Efficient generation of tunable VUV laser radiation below 205 nm by SFM in BBO

Design and performance characteristics of a tunable dye laser system for sum frequency mixing (SFM) in a BBO crystal are presented. The system is composed of two tunable pulsed dye lasers pumped synchronously by the second harmonic of a commercial Nd:YAG laser. The radiation produced by the first dye laser is frequency doubled by second-harmonic generation (SHG) in KDP and subsequently mixed by SFM in BBO with the light of the second dye laser. The interest was focussed on generation of tunable laser radiation below 205 nm with high output power and long-time wavelength stability. High conversion efficiencies enable output energies of 100 J (20 kW) at 196 nm using only moderate Nd:YAG pump energies of 67 mJ. Altogether, a laser system with very good specifications for analytical application in the near VUV spectral region is reported.     

System for precise measurement in inverse Raman spectroscopy

A system for precise measurement was developed for inverse Raman spectroscopy, using a cw argon laser and a pulsed dye laser pumped by a YAG laser. The frequency accuracy was assured by monitoring the frequency of both of the lasers with an iodine fluorescence cell or a Fabry-Perot etalon dynamically calibrated by a stabilized HeNe laser. The spectrometer system employed a digitally controlled mechanism to handle the complicated measurement procedure and hence to reduce the overall measurement time. The performance of the system was tested by measuring the CH₄ v₁ lines and the H₂ Q(1) line.     

Observation of iodine transitions using the second and third harmonics of a 1.5-μm laser

This paper presents spectroscopic measurements of iodine at 778 nm and 518 nm performed by second and third harmonics of a 1.5-μm diode laser, generated by quasi-phase matching in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide. Sub-Doppler spectroscopy by a 780-nm source was also demonstrated, and shows the potential of the system to reach high levels of frequency stability by locking the laser to the iodine transitions. The suggested method significantly improves the number of frequency references available for stabilizing 1550-nm lasers. Received: 4 February 2002 / Revised version: 14 May 2002 / Published online: 8 August 2002     

Precision Controlling of Frequency Difference for Elastic-Stress Birefringence He-Ne Dual-Frequency Lasers

Birefringence-Zeeman dual frequency lasers are capable of producing frequency difference from several kilohertz to hundreds of megahertz, but the precision of giving and stabilizing of the beat frequency still needs improvement to the range of ±200kHz. We design a new elastic force-exerting device comprised of the bottom part, two arms and two pieces of force-exerting sheets. The frequency difference smoothly tuning is realized with this device in a large range of 2MHz to 20MHz. Power-balance frequency stabilization system is used to investigate characters of the temperature, frequency difference and laser power. The precision of the frequency difference has reach up to ±100kHz after system temperature balance. Analyses of the laser frequency difference and power character are carried out.     

Pulse shape measurement by a non-collinear third-order correlation technique

A third-order correlator suitable for detailed shape measurements of picosecond laser pulses has been developed. The working principle in both the single shot and the scanning mode is based on detection of the phase-matched difference frequency non-collinear generated signal in a non-linear crystal. This third-order OPA correlator was applied for the characterization of the specifically shaped picosecond laser pulses from the MBI CPA Nd: glass laser system.     

Optically stabilized tunable diode-laser system for saturation spectroscopy

We present an optically stabilized lead-salt diode-laser system which is the nucleus of a very-high-resolution instrument for sub-Doppler molecular spectroscopy in the mid-infrared. By application of external optical feedback, we have narrowed the diode-laser linewidth by two orders of magnitude, yielding a spectral width of less than 200 kHz. The diode- laser frequency is stabilized and controlled via the external reflector by variable-frequency offset-locking the diode-laser to a CO laser frequency. This substantial improvement in the spectral properties enabled us to perform a Lamb-dip experiment on a carbonyl sulfide (OCS) absorption line near 1985 cm^–1. We were able to detect a saturated dispersion signal at low pressure (5 Pa) with a signal-to-noise ratio of several thousand. The present paper describes the unique features of the optically stabilized tunable diode-laser system and its use as a spectroscopic tool for sub-Doppler applications.     

Spectral line suppression and sideband narrowing via quantum interference

We reveal that for a realistic system, interference effects are obtained such as the suppression of central line and inner sidebands and the narrowing of the outer fluorescence sidebands. For this purpose, we consider a spontaneous decay from an excited state to a metastable state when the excited and metastable states are resonantly coupled to an auxiliary metastable state by a laser field and a microwave field, respectively. The fluorescence spectrum evolves from a five-peaked structure into a doublet of ultrasharp lines as the ratio of the laser field Rabi frequency to the microwave Rabi frequency is decreased. The physical origin is presented in terms of dressed states.     

