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Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application

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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Optics and Lasers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 August 2023) | Viewed by 21067

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Tongyu Dai

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Guest Editor

Natl Key Lab Tunable Laser Technol, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150000, China
Interests: mid-infrared laser; nonlinear optics; optical measurements; infrared laser detection
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Zhenxu Bai

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Guest Editor

Center for Advanced Laser Technology, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China
Interests: solid-state laser; nonlinear frequency conversion; Brillouin laser; Raman laser; high-power laser
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the past twenty years, there has been a growing interest in middle infrared (mid-IR) lasers and their application, which has benefited from the development of laser technology and laser gain medium, including solid-state laser material and fiber. Moreover, these works have promoted the development of related technical applications such as sensing, remote sensing, high-resolution spectroscopy, and so on.

This Special Issue of the journal Applied Sciences focuses on the most recent advances in mid-IR lasers, from materials to laser sources and applications. It aims to bring together the latest developments in novel mid-IR lasers, as well as the application of mid-IR technology in spectroscopy, trace gas detection, remote sensing, optical microscopy, biomedicine, and other mid-IR laser application technologies. Aspirant authors are encouraged to submit their latest original research, as well as forward-looking review papers, to this Special Issue.

Dr. Tongyu Dai
Prof. Dr. Zhenxu Bai
Guest Editors

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

middle infrared lasers
frequency conversion and parametric devices
sensing
trace gas detection
optical microscopy
biomedicine
middle infrared laser application

Related Special Issue

Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application: 2nd Edition in Applied Sciences

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 3758 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Performance Studies of High-Power Optical Parametric Oscillators Pumped by a Pulsed Fiber Laser

by Liemao Hu, Yuning Shao, Xinjie Lv, Jian Ning, Gang Zhao and Shining Zhu

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(13), 7356; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13137356 - 21 Jun 2023

Viewed by 916

Abstract

High-power optical parametric oscillators (OPOs), as mature radiation sources in mid-infrared (MIR), degenerate gradually with wavelength increase, mainly above 3700 nm. Using a periodically poled magnesium-oxide-doped lithium niobate (MgO:PPLN) as the nonlinear crystal, we build a high-power signal-resonant OPO pumped by ytterbium-doped fiber laser (YDFL). To improve the OPO’s output power at ~3.8 μm, the parameters, such as the pump beam’s waist diameter and location, the curvature radius of the output coupler and the length of MgO:PPLN, are discussed in detail. When pump power is 79 ± 4 W with a repetition rate of 200 kHz, the OPO provides up to 8 ± 0.4 W average power in beam quality with M² factors of ~1.84 and ~1.69 in the two axes. Under the highest output power, the center wavelength of the idler beam is 3768.4 nm with a full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) bandwidth of ~18.6 nm. When the output power reaches ~6.3 W, its power stability is 1.6% root mean square (RMS) over 7 h. Further analysis of the factors affecting OPO’s performance and simple structure are critically essential for compact OPO prototypes with a capacity of high output power. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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11 pages, 5292 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Stable and Compact Mid-IR at 6.45 μm Exceeding 6 mJ of Pulse Energy BaGa₄Se₇ Optical Parametric Oscillator

by Ning Wen, Yu Shen, Ya Wen, Erpeng Wang, Jiyong Yao, You Fang, Hongwei Gao, Yong Bo, Zhongzheng Chen and Qinjun Peng

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(11), 6413; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13116413 - 24 May 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1056

