I-Corps: Convenient Visible and UV Laser Sources Using Nonlinear Conversion

可见和紫外线（UV）激光器在科学、医学和工业中有越来越多的应用。提出的激光器的科学应用将包括对物理、化学和生物学中感兴趣的原子和分子的研究。所提出的激光器非常适合拉曼光谱，这在生物和材料科学中越来越重要。在生物医学领域，潜在的应用包括流式细胞术和共聚焦显微镜，以及其他荧光应用，如荧光素血管造影术。在工程应用中，半导体检测是一个增长的领域，基于光纤光栅制造的紫外激光器传感技术也是如此。用该团队的方法生产的激光源可以针对所有这些应用进行定制。该项目提供了一种高效、方便、成本相对较低的方法，可以在当前激光器无法提供的可见和紫外（UV）光谱中产生激光。该方法是使用方便且持久的近红外激光源作为基频源，然后将其转换为两倍的基频（倍频器）。也可以串联使用两个倍频器来产生深紫外（DUV）光。市面上已有一些类似的产品，但所提出的系统具有更高的效率，更简单方便，预期成本更低。

Visible and ultra-violet (UV) lasers have a large and increasing number of applications in science, medicine and industry. Scientific applications of the proposed lasers would include studies of atoms and molecules of interest in physics, chemistry and biology. The proposed lasers are well suited for Raman spectroscopy, which is of growing importance in biology and material science. In the biomedical area, potential applications include flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, as well as other fluorescence applications, such as fluorescein angiography. In engineering applications, semiconductor inspection is a growth area, as is sensing technology based on fiber Bragg grating fabrication with UV lasers. Laser sources produced with this team's approach can be tailored to all of these applications.This project provides an efficient, convenient, and relatively low cost method of generating laser light in parts of the visible and ultraviolet (UV) spectrum that current lasers do not provide. The approach is to use convenient and long lasting laser sources in the near infrared (NIR) as the fundamental source, which is then converted to twice the fundamental frequency (frequency doubler). It is also possible to use two doublers in series to generate deep UV (DUV) light. There are some similar products available commercially, but the proposed system has higher efficiency, more simplicity and convenience, and a much lower expected cost.