PROJECT FINAL REPORT - European Commission : … of high power 2 µm radiation, ... from 100 µm stripe width were targeted during the ... is on the RHS and the intact source gas feeder

ISLA FINAL PROJECT REPORT (287732)

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PROJECT FINAL REPORT

Grant Agreement number: 287732

Project acronym: ISLA

Project title: Integrated disruptive componentS for 2µm fibre LAsers

Funding Scheme: STReP

Period covered: from 01-Oct-2011 to 30-Jun-2015

Name, title and organisation of the scientific representative of the project's coordinator1:

Dr. Andrew Robertson

VP Engineering; Gooch and Housego (Torquay) Ltd.

Tel: +44 1803 611 735

Fax: +44 1803 407 796

E-mail: [email protected]

Project website2 address: www.isla-project.eu

1 Usually the contact person of the coordinator as specified in Art. 8.1. of the Grant Agreement . 2 The home page of the website should contain the generic European flag and the FP7 logo which are available in electronic format

at the Europa website (logo of the European flag: http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/emblem/index_en.htm logo of the 7th

FP: http://ec.europa.eu/research/fp7/index_en.cfm?pg=logos). The area of activity of the project should also be mentioned.


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Contents

4.1 Final publishable summary report ............................................................................................................3

Executive summary ............................................................................................................................................3

Project context and objectives ..........................................................................................................................4

Main S&T results .................................................................................................................................................7

Fibre 7

Passive components ......................................................................................................................... 9

Modulators ...................................................................................................................................... 12

Modelockers ................................................................................................................................... 13

Pump diodes ................................................................................................................................... 15

Laser development ......................................................................................................................... 17

Impact ............................................................................................................................................................... 20

Impact of the project for ISLA partners ............................................................................................ 20

ISLA events .................................................................................................................................... 23

Trade shows and exhibitions ......................................................................................................................... 26

ISLA workshop................................................................................................................................ 28

ISLA at Photonics West 2016 ......................................................................................................... 28

Outlook for 2 µm fibre laser technology ........................................................................................... 28

Further information ......................................................................................................................... 29

4.2 Use and dissemination of foreground ..................................................................................................... 30

A1: List of all scientific (peer reviewed) publications .................................................................................. 30

A2: List of all dissemination activities .......................................................................................................... 31


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4.1 Final publishable summary report

Executive summary

The ISLA project finished at the end of June 2015. Over the last three and a half years the

project has had a major impact on the development of components for 2 µm fibre lasers.

The key advances include:

• Thulium fibres with 70% slope efficiency at >100 W output

• Holmium fibres with 75% slope efficiency

• Amplitude modulators and tuneable filters

• Fibre-coupled isolators, pump combiners and low loss taps

• Wavelength-flattened couplers

• Fibre-coupled silicon pulse pickers

• Graphene-based modelockers

• 793 nm diodes >38 W in 105 µm fibre with 0.15 NA demonstrated

• Wavelength stabilised 793 nm diodes with 60% power conversion efficiency.

The project has had a tangible impact on the marketplace for 2 µm fibre lasers. A range of

fused fibre and acousto-optic components are already available as products from Gooch

and Housego, Tm and Ho-doped speciality fibres may be purchased in small quantities

from ORC Southampton, a patent is in preparation at TCD on graphene modelockers, novel

diode designs are being used in new products at II-VI and planning is in progress for new

sources from Rofin and JDSU.

A 0.5 kW laser is currently being built (Aug-2015) at ORC Southampton using components

developed in the project. This will be used throughout 2015 at ORC to further scientific

understanding of high power 2 µm radiation, and from 2016 it will be used for industrial

trials at the Rofin Applications Laboratory in Hamburg.

For a detailed summary of the project, the reader is directed to the slides from the ISLA workshop, which was held 26-Jun-2015 in Munich. This full-day event consisted of a set of seven technical presentations from the ISLA consortium summarising the outcomes from the project, and a set of seven presentations from guest speakers on applications for 2 µm lasers. The slides from the workshop are available from the project public website: http://isla-project.eu/outputs/isla-workshop/ As a direct result of the success of the workshop, ISLA was invited to have a dedicated session on the project at Photonics West 2016 (San Francisco, USA; Feb-2016). It will be part of LASE conference LA105 “Component and packaging for laser systems” and will consist of four presentations on ISLA results. Details should be announced in Sep-2015.


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Project context and objectives

www.isla-project.eu Fibre lasers have already had a major impact in the marketplace for laser products. Their small size, flexibility and high power has proved highly desirable and the range of applications is growing all the time, ranging from sensing and measurement to cutting and marking. Most fibre lasers operate at around 1 µm because there are high power pump diodes and an array of technology building blocks developed for erbium-doped fibre amplifiers (EDFAs) which make this a convenient and low cost route to fibre laser sources. The ISLA consortium believes that fibre lasers emitting radiation at around 2 µm will have an increasingly important role to play in this rapidly expanding market. Two micron fibre lasers offer a clear route to higher power fibre lasers and can be built using established silica fibre technology. The ISLA project has worked on the development of an integrated modular common platform of fibre and components to support high power CW SM, Q-switched pulsed and sub-ps pulsed lasers. In this summary, the key elements of the project are briefly reviewed and the objectives defined. Readers wishing to know more about the project are invited to contact the individuals identified for each technology area. Please see the project website (www.isla-project.eu) for more details. Technical objectives

Rare-earth-doped fibres ISLA worked on the optimisation of the core composition to enhance the cross-relaxation process in Tm-doped silica fibres to realise efficiencies close to the theoretical limit. This required a carefully tailored host core composition to allow the incorporation of a high concentration of rare earth ions and to avoid unwanted parasitic spectroscopic processes. ISLA also optimised Ho-doped silica fibres for in-band pumped Ho fibre lasers. A family of compatible fibres were developed in SM, PM and photo-sensitive variants to provide a broad platform for integrated ISLA devices operating in CW and pulsed modes. Fibre-coupled isolators The weak Verdet constant and high loss of traditional optical isolator materials (e.g. TGG; terbium gallium garnet, BIG; bismuth iron garnet) at 2 µm make isolators a critical component for 2 µm lasers. ISLA explored newly available materials and new disruptive designs to provide fibre-coupled prototype isolators in the 2 µm region.


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Fibre-coupled modulators ISLA developed modulator devices as part of an integrated platform, so that these devices may be combined with other components to simplify design and improve performance. These included a specialised acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) for laser tuning with greatly reduced sidelobes, and several AO modulators for operation at various power levels. Nanocarbon-based modelockers Nanocarbon-based composites offer an exciting disruptive technology for saturable absorber modelockers which may be made using low cost laboratory techniques. These devices offer considerable advantages over SESAMs (semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors), the preferred modelocker technology at 1 µm, e.g. a much broader tuning range, large absorption cross-section, and fast time constants to support sub-picosecond pulse formation. Fibre-coupled bulk optic components Using both commercially available fibres and the fibres developed in the project, a set of fused fibre components optimised for the ISLA fibre lasers were developed for single-mode (SM), multimode (MM) and polarisation maintaining (PM) fibres. These fused components have been developed to provide system elements (e.g. taps, WDMs) as well as high power pump combiners (e.g. 19×1 combiners, 6+1×1 combiners etc.) as an integral part of an integrated common platform. Laser pump diodes Diodes in the 79x nm range generally suffer from reduced performance and lifetime compared with longer wavelength diodes such as 808 nm or those in the 9xx nm range. The main reason is the higher photon energy leading to increased carrier leakage resulting in high threshold currents and lower efficiency. To overcome these issues, wide bandgap materials containing high amounts of aluminum are required but these result in relatively low brightness pump sources and integration of gratings is difficult compared with the well-established processes for InP devices. In the ISLA project several novel techniques were investigated by II-VI to improve the threshold currents and efficiency of laser diodes at 79x nm. Power levels of 4 W and higher from 100 µm stripe width were targeted during the project; twice that of reported devices to date. In fact 12.5 W in CW operation for 94 µm wide broad-area single-emitters and 19.5 W qCW operation has been achieved. Integrated fibre laser design and demonstration To demonstrate the technology platform developed in the ISLA project, three Demo Lasers were planned:

• Demo Laser 1 500 W CW SM 2.0-2.1 µm Ho-doped fibre laser

• Demo Laser 2 ns-pulsed 2.0-2.1 µm Q-switched fibre laser

• Demo Laser 3 100 W sub-ps SM ~2.1 µm Ho-doped fibre power amplifier


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Dissemination and exploitation To disseminate the results of the project and encourage standardisation of the ISLA technology, a range of activities were planned. Dissemination activities

• Dissemination of project results to industry, the public and investment communities o Conference presentations o Peer-reviewed journal publications o Technology transfer workshop o Newsletters

• Public website with project presentation, video and information ISLA Advisory Group

• ISLA Advisory Group (IAG)

• Identify novel applications for 2 µm fibre lasers

• Establish commercial links to establish the ISLA integrated common platform.