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a stable and compact high pulse energy mid-infrared (MIR) 6.45 μm laser, which is produced by an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on the non-oxide BaGa₄Se₇ (BGSe) nonlinear crystal pumped by 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser oscillator. With optimizing the parameters of the OPO system, a record high idler energy of 6.76 mJ at 6.45 μm was obtained with 18.85 ns of pulse duration (FWHM) at the repetition rate of 10 Hz under 93.5 mJ of pump energy, corresponding to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency up to 7.23% from 1064 nm to 6.45 μm. The experimental results were in close approximation with the theoretical calculations. To date, it is both the highest MIR pulse energy and the highest conversion efficiency at 6.45 μm for any 1 μm pumped OPOs. Further, excellent output energy stability is demonstrated, with an energy fluctuation of less than ±0.5% over 165 min. Such a laser is interesting for both scientific and medical applications, including, for instance, for trace gas analysis and tissue ablation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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11 pages, 2539 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Investigation of the Beam Quality of a Compact Non-Chain Pulsed DF Laser with a Confocal Positive Branch Unstable Resonator

by Laiming Zhang, Peng Ruan, Fei Chen, Chunlei Shao, Qikun Pan and Jin Guo

Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(5), 3229; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13053229 - 02 Mar 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1089

Abstract

The results of detailed studies on the beam quality of a non-chain pulsed electric discharged DF laser based on a compact inner cavity confocal positive branch unstable resonator were presented herein. The theoretical and experimental divergence angles for magnification M = 1.65, 1.85, 2.05, and 2.25 were calculated according to Fraunhofer diffraction and measured by the method of calibrated apertures. The smallest divergence of θ = 0.66 mrad was obtained with M = 2.25 in our experiment, which is 1.95 times the theoretical value. The corresponding far-field energy density at 10 km distance from the laser exit was 82.8 mJ/m². The beam quality and energy density were increased by 11 and 91 times, respectively, compared with a similar stable resonator in our lab. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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7 pages, 1386 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Graphene Passively Q-Switched Nd:YAG Laser by 885 nm Laser Diode Resonant Pumping

by Liwei Xu, Yingyi Li, Jun Cai, Wanli Zhao, Tongyu Liu, Tongyu Dai, Youlun Ju and Yu Ding

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(16), 8365; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12168365 - 21 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1725

Abstract

A graphene passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser experienced resonant pumping by an 885 nm laser diode (LD), as demonstrated in this paper. In the continuous-wave operation, the maximum average output power was up to 1.8 W with the absorbed pump power being 11.7 W, and the slope efficiency was 51.2%. In the Q-switching operation, the maximum average output power was up to 639 mW with a pulse width of 2.06 μs at the repetition frequency of 102.7 kHz, while the slope efficiency and the beam quality factor M² were 25.3% and 1.25, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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9 pages, 2549 KiB

Open AccessArticle

High Pulse Energy, Narrow Linewidth 6.45 μm from an Optical Parametric Oscillator in BaGa₄Se₇ Crystal

by Yu Shen, Ning Wen, Chunxiao Li, Nan Zong, Jiyong Yao, Jinquan Chang, Ya Wen, Feng Yang, Wenlong Li, Hongwei Gao, Yong Bo, Qinjun Peng and Dafu Cui

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(13), 6689; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12136689 - 01 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1364

Abstract

This paper presents a high pulse energy, narrow linewidth, mid-infrared (MIR) laser at 6.45 μm, based on a BaGa₄Se₇ (BGSe) crystal optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped by 1.064 μm laser. The maximum pulse energy at 6.45 μm was up to 1.23 mJ, with a pulse width of 24.3 ns and repetition rate of 10 Hz, corresponding to an optical–optical conversion efficiency of 2.1%, from pump light 1.064 μm to idler light 6.45 μm. The idler light linewidth was about 6.8 nm. Meanwhile, we accurately calculated the OPO phase-matching condition at BGSe crystal pumped by 1.064 μm laser, and a numerical simulation system was performed to analyze the input–output characteristics at 6.45 μm, as well as the effect of crystal length on the conversion efficiency. Good agreement was found between measurement and simulation. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest pulse energy at 6.45 μm, with the narrowest linewidth for any all-solid-state MIR ns laser in BGSe-OPO pumped by simple 1.064 μm oscillator. This simple and compact 6.45 μm OPO system, with high pulse energy and narrow linewidth, can meet the requirements for tissue cutting and improve tissue ablation accuracy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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13 pages, 7624 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Vehicle Detection for Unmanned Systems Based on Multimodal Feature Fusion

by Yuli Wang, Hui Liu and Nan Chen

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(12), 6198; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12126198 - 18 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1625

