A digital laser for on-demand laser modes

Sandile Ngcobo, Igor Litvin, Liesl Burger and Andrew Forbes ()
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Sandile Ngcobo: School of Physics, University of KwaZulu–Natal
Igor Litvin: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, National Laser Centre
Liesl Burger: Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, National Laser Centre
Andrew Forbes: School of Physics, University of KwaZulu–Natal

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Customizing the output beam shape from a laser invariably involves specialized optical elements in the form of apertures, diffractive optics and free-form mirrors. Such optics require considerable design and fabrication effort and suffer from the further disadvantage of being immutably connected to the selection of a particular spatial mode. Here we overcome these limitations with the first digital laser comprising an electrically addressed reflective phase-only spatial light modulator as an intra-cavity digitally addressed holographic mirror. The phase and amplitude of the holographic mirror may be controlled simply by writing a computer-generated hologram in the form of a grey-scale image to the device, for on-demand laser modes. We show that we can digitally control the laser modes with ease, and demonstrate real-time switching between spatial modes in an otherwise standard solid-state laser resonator. Our work opens new possibilities for the customizing of laser modes at source.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3289

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