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Main S&T results

The ISLA project finished at the end of June 2015. Over the last three and a half years the

project has had a major impact on the development of components for 2 µm fibre lasers.

The key advances include:




• Fibre-coupled isolators, pump combiners and low loss taps

• Wavelength-flattened couplers

• Fibre-coupled silicon pulse pickers

• Graphene-based modelockers

• 793 nm diodes >38 W in 105 µm fibre with 0.15 NA demonstrated

• Wavelength stabilised 793 nm diodes with 60% power conversion efficiency.

Fibre Key achievements

Rare-earth doped fibres for high power 2 µm lasers High power operation of thulium and holmium doped fibre lasers in the 2 µm wavelength regime requires optical fibres that are highly efficient and that can withstand very high pump power. Careful tailoring of the fibre core composition and design to minimise core propagation loss and maximise gain is crucial. In thulium and holmium fibre lasers operating in the 2 µm region the main source of unwanted absorption within the core is due to OH ions which enter the fabrication process in the form of water. Figure 1 Showing fabrication of a Tm-doped preform. The collapsed preform is on the RHS and the intact source gas feeder tube is on the LHS. The Tm ion thermal fluorescence from the preform core is seen glowing red.

OH contamination reduction ISLA fibres are drawn from a preform of glass produced via modified chemical vapour deposition and solution doping. OH ions can become incorporated into the core of the doped glass via H2O contamination of the doping solution as well as contamination of the source gases followed by thermal diffusion. ORC Southampton has been optimising the fabrication process of the thulium-doped optical fibres to minimise this OH contamination by strict control of source materials as well as introducing chlorine drying stages and chlorine flow during the fabrication process. This chlorine acts to remove OH and H2O converting them into HCl and O2 which are then removed by gas flow.


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Through optimisation of the chlorine drying process and source materials the ORC has reduced OH contamination in its fibres to ~0.1 ppm. The result is very low loss fibre that formed the bedrock of efficient 2 µm fibre lasers developed as part of the ISLA project. Tm and Ho fibres Over the course of the ISLA project, fibre fabrication effort at the ORC has developed high efficiency Tm and Ho fibres for operation within the 2 µm spectral region. This has led to the demonstration of slope efficiencies of up to 70% for 793 nm pumped Tm fibre w.r.t. absorbed pump power. This high efficiency Tm fibre has been utilised to pump holmium doped fibre produced within the ORC.

Figure 2 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of two Tm-doped and a single Ho-doped fibre (centre)

produced at the ORC as part of the ISLA project.

Recent work has focused on the development of holmium fibre for double-clad pumping. Investigations into the material choice for cladding materials in the 2 µm region has led to fabrication of all-glass structures for pump guidance utilising a fluorine-doped glass. In addition to minimising pump loss due to cladding material attenuation, remarkable advances on the reduction of OH impurities in the cladding glass have been accomplished. Cladding shaping using CO2 laser The ORC has also developed a cladding shaping technique using a CO2 laser to directly process the outer cladding geometry of the preform. In addition to being much faster, the resultant surface quality is much higher than results with traditional mechanical machining methods. This has allowed further processing of the preform to a triple-clad structure without the requirement to fire polish. Removal of this fire polishing step significantly reduces the OH incorporated into the pump cladding of the fibre. This has yielded fibre with a reduced OH contamination in the pump cladding than was previously possible, resulting in reduced loss to 2 µm pump radiation.

Figure 3: Fibre end section of a triple-clad Ho-doped fibre produced at the ORC. Note the octagonal shape of

the inner cladding fibre, achieved using the novel cladding shaping technique developed in ISLA.


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Papers and conferences

P. Shardlow, D. Jain, R. Parker, J.K. Sahu, W.A. Clarkson, “Optimising Tm-doped silica fibres for high lasing efficiency,” In CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2015.

J.K. Sahu, D. Jain, A. Webb et al., “Specialty Doped Fibers in High Power Lasers,” Paper T2.2 WSOF 2013. http://dx.doi/prg/10.1364/WSOF.2013.T2.2

M. Tokurakawa, J.M.O. Daniel, C.S. Chenug, H. Liang and W. A. Clarkson, “Ultra-broadband Wavelength Swept Tm-doped Fibre Laser,” Paper CJ-7.5, CLEO Europe 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2013.6801346

J.M.O. Daniel and W.A. Clarkson, “Bandwidth-Controllable Tunable Q-Switched Thulium Fibre Laser,” Paper CJ-10.2, CLEO Europe 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2013.6801300

Contact

� For more info contact Andy Clarkson [email protected]

Passive components Key achievements

Fused fibre components for 2 µm Through ISLA, G&H has developed its power combiner technology to cover the 2 µm operating window. These devices provide a high efficiency means of combining radiation from several multimode (MM) sources (e.g. pump diodes) into a single fibre; a key requirement for high power fibre lasers. G&H proprietary manufacturing techniques allow the precise fusion of input fibres around a central signal feed-through fibre and a dual-clad output fibre providing high coupling efficiency over a wide pump wavelength range. The technology extends to large mode area (LMA) signal feed-through fibres, dual-clad output fibres and a variety of port counts and configurations.

Figure 4: Left: Micrograph cross-section through a G&H ISLA PM 2 µm WDM. Right: Packaged prototype polarisation maintaining (PM) wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) developed

through ISLA for 2 µm operation.


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A range of other fused devices have also been developed for 2 µm applications through advances in the ISLA project, including side-coupled power combiners with polarisation maintaining (PM) signal feed-through. These devices provide the combination of MM pump fibres with a PM signal feed-through and a PM dual-clad output. The G&H fused PM WDM combines multiple wavelengths of radiation in PM fibre whilst preserving the polarisation of the transmitted light. G&H proprietary PM manufacturing technology provides low loss, with high polarisation extinction ratio. The all-fibre construction offers excellent reliability and high power handling characteristics. In common with all PM components, it is necessary to launch into either the slow or the fast axis to maintain polarisation. High power 2 µm pump combiners G&H has fabricated high power 7x1 pump combiners for high power thulium fibre lasers. These components will be used in the ISLA demonstration lasers to combine the high power 79x nm pump diodes from II-VI. Due to the intense power levels the thermal management of these fibre-based components needs to be very carefully modelled, and G&H has developed a new package for ISLA. High power testing at powers >2 kW has been carried out on pump combiners for use in the ISLA demo lasers with excellent results. The pump combiners have been integrated into the 500 W CW demonstration laser currently being assembled at ORC with the new ISLA pump diodes from II-VI Laser Enterprise.

Figure 5 Left: Cross-section of a cleaved high power (6+1)×1 fused fibre combiner made by G&H (Torquay) Right: Prototype 7x1 pump combiner from G&H.

Faraday rotator materials for 2 µm Most optical isolators utilise the Faraday Effect which is the rotation of the plane of polarisation of a light wave as it propagates through a medium subjected to a magnetic field parallel to the direction of propagation. The Faraday effect is particularly unusual because it is non-reciprocal. Thus if light passes a magneto-optical medium (a Faraday rotator) twice in opposite directions, the Faraday rotation does not cancel, but doubles. This non-reciprocal behaviour gives the basis for optical isolator components which function as one-way optical valves or diodes.