Abstract

This paper proposes a 3D vehicle-detection algorithm based on multimodal feature fusion to address the problem of low vehicle-detection accuracy in unmanned system environment awareness. The algorithm matches the coordinate relationships between the two sensors and reduces sampling errors by combining the millimeter-wave radar and camera calibration. Statistical filtering is used to remove redundant points from the millimeter-wave radar data to reduce outlier interference; a multimodal feature fusion module is constructed to fuse the point cloud and image information using pixel-by-pixel averaging. Moreover, feature pyramids are added to extract fused high-level feature information, which is used to improve detection accuracy in complex road scenarios. A feature fusion region proposal structure was established to generate region proposals based on the high-level feature information. The vehicle detection results were obtained by matching the detection frames in their vertices after removal of the redundant detection frames using non-maximum suppression. Experimental results from the KITTI dataset show that the proposed method improved the efficiency and accuracy of vehicle detection with the corresponding average of 0.14 s and 84.71%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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13 pages, 5098 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Simultaneously Wavelength- and Temperature-Insensitive Mid-Infrared Optical Parametric Amplification with LiGaS₂ Crystal

by Zhixuan Hu and Jingui Ma

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 2886; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12062886 - 11 Mar 2022

Viewed by 1714

Abstract

Ultrafast mid-infrared (mid-IR) lasers with a high pulse repetition rate are in great demand in various fields, including attosecond science and strong-field physics. Due to the lack of suitable mid-IR laser gain medium, optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) are used to generate an ultrafast mid-IR laser. However, the efficiency of OPA is sensitive to phase mismatches induced by wavelength and temperature deviations from the preset points, which thus limits the pulse duration and the average power of the mid-IR laser. Here, we exploited a noncollinear phase-matching configuration to achieve simultaneously wavelength- and temperature-insensitive mid-IR OPA with a LiGaS₂ crystal. The noncollinearity can cancel the first-order dependence of phase matching on both wavelength and temperature. Benefitting from the thermal property of the LiGaS₂ crystal, some collinear phase-matching solutions derived from the first-order and even third-order wavelength insensitivity have comparatively large temperature bandwidths and can be regarded as approximate solutions with simultaneous wavelength and temperature insensitivity. These simultaneously wavelength- and temperature-insensitive phase-matching designs are verified through numerical simulations in order to generate few-cycle, high-power mid-IR pulses. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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9 pages, 4457 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study on Mid-Infrared Energy Conversion of a Doubly Resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator Using Aperiodically Poled Lithium Niobate

by Zijian Wang, Bingyang Li, Yuheng Wang, Renzhe Han, Yaru Yang, Yongji Yu and Guangyong Jin

Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(3), 1739; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12031739 - 08 Feb 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1490

Abstract

This paper presents an external-cavity dual-wavelength mid-infrared multiple optical parametric oscillator based on a single MgO:APLN crystal, which is pumped by a pulsed 1.064 μm laser. The output power and beam qualities of parametric lasers at different repetition rates and transmittance were studied. When the pump power of the 1.064 μm laser was 34.5 W, the repetition rate was 63 kHz, the maximum output powers of 2.79 [email protected] μm and 4.92 [email protected] μm were obtained with the transmittance T = 60%@1.57 μm, corresponding to optical–optical conversion efficiencies of 8.1% and 14.3%, respectively. Meanwhile, the beam qualities of two mid-infrared laser beams were effectively optimized and the pulse widths of 9.72 [email protected] μm and 9.67 [email protected] μm were obtained synchronously. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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8 pages, 1356 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mid-Infrared Multispectral Gaseous Stimulated Raman Scattering Laser

by Chencheng Shen, Xianglong Cai, Tiancheng Zheng, Yuxi Jia, Dong Liu, Jinbo Liu and Jingwei Guo

