Q-switching

Q-switching, sometimes known as giant pulse formation or Q-spoiling,[1] is a technique by which a laser can be made to produce a pulsed output beam. The technique allows the production of light pulses with extremely high (gigawatt) peak power, much higher than would be produced by the same laser if it were operating in a continuous wave (constant output) mode. Compared to modelocking, another technique for pulse generation with lasers, Q-switching leads to much lower pulse repetition rates, much higher pulse energies, and much longer pulse durations. The two techniques are sometimes applied together.

Q-switching was first proposed in 1958 by Gordon Gould,[2] and independently discovered and demonstrated in 1961 or 1962 by R.W. Hellwarth and F.J. McClung at Hughes Research Laboratories using electrically switched Kerr cell shutters in a ruby laser.[3] Optical nonlinearities such as Q-switching were fully explained by Nicolaas Bloembergen, who won the Nobel prize in 1981 for this work.[4][5][6][7]

  1. ^ Früngel, Frank B. A. (2014). Optical Pulses - Lasers - Measuring Techniques. Academic Press. p. 192. ISBN 9781483274317. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  2. ^ Taylor, Nick (2000). LASER: The inventor, the Nobel laureate, and the thirty-year patent war. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83515-0. p. 93.
  3. ^ McClung, F.J.; Hellwarth, R.W. (1962). "Giant optical pulsations from ruby". Journal of Applied Physics. 33 (3): 828–829. Bibcode:1962JAP....33..828M. doi:10.1063/1.1777174.
  4. ^ The Laser Inventor. Springer Biographies. 2018. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-61940-8. ISBN 978-3-319-61939-2.
  5. ^ Bloembergen, Nicolaas (2011). "The Birth of Nonlinear Optics". Nonlinear Optics: NWA2. doi:10.1364/nlo.2011.nwa2. ISBN 978-1-55752-915-2.
  6. ^ DeMaria, A. J.; Stetser, D. A.; Glenn, W. H. (1967-06-23). "Ultrashort Light Pulses". Science. 156 (3782): 1557–1568. Bibcode:1967Sci...156.1557D. doi:10.1126/science.156.3782.1557. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17797635. S2CID 27074052.
  7. ^ Treacy, E.B. (1968). "Compression of picosecond light pulses". Physics Letters A. 28 (1): 34–35. Bibcode:1968PhLA...28...34T. doi:10.1016/0375-9601(68)90584-7.