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Several potential Faraday rotator materials for 2 µm isolators have been characterised by researchers at G&H. Some of the materials show great promise, producing rotations several times larger than isolator materials commonly used at 1 µm, such as terbium gallium garnet (TGG). These new materials offer greatly increased rotation in the two micron spectral region. Furthermore, these materials have also been shown to have high transmission and damage thresholds. In conjunction with Southampton ORC, G&H has measured the Verdet constants (from 1200-2400 nm) of a wide variety of materials using a supercontinuum source. Existing isolator materials such as terbium gallium garnet (TGG) and yttrium iron garnet (YIG) have been characterised as well as novel candidates, such as CdMnTe and ZnSe, which have been suggested in the literature as being suitable for use at 2 µm. Through this work in ISLA, a group of materials possessing an even higher rotation than YIG has been found, and is now being developed at G&H into optical isolators. Optical isolators for 2 µm The prototype isolators manufactured as part of ISLA at G&H (Torquay) are both fibre-in fibre-out (“FIFO”) and fibre-in beam-out (“FIBO”) devices. These compact devices include modular heat sinks and demonstrate high isolation and low insertion loss. PM and non-PM isolators were manufactured and had insertion losses of <1 dB, isolation of up to 40 dB and return loss >40 dB. The PM isolators had a polarisation extinction ratio (PER) of >23 dB. The performance with temperature has also been tested and the power handling of the isolators is currently being investigated.

Figure 6 Protoype ISLA FIFO format 2 µm isolator which has been fabricated at G&H. Papers and conferences

G. Stevens, T. Legg, P. Shardlow, “Optical isolators for 2-micron fibre lasers,” Proc. SPIE 9346, 93460O (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2077505 G. Stevens & A. Robertson, “Fibre laser component technology for 2-micron laser systems,” Proc. SPIE 9135, 91350N (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2054511 Contact

� For more info contact Gary Stevens: [email protected]


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Modulators

Key achievements

During the ISLA project, Gooch & Housego (UK), based in Ilminster, has successfully developed a number of acousto-optic (AO) devices specifically for operation in the 2 µm region. These components include new types of modulators and novel tuneable filters.

• General-purpose AO modulator based on tellurium dioxide (TeO2) o Good overall performance

• AO modulator (AOM) based on chalcogenide glass o Low drive power o Little or no polarisation dependence

• Narrow resolution AO tuneable filter (AOTF) o <1.5 nm @ 2 µm o Low drive power (400 mW)

• Zero frequency shift AOTF o Based on patented double pass method.

Figure 7 Zero frequency shift acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) based on a patented double-pass technique developed at G&H (UK) during the ISLA project

Figure 8 Left: Narrow resolution AOTF Right General purpose AO modulator in TeO2


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These devices are already available as either data-sheet products, or as custom devices,

from G&H (UK). More information, including some product datasheets, is available from the

Gooch and Housego website (www.goochandhousego.com).


P. Shardlow, J. Ward, C. Pannell, S. Valle, W.A. Clarkson,”Null-frequency-shift acousto-optic tunable filter for wavelength tuning of a Tm fibre laser,” In CLEO/Europe-EQEC 2015. Contact

� For more info contact Jon Ward: [email protected]

Modelockers

Key achievements

Graphene deposition A saturable absorber (SA) is an optical device that exhibits an intensity-dependent transmission. This characteristic is used in passive mode-locked lasers; the SA will selectively absorb low intensity pulses, but transmits sufficiently high intensity pulses, resulting in the generation of a train of ultra-short laser pulses. Graphene exhibits linear absorption which is almost wavelength independent from the visible region through to the far infrared, whilst absorbing a significant amount (2.3%) of light per single layer. With a finite number of carriers in the monolayer, Pauli blocking enables graphene to exhibit optical saturable absorption. Graphene can be saturated over the visible to near infrared region and it has a smaller non-saturable loss and higher damage threshold, compared with carbon nanotubes. For initial experiments in ISLA, dispersions of graphene were prepared in a standard solvent, di-methyl-formamide (DMF), at an initial concentration of 5.0 mg/ml. These dispersions were stable against sedimentation and displayed no further aggregation for a period of weeks. Graphene saturable absorber mirrors for 2 µm Within the frame of ISLA, the TCD group has developed graphene saturable absorber mirrors (SAMs) for application as passive mode-lockers to generate 2 µm ultrashort pulses. The experimental results show that the graphene SAM performance is comparable with traditional commercial SESAMs (semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors), but with much easier fabrication, lower cost and broader operating wavelength. The SAMs were fabricated by transferring a vacuum filtrated graphene film onto silver coated mirrors. Graphene was exfoliated from graphite by liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) with high power ultrasonic excitation. Next the graphene nano-flakes were deposited as films and transferred onto a silver mirror to produce graphene SAMs.


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Figure 9 Left: Transmission electron microscopy image of a graphene nano-flake together with (inset) a

picture of the initial dispersion mixture. Right: Non-linear optical responses of graphene SAM and SESAM.

The SAMs were characterised at 2 µm using the I-scan technique and compared with commercial state-of-art SESAMs. The graphene components exhibited a modulation depth of 10%, non-saturable loss of ~24% and a saturated intensity of 490 MW/cm2. This compared favourably with the commercial product, particularly the modulation depth which was only ~7% for the SESAM. This data implies that the graphene SAMs are able to reach the performance of SESAMs,

despite the fact that the SAMs are much lower cost. There are still several options to

improve the graphene SAM performance, including anti-reflective coatings to reduce loss

and protective coatings to enhance the damage threshold.


G. Wang, S. Zhang et al., “Tunable effective nonlinear refractive index of graphene dispersions during the distortion of spatial self-phase modulation,” Applied Physics Letters 104 p. 141909 (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4871092

Y. Feng, N. Dong et al., “Saturable absorption behavior of free-standing graphene polymer composite films over broad wavelength and time ranges,” Optics Express 23, p. 559 (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.000559

Contact

� For more info contact Werner Blau [email protected]


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Pump diodes

Key achievements

Within the ISLA project, II-VI Laser Enterprise (formally Oclaro Switzerland) has developed

pump laser diodes at 79x nm that are optimised for pumping thulium (Tm) doped double-

clad fibres.

High power conversion efficiency in excess of 60% was demonstrated. For high power applications such as thulium fibre laser pumping, an output power of more than 12.5 W in CW operation for 94 µm wide broad-area single-emitters and 19.5 W quasi-CW (qCW) operation has been achieved.

Figure 10: CW and qCW-E/O performance of a Fabry-Pérot device with a 94 µm stripe tested at different temperatures

Figure 11: CW E/O performance of a DFB device with a 94 µm stripe tested at different temperatures


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Wavelength stabilisation of these laser diodes was accomplished by using a distributed feedback grating (DFB). 60% power conversion efficiency was also achieved in these stabilised devices.

Locking has been obtained over the full current range between 1 A and 6 A tested so far with some margin for temperature variation.

780 785 790 795 800

Norm

aliz

ed i

nte

nsi

ty (

a.u.)

Wavelength (nm)

780 785 790 795 800

DFB

Fabry-Pérot 2 A 3 A 4 A 5 A 6 A

Figure 12: Left: Emission spectra taken at various current levels and 25°C heat sink temperature for an ISLA DFB device (bottom) to an ISLA Fabry-Pérot (top) device.

Right: Comparison of wavelength shift vs. current and temperature of both designs.

For efficient fibre laser pumping the laser diodes were integrated in a multi-emitter platform, achieving 38 W out of a 105 µm fiber within 0.15 NA.

Figure 13: Left: E/O performance of a multi emitter module at 793 nm.

Right: NA filling of the output fibre at 5 A operating current.


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S. Pawlik, R. Todt, M. Moser, E. Zibik et al., “Recent Progress in Semiconductor Laser for Fiber Laser Applications,” Proc. ISLC p. 106-7 (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ISLC.2014.186

S. Pawlik; R. Todt; M. Moser; O. Romero; N. Lichtenstein, “High power pump laser diodes for 2µm fibre laser,” Proc. SPIE 8965, 89650R (2014). http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2040141 Contact

� For more info contact Susanne Pawlik: [email protected]

Laser development

Key achievements

Demo Laser 1 (CW laser)

The ISLA 0.5 kW CW 2 µm laser is currently being integrated at ORC, built from components made during the project. It will reside in Southampton until the end of 2015, and will be used for further research into high power 2 µm sources. Several papers are expected from the application, characterisation and study of this world-beating source.