光电调制反馈激光多普勒测速仪研究

本文介绍一种新型激光多普勒测速仪——光电调制反馈激光多普勒测速仪(简称OEMF-LDA)。该仪器突破了传统LDA系统构成的模式,采用变频光学频移技术和光电混合反馈技术,将光路和电路连接成闭环负反馈跟踪环路,提高了信噪比,降低了成本。文中结合实验,讨论了OEMF-LDA的静态及动态特性,并在系统的结构及性能等方面与传统LDA作了比较。     

Photon-Assisted Conductance Structure for a Quantum Dot

We investigate theoretically the electron transport of a two-level quantum dot irradiated under a weak laser field at low temperatures in the rotating wave approximation. Using the method of the Keldysh equation of motion for nonequilibrium Green function, we examine the conductance for the system with photon polarization perpendicular to the tunnelling current direction. It is demonstrated that by analytic analysing and numerical examples, a feature of conductance peak splitting appears, and the dependence of conductance on the incident laser frequency and self-energy are discussed.     

A Compact Diode-Pumped Injection Seeded Nd：YAG Laser with Resonance-Detection Technique

A diode pumped injection seeded single-longit udinal-mode （SLM） Nd： YA G laser is achieved by using the resonancedetection technique in Q-switching operation. The pulsed oscillator laser uses a folded cavity to achieve compact construction. This system operates at 100 Hz and provides over 20 m J/pulse of single-frequency 1064 nm output. The M2 values of horizontal and vertical axes are 1.58 and 1.41, respectively. The probability of putting out single-longitudinal-mode pulses is 100%. The 355 nm laser output produced by frequency tripling has a linewidth less than 200 MHz. The laser can run over eight hours continually without, mode hopping     

可调谐掺钛蓝宝石激光器的一种新型倍频器

介绍掺钛蓝宝石激光器的一种新的倍频系统,利用色散棱镜对把不同频率的激光从窨色散开,然后利用透镜使这些光从不同方向入射到ＢＢＯ晶体上,这些方向恰 好是这些光的ＢＢＯ晶体上的相位匹配角,从而不需倍频晶体在掺钛蓝宝石激光器的可调谐范围内均实现角度相位匹配。     

An all-fiber frequency-shifted feedback laser for optical ranging; signal variation with distance

A recent paper [L.P. Yatsenko et al., Opt. Commun. 242 (2004) 581] provided a first-principles prediction for the optical ranging signals obtained when using a frequency-shifted feedback (FSF) laser system, seeded by a phase-modulated laser. Such a system has many useful advantages over other alternative FSF laser techniques. We report here experimental verification of that theory, specifically the variation of the amplitude modulation signal with both distance and modulation index of the seed laser. We describe the operation of an all-fiber FSF laser that uses an Er³⁺-doped active fiber as the gain medium. To improve the signal and minimize the noise we seed the FSF laser with a phase-modulated (PM) laser; the measurement of distance derives from a measurement of amplitude modulation within a narrow frequency interval. We demonstrate that the resulting system is capable of fast and precise measurements. With the bandwidth limitations of our current system we achieved an accuracy better than 0.1 mm. Although measurements based on interferometry offer the potential for much greater accuracy under carefully controlled conditions, the present method does not suffer from the presence of a material-dependent phase shift at the surface of the measured object.     

Coherent control of optical bistability in tunnel-coupled double quantum wells

We analyze optical bistability (OB) behavior based on intersubband transitions in an asymmetric coupled-quantum well (CQW) driven coherently by a probe laser field and a control laser field by means of a unidirectional ring cavity. We demonstrate that OB can be controlled by tuning the energy splitting between two tunnel-coupled electronic levels, the intensity of the control field, and the frequency detuning of the probe and control fields. The influence of the electronic cooperation parameter on the OB behavior is also discussed. This investigation may be used for optimizing and controlling the optical switching process in the CQW solid-state system, which is much more practical than that in atomic system because of its flexible design and the controllable interference strength.     

Highly accurate laser wavelength meter based on Doppler effect

We have built an accurate wavelength meter based on a Michelson interferometer characterized by a high stability velocity moving system. The unknown wavelength is determined from the Doppler frequency shifts of the output beams of the Michelson interferometer. The reference laser is a frequency stabilized helium-neon laser. A counting resolution of 2.6 × 10⁻⁹ for an integration time of 30 s has been obtained. The apparatus has been used to determine the wavelength of a second frequency stabilized helium-neon laser and the result has been compared to those given by two different methods: frequency beating in regards to the national reference and using a commercially available scanning-Michelson wavemeter. Taking into account the statistical errors, we achieved a relative accuracy on the unknown wavelength of 6.4 × 10⁻⁸ at 1σ.     

