CSIR makes another laser breakthrough
25 November 2009
News
CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) laser scientists have made a breakthrough in the design of laser resonators, resulting in a technology that it believes could revolutionise the laser industry. The discovery has led to a submission to the Innovation Fund to prototype and commercialise the technology.
Chief scientist Dr Andrew Forbes of the CSIR National Laser Centre explains that the resonator is the core component of any laser and that laser beams are created within the laser resonator. “The shape and size of the resonator therefore determines the size and strength of the laser beams. Usually lasers will give out many beams of various shapes and sizes, each carrying some of the energy. The smallest beam that can be generated in a standard laser is the Gaussian beam.”
According to Forbes, Gaussian laser beams are in great demand for many applications due to their low rate of spreading as they propagate and their smooth intensity profile. They also facilitate communication with satellites, as the beams do not disperse when travelling through space.
“Unfortunately, the Gaussian laser beam occupies a small volume inside the laser, so the energy extracted from the laser in this beam is always low. For a long time it has been thought that only by ‘throwing away’ some of the energy of the medium, thereby restricting the size of laser beam that could survive, could the smallest beam – the Gaussian beam – be created,” says Forbes. Forbes and Igor Litvin, a PhD student at the CSIR, have shown that it is possible to overcome this limitation by not following the standard approach to designing laser resonators but by metamorphosising the desired beam at the output end of the laser, to a beam with better energy extraction qualities inside the resonator.
The metamorphosis also allows the Gaussian beam to be selected by using micro-optical elements, something that was previously thought impossible.
For more information contact Dr Andrew Forbes, CSIR, aforbes1@csir.co.za
Further reading:
Personality profile: Jean Mearns
29 July 2020, WH Circuit
, News
“No one works for me, they only work with me, for without each other our team will fail to exceed the expectations of our customers.”
Read more...
Letter to the editor
29 July 2020
, News
I take exception to the article ‘To fake or not to fake’ published in the June edition of Dataweek that is clearly based on the principle ‘guilty until proven innocent’.
I am by no means an expert
...
Read more...
Q&A with Brandon Kuhn and Steve Stafford
29 July 2020
, News
Q: What is the rationale behind the reorganisation? What impact will it have on Avnet’s customers in South Africa? A (Kuhn): Since 2009, our shared front-end model in South Africa has differed from the
...
Read more...
Avnet EMEA names two new leaders to SA operation
29 July 2020
, News
Avnet has named Steve Stafford and Brandon Kuhn as new leaders in South Africa following the completion of a reorganisation in the region.
Read more...
UCT chooses Tektronix instruments for training lab
29 July 2020, Comtest
, News
Comtest, local partner to Tektronix, recently assisted the University of Cape Town (UCT) physics department in refurbishing its electrical training laboratory. All of the existing analog oscilloscopes
...
Read more...
New electromagnetic solutions range from Accutronics
29 July 2020, Accutronics
, News
Accutronics has been appointed as the reseller for the Electromagnetic Integrated Solutions (EIS) range of products from API Technologies.
APITech offers a complete line of coaxial EMI solutions,
...
Read more...
Fighting COVID-19 using TV white space spectrum
29 July 2020
, News
The CSIR has partnered with the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) to enable local Internet service providers to deploy Television White Space (TVWS) networks, using the CSIR-developed Secondary Geo-Location
...
Read more...
Clearing the Static: ESD wrist straps
29 July 2020, Actum Electronics
, News
The human body is the primary source of electrostatic charge generation. In order to control and reduce static charge build-up and prevent electrostatic discharges (ESD), we use grounding systems to ensure
...
Read more...
From the editor's desk: This too shall pass
29 July 2020, Technews Publishing
, News
Things were tough enough for the South African electronics manufacturing industry before, but this year has thrown up unprecedented challenges that nobody could have foreseen and which are outside of
...
Read more...
Electronics news digest
29 July 2020
, News
South Africa
• As part of the national data-driven approach to countering COVID-19, the CSIR has developed a platform that monitors human mobility to better understand movement patterns across specific
...
Read more...
printer friendly version