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(24), 11875; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112411875 - 14 Dec 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1665

Abstract

We demonstrated mid-infrared gaseous stimulated Raman scattering lasers in free space. Mixed gases of hydrogen and deuterium were used as Raman gain media in one Raman cell. Pumped by laser pulses at 1064 nm, the first Stokes Raman components at 1560 nm and 1907 nm were generated. A four-wave mixing process with the pump laser at 1064 nm and Raman lasers at 1560 nm and 1907 nm contributed to dramatically reducing the threshold of mid-IR laser generation at 4432 nm. The maximum output peak power of a mid-IR laser at 4432 nm reached 121 kW. Furthermore, by scattering on the rotational transition of deuterium, multispectral mid-IR Raman lasers at wavelengths of 2071 nm, 2266 nm, 2604 nm, 2920 nm, 3322 nm, 3743 nm, 4432 nm, and 5431 nm were also generated. Our results show that this is a convenient method to reduce the threshold and achieve a high power output with mid-IR Raman lasers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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7 pages, 2227 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Diode Pumped Middle Infrared Laser Based on Ho: GdVO₄ Crystal

by Yu Ding, Tongyu Liu and Mengmeng Yan

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(23), 11537; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112311537 - 06 Dec 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1178

Abstract

Ho: GdVO₄ crystal is the host material for the production of laser working in the middle infrared range. In this contribution, the characteristic parameters of the Ho: GdVO₄ crystal were measured, and the material was used as a gain medium to build a diode-pumped laser for the first time, to reach a laser output at 2047.9 nm. The output beam quality factor M² was measured to be 1.4 and 1.3 in x-direction and y-direction, respectively. In addition, the influence of the transmittance of the output mirror on the generation of laser was obtained through exploration. The results showed that the laser wavelength blue-shifted as the output transmittance increased. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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22 pages, 2989 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development Progress of 3–5 μm Mid-Infrared Lasers: OPO, Solid-State and Fiber Laser

by Tingwei Ren, Chunting Wu, Yongji Yu, Tongyu Dai, Fei Chen and Qikun Pan

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(23), 11451; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112311451 - 03 Dec 2021

Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3257

Abstract

A 3–5 μm mid-infrared band is a good window for atmospheric transmission. It has the advantages of high contrast and strong penetration under high humidity conditions. Therefore, it has important applications in the fields of laser medicine, laser radar, environmental monitoring, remote sensing, molecular spectroscopy, industrial processing, space communication and photoelectric confrontation. In this paper, the application background of mid-infrared laser is summarized. The ways to realize mid-infrared laser output are described by optical parametric oscillation, mid-infrared solid-state laser doped with different active ions and fiber laser doped with different rare earth ions. The advantages and disadvantages of various mid-infrared lasers are briefly described. The technical approaches, schemes and research status of mid-infrared lasers are introduced. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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10 pages, 2195 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Theoretical and Experimental Investigation on Temperature Rise of CFRP with Long Pulse Laser Irradiation

by Yao Ma, Qiang Huang, Yixin Yu, Yuan Dong, Hui Li, Guangyong Jin and Chao Xin

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10555; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112210555 - 09 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1620

Abstract

Carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) are a widely used composite material applied in both commercial and industrial utilization. Based on the heat conduction theory, a theoretical model for the temperature rise of braided CFRP irradiated by long pulse laser is established in this work, and the time required for the maximum temperature rise of CFRP (with different thicknesses) to be acted by long pulse laser with different energy densities and pulse widths is simulated. At the same time, the temperature rise experiment and damage morphology of a long pulse laser with braided CFRP were carried out. The theoretical simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which verifies the correctness of the theoretical model. The results of this paper will provide a theoretical basis for laser processing of CFRP. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Middle Infrared (Mid-IR) Lasers and Their Application)

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