A novel pump scheme-chamfered-edge-pumping was employed for pumping a planar waveguide laser: A 12 mm-long edge was chamfered as a 0.2 mm wide bevel, pump light from the fast-axis-collimated LD was focused and coupled into the crystal through the chamfered-edge with a pump efficiency of 82%. The single-clad YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG planar waveguide was fabricated by thermal bonding technology with the geometry of 12 mm×5 mm×1 mm, which Nd:YAG core was 0.2 mm thick and symmetry claddings were 0.4 mm thick. A maximum output power of 15.5 W at 1064 nm with a slop efficiency of 37%, an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 31% and a M 2 value of 1.6 in the guided direction was achieved for a pump power of 50 W. The laser system realized a relatively high optical-optical conversion efficiency and excellent beam quality in guided direction.

This paper presents a rotary microgripper with locking function enabled by a ratchet mechanism. The ratchet mechanism enables long-time gripping without having to continuously apply the external excitation signal such as the electrical, thermal or magnetic field. Thus the damage to the gripped micro-scale objects caused by the external excitation signals can be significantly reduced. A logic control strategy is proposed to solve the wearing problems of the ratchet mechanism. The stability of the microgripper is improved by increasing the length of the engaged line. The microgripper is fabricated by an improved silicon-on-insulator dicing-free process to protect the delicate device structure from damage during fabrication. The microgripper has a discrete opening range and can handle micro-scale objects with a size of 20 μm, 40 μm and 60 μm based on the current design parameters. A pick-lock-release gripping experiment on a magnolia pollen cell is performed to form a triangle to prove the feasibility of the gripper in handling biological cells.