Innovative Laser Technology Set to Transform Medicine

Lasers that produce ultrashort light pulses are crucial for precision in manufacturing, medicine, and scientific research. However, traditional high-efficiency short-pulse laser systems tend to be large and costly.

A research team from the University of Stuttgart, in collaboration with Stuttgart Instruments GmbH, has developed a compact alternative that promises to change this landscape. According to the report published in Nature, this new device achieves over 80% efficiency, significantly higher than the approximately 35% efficiency of existing technologies.

This means that a greater proportion of the input power is converted into usable output, reducing waste and costs. The ultrashort laser pulses, lasting only nano-, pico-, or femtoseconds, allow concentrated energy delivery to minuscule areas almost instantaneously.

In practical applications, this technology can enhance medical imaging and facilitate quantum research, enabling precise measurements at the molecular level. The innovative setup combines a pump laser with a short-pulse laser, utilizing a crystal that converts incoming light particles to infrared light, which is essential for experiments that visible light cannot perform.

Dr. Tobias Steinle, the lead author of the study, emphasizes that designing efficient short-pulse lasers has been a long-standing challenge. Traditionally, achieving the necessary amplification while covering a wide range of wavelengths required either very short and thin crystals or much longer crystals, which were difficult to integrate.

The Stuttgart team introduces a new multipass strategy, which reintroduces the light through a single short crystal multiple times, carefully realigning pulses after each pass to maintain synchronization.

This approach allows the system to produce pulses shorter than 50 femtoseconds while occupying just a few square centimeters and utilizing only five components. The multipass system achieves high efficiency without sacrificing bandwidth, potentially replacing larger, expensive laser systems that suffer from high power losses.

The researchers aim to refine this technology to develop small, lightweight, and tunable lasers suitable for various applications, including medicine, analytical techniques, gas sensing, and environmental monitoring.

Financial backing for this project came from several German governmental and research organizations, highlighting the support for this innovative technology. The work was part of the MIRESWEEP project, focused on creating cost-effective tunable mid-infrared laser sources for analytical applications.