The Advanced Solid-State Sources group develops novel approaches for scaling output power from lasers for use in a variety of applications including industrial manufacturing, medicine and defence.
Scaling output power and brightness from laser sources is an activity that has pre-occupied many within the laser community ever since the invention of the laser. This has been driven partly by curiosity, but increasingly by the needs of a wealth of applications in areas such as industrial manufacturing, medicine, defence and scientific research.
Research in the Advanced Solid-State Sources group is directed mainly towards investigating new concepts for scaling output power and brightness from fibre lasers and amplifiers, crystal solid-state lasers and hybrid fibre-bulk lasers, and investigating novel schemes for efficient nonlinear frequency conversion of these sources to generate intense laser light from the ultraviolet and visible through to the mid-infrared spectral regimes.
The group has a very broad range of interests and activities within the high power laser area, and has close links with many other research groups within the ORC and with other laboratories and industry. A key element of our work is the study of the underlying physics of optical sources operating at high power levels to allow the formulation of new strategies for improving overall performance and extending functionality. The ultimate goal of this work is to develop technologies for the next generation of high power optical sources, and in so doing address the demands from a growing number of applications in areas such as precision materials processing, defence, medicine, laser radar, remote monitoring and sensing.
The group is grateful for the research funding provided by past and present sponsors including:
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, European Commission, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), Laser Quantum, Trumpf (formerly SPI) Lasers, Leonardo, NKT Photonics, QinetiQ, USAF/EOARD, DARPA, Woodrow Scientific.
The following postgraduate research projects are open for applications.