The CW laser will then be shipped to Rofin in Jan-2016 and there will be six months of testing under industrial conditions in the Applications Laboratory in Hamburg. This will be an opportunity to re-engage with several organisations contacted during the ISLA project that were very interested in industrial testing of high power 2 µm lasers. It will also be an opportunity for Rofin to demonstrate the advantages of the technology and begin to develop the 2 µm market with its existing customers.

Figure 14 Rack mount cabinet housing the ISLA Tm pump modules as well as their power supplies.

Contact

Demo Laser 1 (CW laser) � For more info contact Peter Shardlow: [email protected]


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Demo Laser 2 (ns-pulsed laser)

ISLA Demo Laser 2 targeted a ns-pulsed 2 µm laser. Laser pulses with a length of 2.5 ns at a repetition rate of 150 kHz have been generated from a passively Q-switched microchip laser. This laser consists of a Tm:YAP crystal and a SESAM Q-switch carefully matched to allow lasing only in a narrow spectral range around 1950 nm. At a resonator length of only 2.5 mm, this enables the generation of regular pulse trains with high repetition rate and short pulse duration.

This solid-state microchip laser can then serve as a seeder for a Tm fibre amplifier using the components developed within the ISLA project, boosting its output power from less than 100 mW to the 10 W range.

Figure 15 OSA traces showing individual ~2.5 ns pulses (left) and individual ~150 kHz pulse train (right).

Contact

Demo Laser 2 (ns-pulsed laser) � For more info contact Sina Riecke: [email protected]

Demo Laser 3 ps-pulsed laser

The building of ISLA Demo Laser 3, a SM ps-pulse master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA), is underway. Unfortunately it was not possible to complete the integration within the project timescale, but the work continues using components from the ISLA partners. A CW oscillator has been implemented to verify the functionality of the ISLA components. The oscillator was pumped with a 4 W multimode pump diode from II-VI Laser Enterprise. The laser threshold occurred at a launched pump power of 1 W. The emission wavelength was 2080 nm, defined by the Bragg wavelength of the chirped fibre Bragg grating which served also as the output coupler. The laser slope efficiency was 30% and the maximum output power was 950 mW, limited by the available power of the pump diode. The ISLA team is currently focused on achieving mode-locking of the oscillator and integrating it with an industrial grade housing which also accommodates the fibre-coupled AOM (from G&H), the pulse stretcher and pre-amplifiers stages. Integration is one key to robustness and transportability allowing for efficient demo activities.


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Figure 16 Left: Optical spectrum analyser trace of the CW oscillator showing operation at 2.08 µm. Right: Output power vs. launched pump power of the CW oscillator. The measured slope efficiency is 30%.

Figure 17 Photo of the ISLA 2 µm ps-laser during the development phase

Contact

Demo Laser 3 (ps-pulsed laser) � For more info contact Peter Hofmann: [email protected]


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Impact

Impact of the project for ISLA partners

The full name of the ISLA project is, “Integrated disruptive componentS for 2 µm fibre LAsers.” In terms of components, ISLA has exceeded its objectives and has delivered a wide range of component technology for its partners.

ORC Southampton



Recently the ORC has started to sell research-grade fibres through its Zepler Institute (http://www.zeplerinstitute.com/fibre) and Tm and Ho fibres derived from the ISLA project will soon be commercially available for R&D from the ORC. This is relatively small volume production in order to stimulate research and collaborative work with industry and end-users. The plans to take this forward (particularly the Tm fibres) have already attracted significant interest, but the details are still confidential.

• Fibre OH contamination reduction

• CO2 preform milling process

These processes have already attracted a great deal of interest (e.g. following the Munich conference and workshop in Jun-2015) and are both fantastic enabling technologies. It is hoped that ORC can either licence this technology or undertake work on a sub-contract basis.

Trinity College Dublin

Know-how in the manufacture and characterisation of graphene and related materials, and the understanding of the underlying physics have led to a number of journal publications, and this high profile work is ongoing. Specific examples include:

• Graphene saturable absorber mirror (SAM) design

o Patent application in progress

• Reduced noise measurement technique for non-linear materials (I-Scan)

o Improved graphene deposition methods

o Drop-casting

o Vacuum filtration film method

All these improved processes will be taken up by the TCD research group, and will be applicable for other wavelength domains.


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Gooch and Housego (Torquay)

• Fused fibre components optimised for 2 µm

G&H has already advanced the technology developed in ISLA to produce new products, and a range of fused components for 2 µm are now available from the G&H website, including (other custom products are available on request):

o High power pump combiners

� “Multimode Power Combiner with Signal Feed-through for 2µm Operation” http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0186i1.pdf

� “Side-Coupled Multimode Power Combiner with PM Signal Feed-through for 2µm Operation“ http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0183i1.pdf

o WDM components

� “WDM for 2 µm operation” http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0185i1.pdf

� “PM WDM for 2µm Operation” http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0184i1.pdf

o Wavelength-flattened couplers

� E.g. for OCT applications: available on request

� “Extended Wideband OCT Coupler (EWOC)” http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0181i1_Application_Note_OCT_Coupler.pdf

• Fibre-coupled isolators

o Fibre-in fibre-out (FIFO)

o Fibre-in beam-out (FIBO)

G&H has developed a flexible isolator platform based on new Faraday materials, providing over 30 dB isolation, low insertion loss and 30 W power handling in a fibre-in, fibre-out version. See the Photonics West 2015 paper, “Optical isolators for 2-micron fibre lasers,” Proc. SPIE 9346, 93460O (2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2077505

Development work continues: more information is available on request.

Gooch and Housego (UK)

ISLA has led to the technology which enabled several acousto-optic products in the 2 µm region. Several of these are already available from datasheets. In addition there are many other variants available as custom products on request.


o General-purpose AO modulator based on tellurium dioxide (TeO2)

� “Fibre-Q: 2000 nm Fibre-Coupled Acousto-Optic Modulator“ http://www.goochandhousego.com/wp-content/pdfs/PEC_0167i1.pdf


22

o Narrow resolution AO tuneable filter (AOTF)

� “1500 – 2500 nm Quasi-Collinear Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter” http://goochandhousego.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/IWDS041-V1.0-TF2000-1000-2-6-GH78-data-sheet.pdf

o AO modulator (AOM) based on chalcogenide glass

o Zero frequency shift AOTF

� Patent pending on “double pass” technique

o Fibre-coupled silicon pulse pickers

II-VI Laser Enterprise

• 793 nm diodes >38 W in 105 µm fibre with 0.15 NA

• Wavelength stabilised 793 nm diodes with 60% power conversion efficiency

The diodes developed in ISLA significantly exceeded the targets set in the project, and have established several new processes and chip designs which are transferable to other wavelength domains, as well as providing a platform for a new product at 79x nm.

The ISLA CW laser

The ISLA 0.5 kW CW 2 µm laser is currently being integrated at ORC, built from components made during the project. It will reside in Southampton until the end of 2015, and will be used for further research into high power 2 µm sources. Several papers are expected from the application, characterisation and study of this world-beating source.

The CW laser will then be shipped to Rofin in Jan-2016 and there will be six months of testing under industrial conditions in the Applications Laboratory in Hamburg. This will be an opportunity to re-engage with several organisations contacted during the ISLA project that were very interested in industrial testing of high power 2 µm lasers. It will also be an opportunity for Rofin to demonstrate the advantages of the technology and begin to develop the 2 µm market with its existing customers.


23

ISLA events

During the course of the project, ISLA participated in a range of public events to

disseminate the project results. The following lists summarise the key events.

