Lasers, which are ubiquitous in everyday life, have dramatically revolutionized the world in the fields of manufacturing, communication, metrology, sensing, display, directed energy, and others. Tremendous technological breakthroughs in laser sources have been reported to meet the ever-increasing demands for improved laser performance. Today, new trends for laser development are emerging, including advanced laser sources with specially tailored attributes (such as spatial patterns, spectral properties, pulse shapes, wavelength coverage, etc.). A variety of laser applications has urgently and persistently called for these new sources. As a result, enormous progress has been made in this direction over the past decades.
Complete characterization and control of laser outputs among multiple domains and degrees of freedom is the key for practical laser-matter interactions. In this context, better control over laser properties has a vast range of new laser application scenarios, such as: adapting spatial beam profiles to achieve super-resolution imaging of living cells, tailoring pulse shapes and wavelength range to generate optical frequency rulers with unprecedented precision, employing the angular momentum of laser beams to realize contactless and multi-dimensional motion control of nano-particles, to name a few. In addition, recent technological progress has created new paradigms, such as on-chip lasers and photonics, metasurface lasers, topological lasers, biological lasers, and air lasing, offering abundant dynamics and enabling applications to be explored. The goal of this Research Topic is to take a snapshot of the current frontier of dynamics and manipulation of novel laser sources. Furthermore, we aim to build connections between experts from different backgrounds to gather the current state-of-the-art and to ensure that researchers in distinct sub-areas can learn from each other’s progress.
The scope of this Research Topic covers recent trends and developments of lasers, focusing on fundamental and technical aspects (dynamics, manipulation methods) and applications that benefit from these developments. Article types, including Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspectives, are welcome. Themes may include, but are not limited to:
• New physics, observations, and insights into manipulating lasers' properties of any type (bulk, fiber, waveguide, semiconductor, gas, etc. )
• Novel concepts, approaches, architectures, materials, and components for lasers
• Enhanced performances and expanded capabilities of lasers and their potential applications
• Techniques to structure light in temporal, spectral, and spatial domains
• Frequency combs, frequency conversion processes, and frequency-stable lasers
Lasers, which are ubiquitous in everyday life, have dramatically revolutionized the world in the fields of manufacturing, communication, metrology, sensing, display, directed energy, and others. Tremendous technological breakthroughs in laser sources have been reported to meet the ever-increasing demands for improved laser performance. Today, new trends for laser development are emerging, including advanced laser sources with specially tailored attributes (such as spatial patterns, spectral properties, pulse shapes, wavelength coverage, etc.). A variety of laser applications has urgently and persistently called for these new sources. As a result, enormous progress has been made in this direction over the past decades.
Complete characterization and control of laser outputs among multiple domains and degrees of freedom is the key for practical laser-matter interactions. In this context, better control over laser properties has a vast range of new laser application scenarios, such as: adapting spatial beam profiles to achieve super-resolution imaging of living cells, tailoring pulse shapes and wavelength range to generate optical frequency rulers with unprecedented precision, employing the angular momentum of laser beams to realize contactless and multi-dimensional motion control of nano-particles, to name a few. In addition, recent technological progress has created new paradigms, such as on-chip lasers and photonics, metasurface lasers, topological lasers, biological lasers, and air lasing, offering abundant dynamics and enabling applications to be explored. The goal of this Research Topic is to take a snapshot of the current frontier of dynamics and manipulation of novel laser sources. Furthermore, we aim to build connections between experts from different backgrounds to gather the current state-of-the-art and to ensure that researchers in distinct sub-areas can learn from each other’s progress.
The scope of this Research Topic covers recent trends and developments of lasers, focusing on fundamental and technical aspects (dynamics, manipulation methods) and applications that benefit from these developments. Article types, including Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspectives, are welcome. Themes may include, but are not limited to:
• New physics, observations, and insights into manipulating lasers' properties of any type (bulk, fiber, waveguide, semiconductor, gas, etc. )
• Novel concepts, approaches, architectures, materials, and components for lasers
• Enhanced performances and expanded capabilities of lasers and their potential applications
• Techniques to structure light in temporal, spectral, and spatial domains
• Frequency combs, frequency conversion processes, and frequency-stable lasers