Pulsed degenerate optical parametric oscillator based on a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer

We report operation of an all-fiber degenerate optical parametric oscillator that employs a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer as a parametric amplifier. Synchronous pumping with 3.9-ps pulses at 1544 nm yields 0.83-ps output pulses. The wide bandwidth of the fiber parametric amplifier causes the oscillator to act as a pulse compressor. The output signal pulses exhibit improved spectral symmetry and a reduced time-bandwidth product compared with the pump pulses. Currently, the net group-velocity dispersion in the passive section of the fiber cavity limits the signal-pulse bandwidth and hence the minimum-obtainable pulse width. This experiment suggests the possibility of frequency conversion by operation of a similar pulsed parametric oscillator away from degeneracy.     

Soliton self-frequency shift in a short tapered air-silica microstructure fiber

We report a soliton self-frequency shift of more than 20% of the optical frequency in a tapered air-silica microstructure fiber that exhibits a widely flattened large anomalous dispersion in the near infrared. Remarkably, the large frequency shift was realized in a fiber of length as short as 15 cm, 2 orders of magnitude shorter than those reported previously with similar input pulse duration and pulse energies, owing to the small mode size and the large and uniform dispersion in the tapered fiber. By varying the power of the input pulses, we generated compressed sub-100-fs soliton pulses of ~1-nJ pulse energy tunable from 1.3 to 1.65 mum with greater than 60% conversion efficiency.     

Fiber-laser-based femtosecond parametric generator in bulk periodically poled LiNbO(3)

A diode-pumped system for optical parametric generation of wavelength-tunable femtosecond pulses is demonstrated. It comprises an Er-doped fiber mode-locked laser, a fiber chirped-pulse amplifier, and a bulk periodically poled LiNbO(3) (PPLN) optical parametric generator. The parametric generator is pumped at 777 nm with frequency-doubled microjoule pulses from the fiber amplifier and produces 300-fs pulses tunable from 1 to 3microm with output energies up to ~200 nJ. Use of a PPLN nonlinear crystal substantially reduces the pump energies required for efficient parametric generation. Saturated single-pass parametric energy conversion of 38% (internal) has been achieved with only 220 nJ of pump inside the crystal. A parametric generation threshold of 54 nJ is observed, and efficient parametric conversion is obtained with repetition rates up to 200 kHz.     

Self-similar low-noise femtosecond ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report the generation of self-similar highly stable femtosecond pulses from an ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber laser. Positively chirped parabolic pulses with 6.4-ps duration and more than 3.2-nJ energy are obtained. These pulses are extra-cavity compressed to 140 fs. Radio-frequency noise measurements show that this regime of emission ensures low-noise operation with less than 0.05% amplitude fluctuations. PACS 42.55.Wd; 42.65.Re     

90-fs stretched-pulse ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report ultrashort, high-energy pulse generation from a side-pumped Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser. The laser is operating in the stretched-pulse regime. It directly generates 4.8-ps, 5-nJ pulses that are extracavity compressed to 90 fs.     

A CW seeded femtosecond optical parametric amplifier

1 Introduction Optical parametric amplification (OPA) based on femtosecond Ti:sapphire regen-erative amplifiers has been widely adopted in wavelength extension of ultrashort opticalpulses[1]. While BBO-based femtosecond optical parametric amplifiers have alreadycommercialized, the tuning range of such an 800 nm-pumped OPA is typically between1.15 μm and 2.6 μm due to the limited transparent range of BBO. From application’spoint of view, ultrashort pulses near 1 μm and between 3 and 4 …     

Development of injection-seeded, pulsed optical parametric generator/oscillator systems for high-resolution spectroscopy