Conferences

• IWNBP (22-28 Oct-2011; St Germain au Mont d'Or, France): Prof. Wener Blau (TCD) gave an invited talk and presentation of preliminary project results at the International Workshop on Nano and Bio-Photonics

• Monabiphot (21-23 Jun-2012; Giens, France): Prof. Blau and his co-workers presented ISLA material at the Molecular Nano- and Biophotonics Conference

• NPO 2012 (29-Jul to 04-Aug-2012; Polvijärvi, North Karelia, Finland): TCD presented ISLA material at the International Workshop Nanocarbon Photonics and Optoelectronics

• EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference 2012 (26-31 Aug-2012; Stockholm, Sweden): ORC presented a paper (J. M. O. Daniel, M Tokurakawa, W. A. Clarkson, “Power-scalable wavelength-agile fibre laser source at two-microns,” Paper number: ThB.3) at this conference on “Solid State, Fibre and Waveguide Coherent Light Sources.”

• Nanoweek (14-18 Sep-2012; TCD, Dublin, Ireland): Aidan Murray poster on “Graphene Based Materials for Non-Linear Applications and Ultrafast Laser Applications” at CRANN

• "Thesis-in-3" (25-Oct-2012; TCD, Dublin, Ireland): Aidan Murray presentation on ISLA

• LASE 2013, Photonics West 2013 (02-07 Feb-2013; San Francisco, USA): ORC attended and presented a paper on ISLA topics at this conference (part of Photonics West 2013) entitled, “Electronically controllable mode selection in a multimode fiber” (J. M. O. Daniel and W. A. Clarkson, paper 8601-22)

• CLEO/Europe-IQEC 2013 (12-16 May-2013; Munich, Germany): ORC presented two ISLA-related papers at this major international Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO).

o “Ultra-broadband Wavelength Swept Tm-doped Fibre Laser” (M. Tokurakawa, J.M.O. Daniel, C.S. Chenug, H. Liang and W. A. Clarkson, paper CJ-7.5) http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2013.6801346

o “Bandwidth-Controllable Tunable Q-Switched Thulium Fibre Laser” (J.M.O. Daniel and W.A. Clarkson; paper CJ-10.2) http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2013.6801300

• Graphene Week 2013 (02-07 Jun-2013; Chemnitz, Germany) o “Graphene Based Materials for Non-Linear Applications and Ultrafast Laser

Applications”

• WONTON 2013 (16-20 Jun-2013; Santa Fe, NM, USA) o 5th International Workshop on Nanotube Optics and Nanospectroscopy o “Graphene Based Materials for Non-Linear Applications and Ultrafast Laser

Applications”


24

• WSOF 2013 (28-30 Aug-2013; Sigtuna, Sweden) o 3rd Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and their Applications. o ISLA tabletop exhibition space o "Specialty Doped Fibres in High Power Lasers" o Invited paper T2.2: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/WSOF.2013.T2.2

• NANOSMAT (22-25 Sep-2013; Granada, Spain) o 8th International Conference on Surfaces, Coatings and Nano-Structured

Materials o “Nanocarbon Materials and Composites for Photonics and Optoelectronics.”

Keynote paper Werner Blau (TCD)

• ICAPP 2013 (14-15 Nov-2013; Keio University, Japan) o 2nd International Conference on Advanced Photonic Polymers o “Ultrafast NLO in nanocarbon polymer composites” Invited paper Werner Blau

(TCD)

• Photonics West 2014 (01-06 Feb-2014; San Francisco, USA) o "High power pump laser diodes for 2 µm fibre laser" o Proc. SPIE 8965, 89650R (2014): http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2040141

• FISC 2014 (27-28 Feb-2014; Dresden, Germany) o International Laser Symposium Fiber & Disc 2014 o “High power fibre laser components for 2 µm applications” o ISLA also had a booth exhibition space at this event

• Photonics Europe 2014 (14-17 Apr-2014; Brussels, Belgium) o "Fibre laser component technology for 2-micron laser systems" o Proc. SPIE 9135, 91350N: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2054511 o ISLA also had a booth in the “Innovation Village”

• MRS Spring Meeting (21-25 Apr-2014; San Francisco, USA) o “Nanocarbon Based Materials for Non-Linear Optical Applications and

Ultrafast Laser Applications”

• CLEO 2014 (08-13 Jun-2014; San José, USA) o “Effect of seed linewidth on few-moded fiber

amplifiers"http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/CLEO_SI.2014.STu2N.7

• The World Innovation Conference (15-18 Jun-2014; Washington DC, USA) o "Graphene Based Materials for Non-Linear Optical Applications and Ultrafast

Laser Applications at 2 Microns"

• IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topical Meeting (14-16 Jul-2014; Montréal, Canada)

o “Few-Mode TDFA for Mode Division Multiplexing at 2µm” http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/SUM.2014.85

• NPO 2014 (28-Jul to 01-Aug-2014; North Karelia, Finland) o Fourth International Workshop on Nanocarbon Photonics and Optoelectronics o “Rational bottom-up assembly of tailored molecular aggregates on

nanocarbon for high sensitivity nonlinear optical and light harvesting applications"

• Europhoton 2014 (24-29 Aug-2014; Neuchatel, Switzerland) o 6th EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference


25

o “Spectrally-tailored thulium-doped fibre amplified spontaneous emission source at two-microns” (Poster TuP-T1-P-24)

• ISLC 2014 (07-10 Sep-2014; Palma de Mallorca, Spain) o 24th International Semiconductor Laser Conference o “Recent Progress in Semiconductor Laser for Fiber Laser Applications” o Proc. ISLC p. 106-7: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ISLC.2014.186

• NANOSMAT 2014 (08-12 Sep-2014; Dublin, Ireland): o 9th International Conference on Surfaces, Coatings and Nano-Structured

Materials o “Carbon-based Nanomaterials and Self-Assembled Nanohybrids as Versatile

Materials Platform for Optoelectronics and Nanophotonics” (Invited paper; Werner Blau)

• 9-TCS (14-18 Sep-2014; Toruń, Poland) o 9th Torunian Carbon Symposium o “Carbon Materials in Science and Technology” Invited paper Werner Blau

(TCD)

• ECOC 2014 (21-25 Sep-2014; Cannes, France) o European Conference on Optical Communication 2014 o 90 nm gain extension towards 1.7 µm for diode-pumped silica-based thulium-

doped fiber amplifiers; http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ECOC.2014.6964109

• Photonics West 2015 (07-12 Feb-2015; San Francisco, USA) o G&H, JDSU, II-VI and Rofin had booths at this exhibition/ conference o “Optical Isolators for 2-micron fibre lasers” o Proc. SPIE 9346, 93460O: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.2077505

• ICU 2015 (10-15 May-2015; Metz, France) o 2015 International Congress on Ultrasonics o Matched Pair of AOTFs with Net Zero Frequency-Shift

• CLEO Europe 2015 (21-25 Jun-2015; Munich, Germany) o Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics o “Null-frequency-shift acousto-optic tunable filter for wavelength tuning of a Tm

fibre laser” (Paper CJ-14.6) o Optimising Tm-Doped Silica Fibres for High Lasing Efficiency” (Paper CJ-

14.3)

Planned

• Photonics West 2016 (16-18 Feb-2016; San Francisco, USA) o Dedicated ISLA session invited within conference LA105 “Components and

Packaging for Laser Systems” o At the time of writing, four papers have been submitted on the following topics

for 2 µm fibre lasers, as discussed with the conference chair (Alexei Glebov) � ISLA overview and passive components [Invited]; Gary Stevens (G&H) � Active components; Jon Ward (G&H) � Modelockers; Werner Blau (TCD) � Fibre; Andy Clarkson (ORC)

o Session to be chaired by Bruce Napier (Vivid)


26

Trade shows and exhibitions

• Photonics Europe (16-18 Apr-2012; Brussels): ISLA had a tabletop in the “Innovation Village” alongside a number of other FP7 projects at this three day event consisting of a trade show and poster session alongside a major scientific conference.

• LASYS (12-14 Jun-2012; Stuttgart, Germany): TBP had a booth and distributed ISLA leaflets at the International Trade Fair for Laser Material Processing

• SPIE Security & Defence (24-27 Sep-2012; Edinburgh, UK): G&H had a booth and distributed ISLA leaflets at this trade show/ conference.

• Photonics West 2013 (02-07 Feb-2013; San Francisco, USA): G&H, TBP and ROFIN all had booths at this major event and distributed ISLA flyers.

• Laser World of Photonics (13-16 May-2013; Munich, Germany): G&H, TBP and ROFIN all had booths at this major event and distributed ISLA flyers.

