The ability of Raman spectroscopy to detect anthrax-causing spores as they pass through a mail sorting system was investigated. A pump was connected to an existing vacuum manifold on a commercial sorter, and a filter designed to capture 0.5-3 µm particles was placed in-line. A standard business letter containing 0.23 g of Bacillus cereus spores, a Bacillus anthracis surrogate, was placed in a stack of 20 letters and passed through the system. Raman spectra of the filter positively identified the captured material as bacterial spores by the dominant calcium dipicolinate Raman spectral bands associated with the spore core. A limit of detection, using 400 mW of 785 nm laser excitation for a 1-s acquisition, is estimated at 4.5 mg. The ability of a Raman spectroscopy based system to detect and prevent the distribution of a letter containing gram levels of anthrax spores is discussed.
Conventionally, large-mode-area (LMA) fiber lasers use free-space polarizing components to achieve linear polarization output. External components, however, significantly limit laser robustness and power scalability. We demonstrate, to the best of our knowledge, the first high-power all-fiber cavity single-polarization single-transverse-mode LMA fiber laser, without the use of free-space polarizing components. This has been achieved by using tightly coiled high-birefringence 20 microm core LMA fiber. The lasing spectrum at 1085 nm has been stabilized by a fiber grating, spliced at one end of a LMA fiber. Up to 405 W of single-polarization output with a polarization extinction of >19 dB with a narrow spectrum (1.9 nm FWHM) and in a single-transverse mode (M2 < 1.1) has been demonstrated. The simplicity of a monolithic-cavity approach is highly beneficial for a number of applications, including the use of a fiber laser for nonlinear wavelength conversion and for coherent and spectral beam combining.
We report the fabrication of extremely low NA preforms (<0.03), highly doped with Yb using a conventional Modified Chemical Vapor Deposition (MCVD) system. Our lowest NA preform (0.025 NA) was drawn to a 52um core step-index double-clad fiber operating in a single mode regime (M 2 =1.04). The fiber had a mode field diameter (MFD) and an effective area (Aeff) greater than 35um and 1000um 2 respectively. In a fiber laser configuration, the efficiency was greater than 85% without any sign of photodarkening. To the best of our knowledge, by using our extremely low NA preforms we have demonstrated the largest MFD and Aeff to date for a single-mode step index double-clad Yb doped fiber without involving any micro-structuration.
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