High-power laser using thulium-doped fiber amplifier and frequency quadrupling for blue output

• Main Authors: MEAD ROY D, HONEA ERIC C, MINELLY JOHN D
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 10.02.2015
• Subjects: BASIC ELECTRIC ELEMENTS; DEVICES USING STIMULATED EMISSION; ELECTRICITY

An apparatus, method and associated fiber-laser architectures for high-power pulsed operation and pumping wavelength-conversion devices. Some embodiments generate blue laser light by frequency quadrupling infrared (IR) light from Tm-doped gain fiber using non-linear wavelength conversion. Some embodiments use a fiber MOPA configuration to amplify a seed signal from a semiconductor laser or ring fiber laser. Some embodiments use the frequency-quadrupled blue light for underwater communications, imaging, and/or object and anomaly detection. Some embodiments amplitude modulate the IR seed signal to encode communication data sent to or from a submarine once the modulated light has its wavelength quartered. Other embodiments transmit blue-light pulses in a scanned pattern and detect scattered light to measure distances to objects in a raster-scanned underwater volume, which in turn are used to generate a data structure representing a three-dimensional rendition of the underwater scene being imaged for viewing by a person or for other software analysis.