Dynamic single-mode and modulation characteristics analyses for λ/4 phase-shifted distributed feedback lasers with chirped grating

The dynamic single-mode and modulation performance of λ/4 phase-shifted distributed feedback laser diode with chirped grating (QWS-CG-DFB) are analyzed theoretically. The numerical simulation shows that, in contrast to purely QWS-DFB laser, the enhanced dynamic single-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) can be reached by QWS-CG-DFB laser. Under the smaller biasing current, the modulation band-width in presence of chirped grating is narrower, this difference shrinks for larger biasing current. For large signal modulation, the chirped grating is helpful to increase the output extinction ratio, but worsens the frequency chirping. The good dynamic characteristic can be obtained by selecting system parameters reasonably.     

多变量自适应光学谐振腔系统动态特性的研究

针对自适应高功率激光非稳腔，在建立整个自适应激光谐振腔系统的数学模型基础上，首次运用现代控制理论中的多变量频域分析法进行系统的的动态特性研究，分析了闭环系统的稳定性，动态特性及关联性，同时提出了系统的重要参数之一－系统开环增益选择的限制条件。     

High frequency fiber laser emission generated by pump spiking

A stable and short pulse train of ∼100 MHz repetition frequency was obtained from an erbium doped fiber laser excited by a “continuous” semiconductor laser and by using a linear cavity defined by a Bragg grating pair. The operation frequency of the fiber laser was greater (∼5-15 times) than the cavity round-trip frequency. Emission properties obtained from the erbium doped fiber laser were correlated with those taken from the pump laser, which presented a particular optical noise (very short pulses) added to the continuous emission. From the temporal and radio-frequency analysis of both systems, we conclude that the pump emission characteristics are the responsible of the fiber laser pulsed behaviour.     

High frequency pulse trains from a self-starting additive pulse mode-locked all-fiber laser

In this paper, a coupled-cavity Er-doped fiber laser is experimentally developed and analyzed. The proposed scheme has the advantage of an all-fiber configuration. Two similar fiber Bragg gratings are employed as reflective components of the main cavity containing the gain medium. The second cavity is generated, in one side, by the reflective flat end of a standard fiber optic pigtail of variable length and, in the other, by one of the Bragg gratings belonging to the main cavity. Depending on the ratio between the lengths of both cavities, trains of stable and short pulses were obtained with a repetition frequency larger than the frequency of the main cavity. The repetition rate of the pulse trains experimentally obtained was as high as 780 MHz (15 times the main cavity frequency) and the pulse width was ∼110 ps. Prediction of the possible repetition rates for each cavities lengths ratio and the upgrading possibilities of this laser system are analyzed.     

Second harmonic generation in deposited clusters

We analyse theoretically the generation of second and higher harmonics for sodium clusters deposited on an insulating surface. To this end, we use the time-dependent local-density approximation solved on a three-dimensional grid. We explore the impact of the various laser parameters (intensity, frequency, polarisation) on the efficiency of second harmonic generation. The success sensitively depends on a proper tuning of these parameters. We find optimum conditions for which the laser frequency is half the resonance frequency of the system, if the polarisation is directed orthogonal to the surface of the substrate, and if the intensity is large but safely below the critical value for destruction of the electron cloud. Received 22 October 1999 and Received in final form 14 December 1999     

Laser frequency stabilization at 1.5 microns using ultranarrow inhomogeneous absorption profiles in Er:LiYF4

Single-frequency diode lasers have been frequency stabilized to 1.5 kHz Allan deviation over 0.05-50 s integration times, with laser frequency drift reduced to less than 1.4 kHz/min, using the frequency reference provided by an ultranarrow inhomogeneously broadened Er³⁺:⁴I_15/2→⁴I_13/2 optical absorption transition at a vacuum wavelength of 1530.40 nm in a low-strain LiYF₄ crystal. The 130 MHz full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) inhomogeneous line width of this reference transition is the narrowest reported for a solid at 1.5 μm. Strain-induced inhomogeneous broadening was reduced by using the single isotope ⁷Li and by the very similar radii of Er³⁺ and the Y³⁺ ions for which it substitutes. To show the practicability of cryogen-free cooling, this laser stability was obtained with the reference crystal at 5 K; moreover, this performance did not require vibrational isolation of either the laser or crystal frequency reference. Stabilization is feasible up to T=25 K where the Er³⁺ absorption thermally broadens to ∼500 MHz. This stabilized laser system provides a tool for interferometry, high-resolution spectroscopy, real-time optical signal processing based on spatial spectral holography and accumulated photon echoes, secondary frequency standards, and other applications such as quantum information science requiring narrow-band light sources or coherent detection.