Regents’ Professor and Chair, Department of Physics & Astronomy
The University of New Mexico
Dr. Rudolph has disclosed nine inventions to STC, received three UNM-affiliated issued U. S. patents, and has one pending U. S. patent application for microscopy and laser technologies.
His optically pumped fiber-gas laser (OPGL) is based on population inversion in a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF). OPGLs confine the pump and laser light over long interaction lengths in a compact configuration. The first laser produced mid-IR (~ 3 μm) radiation by optically pumping with 1.5-μm laser pulses. Recently the concept has also been successfully applied to continuous (CW) wave lasing by his group. The OPGL combines attractive features of fiber and gas lasers, including high damage thresholds, low lasing thresholds, and the potential of converting power from mutually incoherent pump sources into coherent laser output.
His pending patent application is for aperiodic stacks of thin films for laser frequency conversion. The demonstration of a dielectric mirror producing a third harmonic of laser radiation paved the way for compact wavelength converters that could replace crystals.
Dr. Rudolph’s research interests include ultrafast lasers and spectroscopy; microscopy with femtosecond light pulses for applications in material science; and lasers in the mid infrared for remote sensing and imaging through the atmosphere.
ISSUED U. S. PATENTS (UNM-AFFILIATED)
7,476,787 Addressable Field Enhancement Microscopy, issued January 13, 2009
7,869,051 System and Method for Ratiometric Non-linear Coherent Imaging, issued January 11, 2011
9,106,055 Gas-Filled Hollow-Fiber Laser, issued August 11, 2015
PENDING U. S. PATENT APPLICATION (UNM-AFFILIATED)
Harmonic Generation Using Optimized Stacks of Thin Films