• CLEO 2013 (09-14 Jun-2013; San Jose, USA) o 2013 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics o JDSU had a booth at this event

• ICT 2013 (06-08 Nov-2013; Vilnius, Lithuania) o ISLA had a booth exhibition space at this event

• Photonics West 2014 (01-06 Feb-2014; San Francisco, USA) o G&H, JDSU and ROFIN all had booths at this major event, and distributed project

flyers.

• FISC 2014 (27-28 Feb-2014; Dresden, Germany) o International Laser Symposium Fiber & Disc 2014 o ISLA also had a booth exhibition space at this event

• Photonics Europe 2014 (14-17 Apr-2014; Brussels, Belgium) o ISLA had a booth in the “Innovation Village”

• Photonics West 2015 (07-12 Feb-2015; San Francisco, USA) o G&H, JDSU and ROFIN all had booths at this major event, and distributed project

flyers.

• Laser World of Photonics (22-25 Jun-2015; Munich, Germany) o G&H, JDSU and ROFIN all had booths at this major event, and distributed project

flyers. o “ISLA-Two micrometer Sources and Toolset for Enhanced Material Processing” o Presentation at "Advanced Manufacturing and Photonics for Production" joint EC-

funded project session

Journal papers

In addition to the conference papers and posters listed above, the following journal papers

were published arising from ISLA work during the project:

• “Feature issue introduction: nanocarbon for photonics and optoelectronics,” o Prof. Werner Blau (TCD) co-edited a special issue and wrote the editorial of the

OSA Optical Materials Express on Nanocarbon Photonics o Werner Blau (TCD)


27

o Optical Materials Express, 2, 891-892 (2012). o http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OME.2.000891

• “Nonlinear Properties of Graphene Dispersions and Thin Films at a Wavelength of 1.2 µm"

o Aidan Murray and Werner Blau (TCD) o Journal of Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics 8, 1, pg. 23-27 (Jan-2013) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1166/jno.2013.1425

• "Controllable broadband nonlinear optical response of graphene dispersions by tuning vacuum pressure"

o Xin Cheng…Werner J. Blau et al. (TCD) o Optics Express 21, p16486-16493 (2013) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.21.016486

• “Ag-stabilized few-layer graphene dispersions in low boiling point solvents for versatile nonlinear optical applications”

o Zhenyu Sun, Ningning Dong, Kangpeng Wang et al. (TCD) o Carbon 62, p. 182-192 (2013) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2013.06.010

• “Hybrid Plasmonic Nanostructures with Unconventional Nonlinear Optical Properties” o Yong Zhang, Jing Jing Wang, Kyle E. Ballantine, Paul R. Eastham and Werner J.

Blau (TCD) o Advanced Optical Materials 2, p. 331-337 (2014) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adom.201300503

• “First demonstration of a 2µm few-mode TDFA for mode division multiplexing” o Y. Jung, P. C. Shardlow…J. K. Sahu, W. A. Clarkson et al. (ORC) o Optics Express 22, p. 10544-10549 (2014) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.22.010544

• “Tunable effective nonlinear refractive index of graphene dispersions during the distortion of spatial self-phase modulation”

o G. Wang, S. Zhang…W. J. Blau et al. (TCD) o Applied Physics Letters 104 p. 141909 (2014) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4871092

• “Saturable absorption behavior of free-standing graphene polymer composite films over broad wavelength and time ranges”

o Yanyan Feng, Ningning Dong…Werner J. Blau et al. (TCD) o Optics Express 23, p. 559 (2015) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.000559

• “Ultra-short wavelength operation of a thulium fibre laser in the 1660–1750 nm wavelength band “

o J. Daniel, N. Simakov, M. Tokurakawa, M. Ibsen & W. A. Clarkson (ORC) o Optics Express 23, p. 18269 (2015) o http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.23.018269


28

ISLA workshop

For a detailed summary of the project, the reader is directed to the slides from the ISLA workshop, which was held 26-Jun-2015 in Munich. This full-day event consisted of a set of seven technical presentations from the ISLA consortium summarising the outcomes from the project, and a set of seven presentations from guest speakers on applications for 2 µm lasers. The agenda ran as follows: ISLA project presentations Introduction to ISLA Gary Stevens; G&H (Torquay) Fibres for 2 µm Prof. Andy Clarkson; ORC Southampton Passive components for 2 µm fibre laser Gary Stevens; G&H (Torquay) Active components for 2 µm fibre lasers Jon Ward; G&H (UK) Modelockers based on graphene Prof. Werner Blau; Trinity College Dublin Pump lasers at 79x nm Dr. Susanne Pawlik; II-VI Laser Enterprise 2 µm ps-lasers Dr. Peter Hofmann; JDSU Ultrafast CW and pulsed lasers at 2 µm Dr. Sina Riecke; ROFIN-SINAR Laser Guest presentations on 2 µm laser applications 2 µm laser development and applications Dr. Samir Lamrini; LISA Laser Medical applications of 2 µm lasers Dr. Ronald Sroka; Hospital of Univ. Munich OCT for cultural heritage using 2 µm lasers Dr. Haida Liang; Nott. Trent University 2 µm lasers for MIR frequency conversion Dr. Eric Lallier; Thales TRT Telecoms applications for 2 µm lasers Prof. David Richardson; ORC Southampton 2 µm lasers as pump sources to the mid-IR Dr. Lasse Leick; NKT Photonics Free space comms using 2 µm lasers Florian Moll; DLR The slides from the workshop are available from the project public website: http://isla-project.eu/outputs/isla-workshop/ [For confidentiality reasons, some of the guest presenters’ slides are not available.]

ISLA at Photonics West 2016

As a direct result of the success of the workshop, ISLA was invited to have a dedicated session on the project at Photonics West 2016 (San Francisco, USA; Feb-2016). It will be part of LASE conference LA105 “Component and packaging for laser systems” and will consist of four presentations on ISLA results. Details should be announced in Sep-2015.

Outlook for 2 µm fibre laser technology

The consortium believes that the future for 2 µm fibre lasers looks bright. During the course of the project, Tm fibre lasers (TFLs) have now entered the kilowatt regime. ISLA has helped to put 2 µm fibre laser technology on the map, and the interest in the field is growing


29

each year. ISLA has also developed a range of 2 µm components to enable exploitation of the 2 µm spectral region. However, the breakthrough of 2 µm has not yet occurred (chiefly due to the low cost of 1 µm technology) and Tm lasers still trail behind Yb fibre lasers (YFLs) in terms of power and technology maturity. Nevertheless, this situation is changing, and ISLA has helped to establish 2 µm lasers in the marketplace. The following points are noted, regarding the future for 2 µm fibre lasers:

• TFLs will surpass YFLs in terms of single-mode power and pulse energy by a significant margin, albeit at the expense of lower efficiency

• TFLs will serve many of the existing applications for YFLs and will open up new (wavelength-dependent) applications

• TFLs will open up access to higher power in the mid-IR

• Fibre laser technology provides the only credible way to scale power in the 2 µm wavelength regime.

• The 2 µm regime offers: o Eye-safety o Potentially higher pulse energy and average power o Better performance with plastics and certain thin-films that absorb better at

2 µm, as well as a range of medical applications.

