Abstract
The University of Central Florida invention is a multi-stage
diamond Raman Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA). Raman lasers, in
general, do not require rare-earth doping, as the vibrational modes of the
atomic structure or crystal lattice are the media for the effect. It is a nonlinear
effect, and as such, the gain is proportional to the intensity of the 1st
Stokes signal and the pump. Diamond Raman lasers have proven to be very
valuable, as the large Raman shift allows access to otherwise difficult
wavelength regions while using well-developed lasers as pumps. Also, as the
thermal conductivity of diamond is the highest of any bulk material, such lasers
are very resistant to thermal lensing. Normally, the caveat of Raman lasers is
the limited gain achievable in 1st Stokes before 2nd Stokes is generated; the
onset of 2nd Stokes saturates the pump depletion. This means a specific design
for a Raman laser works typically only across a relatively narrow range of
input intensities (that is, high threshold and low maximum scalability).
