Abstract. An innovative type of optical component-a volume Bragg grating-has recently become available commercially and has found wide applications in optics and photonics due to its unusually fine spectral and angular filtering capability. Reflecting volume Bragg gratings, with the grating period gradually changing along the beam propagation direction (chirped Bragg gratings-CBGs) provide stretching and recompression of ultrashort laser pulses. CBGs, being monolithic, are robust devices that have a footprint three orders of magnitude smaller than that of a conventional Treacy compressor. CBGs recorded in photo-thermo-refractive glass can be used in the spectral range from 0.8 to 2.5 μm with the diffraction efficiency exceeding 90%, and provide stretching up to 1 ns and compression down to 200 fs for pulses with energies and average powers exceeding 1 mJ and 250 W, respectively, while keeping the recompressed beam quality M 2 < 1.4, and possibly as low as 1.1. This paper discusses fundamentals of stretching and compression by CBGs, the main parameters of the gratings including the CBG effects on the laser beam quality, and currently achievable CBG specifications. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.

We investigate a novel surface-emitting superluminescent diode configuration that uses two detuned grating outcouplers to suppress lasing. This device exhibits a shaped beam with a peak power of 1.5 W quasi-continuous wave with an 11 nm bandwidth centered on 970 nm.

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We summarize a novel integrated wavelength-stabilization scheme for broad stripe surface-emitting lasers. The method is based on two gratings fabricated on opposite sides of a device in which the first grating disperses light through the substrate to the opposite side, where the second surface has a feedback grating that operates under total internal reflection and in the Littrow condition to provide feedback into the gain medium. Experimental results have been obtained for both high power and a narrow linewidth, showing a CW slope of 0.85 W/A.

The advantages of a vertical stack configuration of laser diodes for high peak power, short-pulse generation under fast electrical pumping are demonstrated. 50 ps, 5 nJ optical pulses from a stack of 10 laser diodes have been obtained. This is the best time performance obtained to date from a multi-element gain-switched laser diode