Description
High average power ultrashort pulsed lasers in the visible and near infra-red (NIR) region are becoming established tools for a range of precision industrial manufacturing processes for which they can provide significant improvement compared with longer pulse length lasers. In some areas, particularly in glass processing, these ultrashort pulsed lasers have solved seemingly impossible manufacturing challenges. However the use of these lasers is often limited by the inflexibility of standard laser beam delivery techniques, since it is not possible to employ standard optical fibres due to a combination of optical non-linear effects, dispersion and optical damage mechanisms.Over the last decade several solutions have been proposed including large mode area fibres and hollow core photonic crystal fibres. However these are only a partial solution to the problem and struggle to cope with sub ns pulse durations.
This paper presents our recent work on hollow core Negative Curvature Fibres (NCF) that have the capability to deliver ultrashort, high peak power laser pulses in the visible and NIR spectral regions. The suitability of these fibres for industrial use is discussed with particular attention being made to bend losses, modal stability, attenuation and polarisation effects. Application of these fibres to deliver ultra-short pulsed laser pulses for material processing is also demonstrated.
| Period | 23 Mar 2017 |
|---|---|
| Event title | 5th Industrial Laser Applications Symposium 2017 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Grantham, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |