Advanced Solid-State Lasers 2017

The Advanced Solid State Lasers 2017 Conference (ASSL) was held from October 1 to 5, 2017. It was an extraordinary conference at the Nagoya Congress Center in Nagoya, Japan. ASSL 2017 again suggested an impressive platform where miscellaneous perceptions with a variety of approaches to optics, photonics, sensing, laser technology, laser systems, and solid state lasers were presented. This international meeting was highly selective, leading to high level contributions through one plenary conference, 17 invited presentations, 70 regular talks, and 121 posters. The present joint issue of Optics Express and Optical Materials Express features 27 articles written by ASSL 2017 authors and covering the spectrum of solid-state lasers from materials research to sources, and from design innovation to applications. © 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement OCIS codes: (140.3380) Laser materials; (140.3530) Lasers, neodymium; (140.3280) Laser amplifiers; (140.3070) Infrared and far-infrared lasers; (140.3500) Lasers, erbium; (060.2280) Fiber design and fabrication; (140.3615) Lasers, ytterbium; (060.3510) Lasers, fiber; (060.2320) Fiber optics amplifiers and oscillators; (230.7390) Waveguides, planar; (140.3480) Lasers, diode-pumped; (190.4400) Nonlinear optics, materials; (190.4970) Parametric oscillators and amplifiers; (140.3515) Lasers, frequency doubled; (140.3550) Lasers, Raman; (190.4370) Nonlinear optics, fibers; (140.4050) Mode-locked lasers; (140.7090) Ultrafast lasers; (190.5650) Raman effect; (140.3298) Laser beam combining; (140.3580) Lasers, solid-state; (140.5680) Rare earth and transition metal solidstate lasers; (060.2270) Fiber characterization; (060.2390) Fiber optics, infrared; (160.2290) Fiber materials; (320.6629) Supercontinuum generation. References and links 1. B. Zhao, Y. Ye, J. Chen, H. Lin, G. Zhang, X. Mateos, J. M. Serres, M. Aguiló, F. Díaz, P. Loiko, U. Griebner, V. Petrov, and W. Chen, “Growth, spectroscopy, and laser operation of “mixed” vanadate crystals Yb:Lu1-xyYxLayVO4,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(3), 493–502 (2018). 2. S. Cante, S. J. Beecher, and J. I. Mackenzie, “Characterising energy transfer upconversion in Nd-doped vanadates at elevated temperatures,” Opt. Express 26(6), 6478–6489 (2018). 3. J. Huynh, M. Smrž, T. Miura, O. Slezák, D. Vojna, M. Čech, A. Endo, and T. Mocek, “Femtosecond Yb:YGAG ceramic slab regenerative amplifier,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(3), 615–621 (2018). 4. H. Uehara, S. Tokita, J. Kawanaka, D. Konishi, M. Murakami, S. Shimizu, and R. Yasuhara, “Optimization of laser emission at 2.8 μm by Er:Lu2O3 ceramics,” Opt. Express 26(3), 3497–3507 (2018). 5. S. Bigotta, L. Galecki, A. Katz, J. Böhmler, S. Lemonnier, E. Barraud, A. Leriche, and M. Eichhorn, “Resonantly pumped eye-safe Er:YAG SPS-HIP ceramic laser,” Opt. Express 26(3), 3435–3442 (2018). 6. W. Liu, J. Cao, and J. Chen, “Study on the adiabaticity criterion of the thermally-guided very-large-mode-area fiber,” Opt. Express 26(7), 7852–7865 (2018). Vol. 8, No. 5 | 1 May 2018 | OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS 1246 #328429 https://doi.org/10.1364/OME.8.001246 Journal © 2018 Received 13 Apr 2018; accepted 13 Apr 2018; published 13 Apr 2018 7. P. Šušnjar, V. Agrež, and R. Petkovšek, “Photodarkening as a heat source in ytterbium doped fiber amplifiers,” Opt. Express 26(5), 6420–6426 (2018). 8. M. Dubinskii, J. Zhang, V. Fromzel, Y. Chen, S. Yin, and C. Luo, “Low-loss ‘crystalline-core/crystalline-clad’ (C4) fibers for highly power scalable high efficiency fiber lasers,” Opt. Express 26(4), 5092–5101 (2018). 9. E. Kifle, X. Mateos, P. Loiko, S. Y. Choi, J. E. Bae, F. Rotermund, M. Aguiló, F. Díaz, U. Griebner, and V. Petrov, “Tm:KY1-x-yGdxLuy(WO4)2 planar waveguide laser passively Q-switched by single-walled carbon nanotubes,” Opt. Express 26(4), 4961–4966 (2018). 10. V. Fromzel, N. Ter-Gabrielyan, and M. Dubinskii, “Efficient resonantly-clad-pumped laser based on a Er:YAGcore planar waveguide,” Opt. Express 26(4), 3932–3937 (2018). 11. X. Mateos, P. Loiko, S. Lamrini, K. Scholle, P. Fuhrberg, S. Vatnik, I. Vedin, M. Aguiló, F. Díaz, U. Griebner, and V. Petrov, “Thermo-optic effects in Ho:KY(WO4)2 thindisk lasers,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(3), 684–690 (2018). 12. J. Wei, S. C. Kumar, H. Ye, P. G. Schunemann, and M. Ebrahim-Zadeh, “Performance characterization of midinfrared difference-frequency-generation in orientation-patterned gallium phosphide,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(3), 555–567 (2018). 13. F. Guo, D. Lu, P. Segonds, J. Debray, H. Yu, H. Zhang, J. Wang, and B. Boulanger, “Phase-matching properties and refined Sellmeier equations of La3Ga5.5Nb0.5O14,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(4), 858–864 (2018). 14. A. A. Boyko, P. G. Schunemann, S. Guha, N. Y. Kostyukova, D. B. Kolker, V. L. Panyutin, G. M. Marchev, V. Pasiskevicius, A. Zukauskas, F. Mayorov, and V. Petrov, “Optical parametric oscillator pumped at ~1 μm with intracavity mid-IR difference-frequency generation in OPGaAs,” Opt. Mater. Express 8(3), 549–554 (2018). 15. T. H. Runcorn, R. T. Murray, and J. R. Taylor, “Highly efficient nanosecond 560 nm source by SHG of a combined Yb-Raman fiber amplifier,” Opt. Express 26(4), 4440–4447 (2018). 16. W. Tian, J. Zhu, Y. Peng, Z. Wang, L. Zheng, L. Su, J. Xu, and Z. Wei, “High power sub 100-fs Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YSO laser pumped by single-mode fiber laser,” Opt. Express 26(5), 5962–5969 (2018). 17. S. Aparanji, V. Balaswamy, S. Arun, and V. R. Supradeepa, “Simultaneous Raman based power combining and wavelength conversion of high-power fiber lasers,” Opt. Express 26(4), 4954–4960 (2018). 18. L. Su, X. Guo, D. Jiang, Q. Wu, Z. Qin, and G. Xie, “Highly-efficient mid-infrared CW laser operation in a lightly-doped 3 at.% Er:SrF2 single crystal,” Opt. Express 26(5), 5558–5563 (2018). 19. V. Yahia and T. Taira, “High brightness energetic pulses delivered by compact microchip-MOPA system,” Opt. Express 26(7), 8609–8618 (2018). 20. M. R. Oermann, N. Carmody, A. Hemming, S. Rees, N. Simakov, R. Swain, K. Boyd, A. Davidson, L. Corena, D. Stepanov, and J. Haub, “Coherent beam combination of four holmium amplifiers with phase control via a direct digital synthesizer chip,” Opt. Express 26(6), 6715–6723 (2018). 21. W. M. Kunkel and J. R. Leger, “Gain dependent self-phasing in a two-core coherently combined fiber laser,” Opt. Express 26(8), 9373–9388 (2018). 22. S. Arun, V. Choudhury, V. Balaswamy, R. Prakash, and V. R. Supradeepa, “High power, high efficiency, continuous-wave supercontinuum generation using standard telecom fibers,” Opt. Express 26(7), 7979–7984 (2018). 23. A. Sincore, J. Cook, F. Tan, A. El Halawany, A. Riggins, S. McDaniel, G. Cook, D. V. Martyshkin, V. V. Fedorov, S. B. Mirov, L. Shah, A. F. Abouraddy, M. C. Richardson, and K. L. Schepler, “High power singlemode delivery of mid-infrared sources through chalcogenide fiber,” Opt. Express 26(6), 7313–7323 (2018). 24. S. Liang, L. Xu, Q. Fu, Y. Jung, D. P. Shepherd, D. J. Richardson, and S. U. Alam, “295-kW peak power picosecond pulses from a thulium-doped-fiber MOPA and the generation of watt-level >2.5-octave supercontinuum extending up to 5 μm,” Opt. Express 26(6), 6490–6498 (2018). 25. J. C. E. Coyle, A. J. Kemp, J.-M. Hopkins, and A. A. Lagatsky, “Ultrafast diode-pumped Ti:sapphire laser with broad tunability,” Opt. Express 26(6), 6826–6832 (2018). 26. Y. Wang, W. Jing, P. Loiko, Y. Zhao, H. Huang, X. Mateos, S. Suomalainen, A. Härkönen, M. Guina, U. Griebner, and V. Petrov, “Sub-10 optical-cycle passively mode-locked Tm:(Lu 2/3 Sc 1/3) 2 O 3 ceramic laser at 2 μm,” Opt. Express 26(8), 10299–10304 (2018). 27. Y. Yu, H. Teng, H. Wang, L. Wang, J. Zhu, S. Fang, G. Chang, J. Wang, and Z. Wei, “Highly-stable modelocked PM Yb-fiber laser with 10 nJ in 93-fs at 6 MHz using NALM,” Opt. Express 26(8), 10428–10434 (2018). ASSL 2017 as always highlights new sources, advanced technologies, components and system design to extend the operation and application of solid-state lasers. Materials are the basis for the technology covered by ASSL, and the meeting encompassed advances in optics, materials science, condensed matter physics and chemistry relevant to the development, characterization and applications of new materials for lasers and photonics. These include crystals, glasses and ceramics, as well as functionalized composite materials, from fibers and waveguides to engineered structures with pre-assigned optical properties. Materials used for fabrication of basic laser components were also a core part of the conference. Coherent and high brightness radiation sources include lasers as well as pump and nonlinear devices. All laser regimes have been investigated from ultrafast lasers to cw operation, from Raman to high-power sources. Emphasis is on advances in science and technology, for improved power, Vol. 8, No. 5 | 1 May 2018 | OPTICAL MATERIALS EXPRESS 1247