We report the development and application of pulsed optical parametric generator (OPG) and optical parametric oscillator (OPO) systems that are injection seeded with near-infrared distributed feedback diode lasers. The OPG is injection seeded at the idler wavelength without the use of a resonant cavity. Two counter-rotating, beta-barium-borate (β-BBO) crystals are used in the OPG. These crystals are pumped by the third harmonic, 355-nm output of an injection-seeded Nd:YAG laser. An OPO version of the system has also been developed by placing two flat mirrors around the two β-BBO crystals to form a feedback cavity at the signal wavelength. The OPO cavity length is not actively controlled. The output signal beam from the OPG or OPO is amplified using an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) stage with four β-BBO crystals. The frequency bandwidths of the signal and idler laser radiation from OPG/OPA and OPO/OPA systems have been determined to be slightly greater than 200 MHz. The temporal pulses from each system are smooth and near-Gaussian. High-resolution optical absorption measurements of acetylene (C₂H₂) were performed as another check of the frequency spectrum of the idler beam. The frequency-doubled signal output of the OPO/OPA system was used to perform high-resolution, single-photon, laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopic studies of the (0,0) vibrational band of the A ²Σ⁺−X ²Π electronic transition of nitric oxide (NO) at low pressure. Excellent agreement was obtained between the theory and the experiment. The signal output of the OPG/OPA system was also used for sub-Doppler, two-photon LIF spectroscopic studies of the same vibration–rotation manifold of NO.This revised version was published online in August 2005 with a corrected cover date.     

A CW seeded femtosecond optical parametric amplifer

A CW seeded femtosecond optical parametric amplifier, a compromise between OPG/OPA and strongly seeded OPA configurations, has been demonstrated. An independent CW Nd: YAG laser with sub-watt power decreases the pump threshold of the OPA and improves the stability of the output pulses considerably. Output signal energies as high as 30 μJ with pulse durations less than 250 fs near 1 μm are reported. from this two-stage device.     

A double-pass optical parametric amplifier seeded by a blue-shifted output of a photonic-crystal fiber

A blue-shifted output of a photonic-crystal fiber, providing a frequency upconversion of femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser pulses, is used to seed a double-pass optical parametric oscillator (OPA). The OPA is based on a BBO crystal, pumped by 65-mW 150-fs second-harmonic pulses of a Ti:sapphire laser. Gain factors in excess of 10³ are demonstrated for such an OPA, yielding tunable light pulses within the range of wavelengths from 420 to 650 nm, a peak power up to 250 kW, and a typical pulse width of about 200 fs at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. PACS 42.81.Gs; 42.81.Qb     

Theoretical analysis of noncollinear phase-matched optical parametric generation in BBO crystal

In this article we propose a theoretical treatment of noncollinear phase-matched femtosecond parametric interaction process pumped by ultrashort optical pulses, and investigated the pulse characteristics of OPG in BBO crystal. The results show that the major factors, which affect the optical parametric conversion coefficient and durations of the pulses, are the group velocity mismatch and the phase mismatch among the three ultra-short pulses. In addition, the material dispersion can cause the durations of the pulses to increase when pump pulse is below 20 fs, and its influence becomes more obvious at low pump intensity.     

All-optical pulse shaping for ultrawideband doublet pulses using nonlinear optical loop mirror with optical parametric amplification

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an alternative photonic scheme for the generation of ultrawideband (UWB) doublet pulses, which is based on an optical fiber-based nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM) incorporating the optical parametric amplification (OPA) effect. The proposed scheme uses both cross-phase modulation and OPA within an optical fiber-based NOLM to produce an ideal transfer function for the shaping of input soliton pulses into doublet pulses. Using the proposed scheme, a successful conversion of input soliton pulses into doublet pulses is readily demonstrated. The system performance of UWB doublet pulses is also assessed by propagating the 1.25?Gbit/s doublet pulses over a fiber link. Error-free UWB doublet signal transmission is demonstrated.     

High-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond pulses generated from a BaWO4 Raman-seeded optical parametric amplifier

We report the generation of high-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses using optical parametric amplification (OPA) in BBO seeded with pulses generated in a 5-mm length BaWO₄ crystal by stimulated Raman scattering of 18-ps laser pulses at 532 nm. The maximum output energy of the amplified first-Stokes component at 559.7 nm was about 1.76 mJ. The corresponding maximum peak power, pulse duration and spectral line width were measured to be 117.3 MW, 15 ps and 18.0 cm⁻¹, respectively. The multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses were in the visible and near infrared ranges. Using this Raman-seeded OPA technique, the beam quality of the stimulated Raman scattering pulses can be improved.     

