Focus issue introduction: Advanced Solid-State Lasers (ASSL) 2015.

The editors introduce the focus issue on "Advanced Solid-State Lasers (ASSL) 2015", which is based on the topics presented at a congress of the same name held in Berlin, Germany, from October 4 to October 9, 2015. This focus issue, jointly prepared by Optics Express and Optical Materials Express, includes 23 contributed papers (17 for Optics Express and 6 for Optical Materials Express) selected from the voluntary submissions from attendees who presented at the congress and have extended their work into complete research articles. We hope this focus issue offers a good snapshot of a variety of topical discussions held at the congress and will contribute to the further expansion of the associated research areas.

[1]  Nicolaie Pavel,et al.  Ignition of an automobile engine by high-peak power Nd:YAG/Cr⁴⁺:YAG laser-spark devices. , 2015, Optics express.

[2]  Valentin Gapontsev,et al.  Multi-Watt mid-IR femtosecond polycrystalline Cr(2+):ZnS and Cr(2+):ZnSe laser amplifiers with the spectrum spanning 2.0-2.6 µm. , 2016, Optics express.

[3]  Antonio Lucianetti,et al.  Microchip laser operation of Yb-doped gallium garnets , 2015 .

[4]  Matthew Guy,et al.  High power Nd:YAG spinning disk laser. , 2016, Optics express.

[5]  Jie Guo,et al.  High power, high repetition rate, few picosecond Nd:LuVO₄ oscillator with cavity dumping. , 2015, Optics express.

[6]  C. H. Tsou,et al.  High-peak-power optically-pumped AlGaInAs eye-safe laser with a silicon wafer as an output coupler: comparison between the stack cavity and the separate cavity. , 2015, Optics express.

[7]  Valdas Pasiskevicius,et al.  Intracavity-pumped, cascaded AgGaSe₂ optical parametric oscillator tunable from 5.8 to 18 µm. , 2015, Optics express.

[8]  David Shepherd,et al.  An 11.5 W Yb:YAG planar waveguide laser fabricated via pulsed laser deposition , 2016 .

[9]  Shengming Zhou,et al.  High Verdet constant of Ti-doped terbium aluminum garnet (TAG) ceramics , 2016 .

[10]  Pavel Peterka,et al.  Enhanced pump absorption efficiency in coiled and twisted double-clad thulium-doped fibers. , 2016, Optics express.

[11]  Shibin Jiang,et al.  Focus issue introduction: Advanced Solid-State Lasers (ASSL) 2013. , 2014, Optics express.

[12]  T. L. Huang,et al.  Analysis of the optimal temperature for the cryogenic monolithic Nd:YAG laser at 946-nm. , 2016, Optics express.

[13]  Karoly Osvay,et al.  Design of a thin disk amplifier with extraction during pumping for high peak and average power Ti:Sa systems (EDP-TD). , 2016, Optics express.

[14]  Alexey B Pnev,et al.  High-energy, sub-100 fs, all-fiber stretched-pulse mode-locked Er-doped ring laser with a highly-nonlinear resonator. , 2015, Optics express.

[15]  V. Kubeček,et al.  Cryogenically-cooled Yb:YGAG ceramic mode-locked laser. , 2016, Optics express.

[16]  Takunori Taira,et al.  Giant-pulse Nd:YVO4 microchip laser with MW-level peak power by emission cross-sectional control. , 2016, Optics express.

[17]  Jun Xu,et al.  Effect of erbium concentration on spectroscopic properties and 279 μm laser performance of Er:CaF_2 crystals , 2016 .

[18]  Takunori Taira,et al.  High-gain mid-infrared optical-parametric generation pumped by microchip laser. , 2016, Optics express.

[19]  Xavier Mateos,et al.  SESAM mode-locked Tm:CALGO laser at 2 µm , 2016 .

[20]  T. Maiman.  Stimulated Optical Radiation in Ruby , 1960, Nature.

[21]  Shibin Jiang,et al.  Focus issue introduction: Advanced solid-state lasers (ASSL) 2014. , 2015, Optics express.

[22]  Valentin Petrov,et al.  High-average-power, 50-fs parametric amplifier front-end at 1.55 μm. , 2015, Optics express.

[23]  Thomas Elsaesser,et al.  Picosecond 34 mJ pulses at kHz repetition rates from a Ho:YLF amplifier at 2 µm wavelength. , 2015, Optics express.

[24]  Rok Petkovšek,et al.  High power fiber MOPA based QCW laser delivering pulses with arbitrary duration on demand at high modulation bandwidth. , 2015, Optics express.