UV light sources based on solid silica fibres

Optical fibre lasers offer significant benefits in comparison to other laser sources, such as extremely low thermal lensing, extraordinary good beam quality and very high plug efficiency. Optical fibre lasers have worldwide sales in excess of $300M and a predicted annual growth rate of 20-40%, thus are rapidly replacing other types of more conventional lasers. Indeed, the increasing deployment of high power fibre lasers in manufacturing has improved consumption efficiency. Up to date only near-IR sources have been manufactured in fiberized forms. The challenge is to develop new fiberized sources in the mid-UV. The successful manufacture of optical fibre lasers would have numerous applications which include, amongst others, water purification, insulators (such as plastics or glass) marking and processing, explosive detection, forensics and counter measures. This projects aim to demonstrate the possibility to use solid silica fibres to efficiently generate light in the UV. The proposed programme spans from the manufacture of specialty silica fibres transparent to the UV, doped with novel lasing elements, the design of fiberized laser pumps, and their combination in suitable systems to produce a new generation of affordable higher performance lasers. A variety of lasers with wavelength in the range 170nm to 330 nm will be developed and their applications in Raman spectroscopy and supercontinuum generation will be investigated.