Further information

Please visit the ISLA website for further information: www.isla-project.eu This will be updated with new developments following the project, including new products and further information on the Photonics West session. The website includes presentation and other background material, including: Project video https://youtu.be/tnRO-ghRLfA Project newsletters 1-6 http://isla-project.eu/outputs/ A list of publications: http://isla-project.eu/publications/


30

4.2 Use and dissemination of foreground

A1: List of all scientific (peer reviewed) publications

No. Title Main author Title of the periodical or the series Date Publisher

Place of

publication

Year of

publication Relevant pages Permanent identifiers

Open

access? Comments

1Feature issue introduction: nanocarbon for

photonics and optoelectronicsWerner Blau Optical Materials Express 01-Jun-12 OSA Online 2012 891-2

dx.doi.org/10.1364/O

ME.2.000891YES

2Nonlinear Properties of Graphene Dispersions

and Thin Films at a Wavelength of 1.2 μmAidan Murray

Journal of Nanoelectronics and

Optoelectronics01-Jan-13

American

Scientific

Publishers

US 2013 Vol. 8, p. 23-27dx.doi.org/10.1166/jn

o.2013.1425YES

3

Controllable broadband nonlinear optical

response of graphene

dispersions by tuning vacuum pressure

X. Cheng Optics Express 15-Jul-13 OSA US 2013 Vol. 21, pp p16486-16493 http://dx.doi.org/10.1

364/OE.21.016486YES

4

Ag-stabilized few-layer graphene dispersions

in low boiling point solvents for versatile

nonlinear optical applications

Z. Sun Carbon 01-Oct-13 Elsevier US 2013 Vol. 62, p. 182-192

http://dx.doi.org/10.1

016/j.carbon.2013.06.0

10

YES

5Hybrid Plasmonic Nanostructures with

Unconventional Nonlinear Optical PropertiesY. Zhang Advanced Optical Materials 11-Feb-14 Wiley US 2014 Vol. 2, 331-337

dx.doi.org/10.1002/ad

om.201300503YES

6

Tunable effective nonlinear refractive index of

graphene dispersions during the distortion of

spatial self-phase modulation

G. Wang Applied Physics Letters 04/2014; 104(14):141909. 01-Apr-14 AIP 2014 Vol. 104 p 141909http://dx.doi.org/10.1

063/1.4871092YES

7First demonstration of a 2μm few-mode TDFA

for mode division multiplexingY. Yung Optics Express 05-May-14 OSA US 2014 Vol. 22, pp. 10544-10549

http://dx.doi.org/10.1

364/OE.22.010544YES

8

Saturable absorption behavior of free-standing

graphene polymer composite films over broad

wavelength and time ranges

Y. Feng Optics Express 12-Jan-15 OSA US 2015 Vol. 23, pp. 559http://dx.doi.org/10.1

364/OE.23.000559YES

9

Ultra-short wavelength operation of a thulium

fibre laser in the 1660–1750 nm wavelength

band

J.M.O. Daniel Optics Express 06-Jul-15 OSA US 2015 Vol. 23, p. 18269http://dx.doi.org/10.1

364/OE.23.018269YES


31

A2: List of all dissemination activities

No. Type of activities Main leader Title Date Place Type of audience Size of audience

Countries

addressed

1 Other G&H LinkedIn 2 um User Group 01-Sep-11 Online Scientific community; industry 24 (23-Nov-2012) Worldwide

2 Workshop TCD

International Workshop on Nano and Bio-Photonics (IWNBP): invited

talk and presentation of preliminary project results 23-Oct-11

Saint Germain au

Mont d'Or, France Scientific community 200? Worldwide

3 Website Vivid Public ISLA website 26-Oct-11 Online Scientific community; industry

>3000 visits/

month mid-2013 Worldwide

4 Other Vivid D6.3 Project fact sheet ISLA_VIV_019_A_WP6 02-Nov-11 Online Scientific community; industry ? Online

5 Articles in popular press Vivid Project mentioned in optics.org article 27-Nov-11 Online Scientific community; industry ? Online

6 Press release Vivid ISLA_VIV_020_A_WP6 D6.1 Project start press release 05-Dec-11 N/A Media 10 magazines Europe

7 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Laser Focus World 06-Dec-11 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 70000 subscribers Worldwide

8 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Industrial Laser Solutions 06-Dec-11 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 10000? Worldwide

9 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Electro Optics 19-Dec-11 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 17000 subscribers Worldwide

10 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Photonics.com 19-Dec-11 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 10000? Europe

11 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Photonik 17-Jan-12 Online Scientific community; industry 10000? Germany

12 Presentation TCD

Presentation on CNTs for non-linear optics put on website

ISLA_VIV_029_A_WP6 Proj background- Nanocarbon NLO 14-Feb-12 Online Scientific community; industry ? Online

13 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Biophotonics 20-Feb-12 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 10000? Worldwide

14 Presentation Vivid ISLA_VIV_027_D_WP6 D6.2 Project presentation 27-Feb-12 Online Scientific community; industry ? Worldwide

15 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in EuroPhotonics 01-Mar-12 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 10000? Europe

16 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Laser & Photonics 01-Mar-12 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 10000? Worldwide

17 Flyers Vivid

ISLA_VIV_041_A_WP6 D6.5 Proj promotional leaflet

2500 glossy copies; copies sent to all partners 05-Apr-12 N/A Scientific community; industry 2500 copies Worldwide

18 Posters Vivid Two banners based on D6.5 leaflet 10-Apr-12 N/A Scientific community; industry ? Europe

19 Articles in popular press Vivid Short article on project start in Photonics Spectra 13-Apr-12 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 90000 copies Worldwide

20 Other Vivid Short article on project start in EPIC newsletter 13-Apr-12 Magazine/ online Scientific community; industry 200 Europe

21 Exhibition Vivid Photonics Europe 2012: tabletop exhibition space 14-Apr-12 Brussels, Belgium Scientific community; industry 2000 Worldwide

22 Other Vivid First newsletter released D6.6 (ISLA_VIV_042_A_WP6) 24-Apr-12 Online Scientific community; industry 100 Worldwide

23 Other ORC

Meeting at ORC (with G&H & Vivid) with MODE-GAP ORC researchers

(Jonathon Price and Alex Heidt). 17-May-12 Southampton, UK Scientific community; industry 15 UK

24 Other Vivid Discussion with IMPROV re collaboration and joint research 18-May-12 Online Scientific community; industry 15 Europe

25 Exhibition TBP

TBP booth and distributed ISLA leaflets at the International Trade Fair

for Laser Material Processing LASYS 12-Jun-12 Stuttgart, Germany Scientific community; industry 1000? Worldwide

26 Conference TCD

Molecular Nano- and Biophotonics Conference (Monabiphot): ISLA

presentation 21-Jun-12 Hyeres, France Scientific community 100? Europe

27 Website Vivid Website updated in line with comments from 9M review 10-Jul-12 Online Scientific community; industry ? Online

28 Conference TCD

International Workshop Nanocarbon Photonics and Optoelectronics

(NPO 2012): ISLA presentation & associated paper 29-Jul-12 Polvijärvi, Finland Scientific community 100? Worldwide

29 Conference ORC

EPS-QEOD Europhoton Conference 2012: ISLA-related paper

"Power-scalable wavelength-agile fibre laser source at two-microns" 26-Aug-12 Stockholm, Sweden Scientific community; industry 250? Worldwide

30 Conference TCD Nanoweek at CRANN: ISLA poster 14-Sep-12 TCD, Dublin, Ireland Scientific community; industry 500? Europe


32

31 Exhibition G&H SPIE Security and Defence: G&H booth with ISLA leaflets 24-Sep-12 Edinburgh, UK Scientific community; industry 2000? Worldwide

32 Other Vivid Newsletter #2 distributed and online 24-Oct-12 Online Scientific community; industry 100 Worldwide

33 Conference TCD Thesis-in-3 event: ISLA presentation 25-Oct-12 TCD, Dublin, Ireland Scientific community; industry 500? Europe

34 Exhibition G&H Photonics West 2013: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 02-Feb-13 San Francisco, USA Scientific community; industry 21000 attendees Worldwide

35 Exhibition TBP Photonics West 2013: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 02-Feb-13 San Francisco, USA Scientific community; industry 21000 attendees Worldwide

36 Exhibition Rofin Photonics West 2013: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 02-Feb-13 San Francisco, USA Scientific community; industry 21000 attendees Worldwide

37 Exhibition ORC

Photonics West 2013: ISLA flyers distributed; presentation on ISLA

material

"Electronically controllable mode selection in a multimode fiber

oscillator" 02-Feb-13 San Francisco, USA Scientific community; industry 21000 attendees Worldwide

38 Other ORC ISLA webpage on ORC website 06-Mar-13 Online Scientific community; industry 1000? Worldwide

39 Workshop ORC Presentation to COST IC1101 Free Space Communications meeting 25-Apr-13

Prague, Czech

Republic Scientific community; industry 100 Europe

40 Video Vivid ISLA video online & on YouTube 06-May-13 Online All 100 Worldwide

41 Exhibition G&H Laser World of Photonics: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 13-May-13 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 27000 Worldwide

