The 2.1-/im 5I7-518 laser transition in Ho3+ is attractive because of its long upper laser level lifetime, of the order of 5 msec, and its eye-safe wavelength. However, this laser typically is cooled to liquid-N2 temperatures to achieve continuous-wave (cw) or high-repetition-rate operation because its lower laser level is in the ground-state manifold, a few hundred inverse centimeters above th...

We report the experimental observation of extreme instabilities in a self-pulsing fiber laser under the influence of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Specifically, we observe temporally localized structures with high intensities that can be referred to as rogue events through their statistical behaviour with highly-skewed intensity distributions. The emergence of these SBS-induced rogue w...

The laser signature, which can be observed as a result of the CO2 laser tuning, is used as a standard for calibration of the servomechanism. The servomechanism can be used for continuous investigations of the laser signatures of different laser media. Finally, some convenient signatures useful for a laser marker or single frequency laser operation can be find.

Fabrication and laser operation of proton-implanted Ti:sapphire buried channel waveguides is reported for the first time to our knowledge. Without any postimplantation annealing of the structures, continuous laser operation near 780 nm was demonstrated at room temperature at an absorbed pump power threshold of 230 mW. Single-transverse-mode laser emission was observed with measured beam propaga...

We have built a diode-laser-pumped Nd:YAG slab laser that emits 40 W of cw power in a TEM(00) mode and 72 W of power in multimode operation when pumped with 235 W. The slope efficiencies are 22% for TEM(00)-mode operation and 36% for multimode operation. The laser uses a zigzag slab geometry to reduce thermally induced distortions and operates at less than one wave of distortion at the full pum...