAG lasers. Finally, the critical distance parameter R0 for cross relaxation was determined to be 10.2 ± 0.8 A from the fluorescence decay data.

Modulated and continuous-wave operations of low-power thulium "Tm:YAP… laser in tissue welding

Our aim is to explore the welding capabilities of a thulium (Tm:YAP) laser in modulated and continuous-wave (CW) modes of operation. The Tm:YAP laser system developed for this study includes a Tm:YAP laser resonator, diode laser driver, water chiller, modulation controller unit, and acquisition/control software. Full-thickness incisions on Wistar rat skin were welded by the Tm:YAP laser system at 100 mW and 5 s in both modulated and CW modes of operation (34.66 Wcm(2)). The skin samples were examined during a 21-day healing period by histology and tensile tests. The results were compared with the samples closed by conventional suture technique. For the laser groups, immediate closure at the surface layers of the incisions was observed. Full closures were observed for both modulated and CW modes of operation at day 4. The tensile forces for both modulated and CW modes of operation were found to be significantly higher than the values found by conventional suture technique. The 1980-nm Tm:YAP laser system operating in both modulated and CW modes maximizes the therapeutic effect while minimizing undesired side effects of laser tissue welding. Hence, it is a potentially important alternative tool to the conventional suturing technique.

Low-power skin welding by thulium (Tm:YAP) laser at 1980-nm

Laser skin welding is an invasive method of bonding skin tissues by temperature increase due to laser energy [1]. In this study, a continuous-wave Tm:YAP laser at 1980 nm was designed as a versatile laser system for laser tissue welding. Due to higher water absorption near 1980 nm, lower power levels of Tm:YAP lasers (compared to smaller wavelength lasers) are enough for tissue welding and no solder is necessary to increase the absorption effect. This decreases the operation time and adverse effects due to solders. 2-µm lasers are also considered to be in the “eye-safe” region, which makes them more suitable for clinical applications [2].