42 Exhibition TBP Laser World of Photonics: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 13-May-13 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 27000 Worldwide

43 Exhibition Rofin Laser World of Photonics: booth; ISLA flyers distributed 13-May-13 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 27000 Worldwide

44 Conference ORC

CLEO Europe 2013: ISLA flyers distributed; and ISLA-related papers

presented (1 of 2)

Bandwidth-Controllable Tunable Q-Switched Thulium Fibre Laser 13-May-13 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 2000? Worldwide

45 Conference ORC

CLEO Europe 2013: ISLA flyers distributed; two ISLA-related papers

presented (2 of 2)

Ultra-broadband Wavelength Swept Tm-doped Fibre Laser 13-May-13 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 2000? Worldwide

46 Website Vivid Agreement with LIFT project to put mutual links on websites 15-May-13 Online Scientific community; industry 30 Online

47 Other Vivid Newsletter #3 distributed and online 21-May-13 Online Scientific community; industry 100 Worldwide

48 Conference TCD Poster presented at Graphene Week 2013 02-Jun-13 Chemnitz, Germany Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

49 Exhibition TBP Booth at CLEO 2013 with project literature 09-Jun-13 San Jose, USA Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

50 Workshop TCD

Poster at 5th International Workshop on Nanotube Optics and

Nanospectroscopy (WONTON 2013) 16-Jun-13 Santa Fe, NM, USA Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

51 Workshop Vivid

ISLA tabletop at 3rd Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and their

Applications (WSOF2013) 28-Aug-13 Sigtuna, Swede Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

52 Workshop ORC

Invited paper by Jayanta Sahu (ORC), "Specialty Doped Fibres in High

Power Lasers" at 3rd Workshop on Specialty Optical Fibers and their

Applications (WSOF2013) 28-Aug-13 Sigtuna, Swede Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

53 Other ORC

ISLA article in COST IC1011 Newsletter Fall 2013 (following Peter

Shardlow presentation) 02-Sep-13 N/A Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

54 Conference TCD

Werner Blau keynote paper on ISLA at NANOSMAT "Nanocarbon

Materials and Composites for Photonics and Optoelectronics" 22-Sep-13 Granada, Spain Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

55 Exhibition Vivid ISLA booth at ICT 2013 exhibition "Create, Connect, Grow" 06-Nov-13 Vilnius, Lithuania Scientific community; industry 500 Europe


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56 Conference TCD

Werner Blau invited paper, "Ultrafast NLO in nanocarbon polymer

composites" at 2nd International Conference on Advanced Photonic

Polymers (ICAPP 2013) 14-Nov-13 Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanScientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

57 Other Vivid ISLA Newsletter #4 (D6.13) sent to distribution list & put on website 03-Dec-13 Online Scientific community; industry ? Online

58 Exhibition G&H Booth at Photonics West 2014 with ISLA material 01-Feb-14 San Francisco, US Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

59 Exhibition Rofin Booth at Photonics West 2014 with ISLA material 01-Feb-14 San Francisco, US Scientific community; industry 500 Worldwide

60 Conference Oclaro Paper presented "High power pump laser diodes for 2 um fibre laser" (8965-26); Photonics West 2014 01-Feb-14 San Francisco, US Scientific community; industry 100 Worldwide

61 Conference Vivid

ISLA joint booth with HALO project at FISC 2014 (International Laser

Symposium 2014) 27-Feb-14 Dresden, Germany Scientific community; industry 200 Europe

62 Conference G&H

Gary Stevens paper “High power fibre laser components for 2um

applications” at FISC 2014 (International Laser Symposium 2014) 27-Feb-14 Dresden, Germany Scientific community; industry 200 Europe

63 Other Vivid New updated banners ordered 01-Apr-14 N/A Scientific community; industry ? N/A

64 Conference G&H

Photonics Europe paper; "Fibre laser component technology for 2-

micron laser systems," Gary Stevens 14-Apr-14 Brussels, Belgium Scientific community; industry 100 Europe

65 Exhibition Vivid Photonics Europe; ISLA booth 14-Apr-14 Brussels, Belgium Scientific community; industry 500 Europe

66 Conference TCD

MRS Spring Meeting: paper on

Nanocarbon Based Materials for Non-Linear Optical Applications and

Ultrafast Laser Applications 21-Apr-14 San Francisco Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

67 Conference ORC

CLEO 2014 "Effect of seed linewidth on few-moded fiber amplifiers"

Jae M. Daniel, Nikita Simakov, Peter C. Shardlow, and W. A. Clarkson

http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/CLEO_SI.2014.STu2N.7 08-Jun-14 San Jose, USA Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

68 Conference TCD

The World Innovation Conference paper "Graphene Based Materials for

Non-Linear Optical Applications and Ultrafast Laser Applications at 2

Microns" 15-Jun-14 Washington, USA Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

69 Conference ORC

Few-Mode TDFA for Mode Division Multiplexing at 2µm

IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topical Meeting 14-Jul-14 Montreal, Canada Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

70 Conference TCD

Werner Blau invited paper at 4th NPO, "Rational bottom-up assembly of

tailored molecular aggregates on nanocarbon for high sensitivity

nonlinear optical and light harvesting applications" 28-Jul-14

North Karelia,

Finland Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

71 Conference ORC

Europhoton conference; ORC paper "Spectrally-tailored thulium-doped

fibre amplified spontaneous emission source at two-microns" 24-Aug-14 Neuchatel, SwitzerlandScientific community; industry 200 Europe

72 Conference II-VI

ISLC 2014; 24th International Semiconductor Laser Conference;

II-VI poster "Recent Progress in Semiconductor Laser for Fiber Laser

Applications” 07-Sep-14 Mallorca, Spain Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

73 Conference TCD

Werner Blau chair and invited paper at 9th NANOSMAT conference: INV-

17 "Carbon-based Nanomaterials and Self-Assembled Nanohybrids as

Versatile Materials Platform for Optoelectronics and Nanophotonics" 08-Sep-14 Dublin, Ireland Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

74 Conference TCD Werner Blau invited paper at 9th Torunian Carbon Symposium Poland 14-Sep-14 Torun, Poland Scientific community; industry 200 Europe

75 Other Vivid Newsletter #5 (D6.14) 15-Sep-14 N/A Scientific community; industry 200 Online


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76 Conference ORC

90 nm gain extension towards 1.7 μm for diode-pumped silica-based

thulium-doped fiber amplifiers

ECOC 2014 doi: 10.1109/ECOC.2014.6964109 21-Sep-14 Cannes, France Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

77 Magazine Vivid Sent contacts to Ind Laser Systems magazine for 2 um fibre laser article 17-Oct-14 N/A Scientific community; industry ? Online

78 Conference G&H

Photonics West 2015

Paper 9346-23, "Optical Isolators for 2-micron fibre lasers" 11-Feb-15 San Francisco, USA Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

79 Conference G&H

Int. Congress on Ultrasonics

Matched Pair of AOTFs with Net Zero Frequency-Shift 10-May-15 Metz, France Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

80 Conference G&H

Paper CJ-14.6 at CLEO Europe 2015

Null-frequency-shift acousto-optic tunable filter for wavelength tuning

of a Tm fibre laser 21-Jun-15 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

81 Conference ORC

Paper CJ-14.3 at CLEO Europe 2015

Optimising Tm-Doped Silica Fibres for High Lasing Efficiency 21-Jun-15 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

82 Workshop G&H

Presentation at "Advanced Manufacturing and Photonics for Production"

at Laser World of Photonics

ISLA - Two micrometer Sources and Toolset for Enhanced Material

Processing 24-Jun-15 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 200 Worldwide

83 Workshop Vivid Workshop at Raeter Park Hotel D6.15 25-Jun-15 Munich, Germany Scientific community; industry 50 Worldwide

84 Press release Vivid Newsletter #6 (D6.22) 11-Aug-15 N/A Scientific community; industry 200 Online

85 Other G&H Final press release (D6.20) 12-Aug-15 N/A Scientific community; industry ? Online

Documents

PROJECT FINAL REPORT - European Commission : … of high power 2 µm radiation, ... from 100 µm stripe width were targeted during the ... is on the RHS and the intact source gas feeder