Passive harmonic mode locking with a high-power ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber laser

We report passive harmonic mode locking of a high-power Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser operating in both the normal- and the anomalous-dispersion regimes with a fundamental repetition rate of 20.4 MHz. In the normal-dispersion regime, 116-fs, 1.7-nJ pulses are emitted at a repetition rate of 102 MHz. The results indicate a supermode suppression of more than 60 dB. In the anomalous-dispersion regime, 1-ps, 125-pJ pulses are emitted at a higher repetition rate of 408 MHz.     

Simultaneously phase-matched parametric processes in a single-pass interaction for efficient visible generation

We demonstrate simultaneously phase-matched cascaded optical parametric amplification (OPA) and sum-frequency generation (SFG) processes in a single-pass interaction in a BBO crystal, where the seed pulse is produced through the self-induced superfluorescence generation. Tunable femtosecond pulses in the blue-green spectral range are produced through the single-pass SFG interaction with a maximum conversion efficiency of about 12%.     

High-resolution indirect pulse shaping by parametric transfer

The phase and amplitude profile of a shaped pulse in the visible is transferred to a pulse in the near-infrared via an optical parametric amplification (OPA) process. Complex shaped pulses, such as multiple-pulse trains and pulses with high-order phase chirp, are produced at 1.2mum . Theoretical conditions necessary for high-fidelity parametric shape transfer are discussed. Similar schemes can be implemented for other OPA systems pumped at near-infrared wavelengths to generate high-resolution shaped pulses in the mid-infrared.     

Periodic metal-dielectric interfaces for photonic applications

The photonic bandgap properties of periodic interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics exhibiting third-order optical nonlinearity are investigated. Some device configurations aimed at obtaining all-optical switching around 1500 nm are proposed, based either on the excitation of propagating surface plasmons at a sinusoidally modulated interface or on the back-reflection properties of a sawtooth-modulated metal-dielectric interface under normal incidence of the radiation. In the second case, 35% switching of 15-ps 5-nJ input pulses can be obtained using polydiacetylenes as the nonlinear dielectric.     

Sub-nanosecond, 1–10?kHz, low-threshold, non-critical OPOs based on periodically poled KTP crystal pumped at 1,064?nm

We employed a 9-mm long periodically poled KTiOPO₄ (PPKTP) crystal in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) to generate sub-nanosecond idler pulses around 2.8???m. With a 1-cm long OPO cavity in a singly resonant configuration and double pass pumping by 1-ns pulses at 1,064?nm, the maximum idler energy reached 110???J at 1?kHz. Pumping with 500?ps pulses at 1?C10?kHz, resulted in an idler energy of ~50???J and the shortest pulse duration of ~250?ps, ever reported for an OPO. The corresponding quantum conversion efficiencies were 32.5 and 34.9?%, respectively.     

A picosecond near-infrared laser source based on a self-seeded optical parametric generator

We report on the design and development of a new type of near-IR laser source. The source comprises of an optical parametric generator (OPG) and a second harmonic generator (SHG) pumped by an 80-MHz, 1064-nm, 7-ps Nd:YVO₄ laser. The OPG is self-seeded with a fraction of its own signal output, which significantly enhances its conversion efficiency. The SHG doubles the frequency of OPG signal to produce a coherent output. The final output beam has a tunable wavelength near 800 nm, an average power of over 1 W, and a pulse duration around 5 ps. The M²-factor of the output beam can reach 1.1 after spatial filtering. With the new laser source, we have successfully demonstrated coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy on 1 μm polystyrene beads, which shows that it has the potential to be a substitute for a picosecond optical parametric oscillator in certain microscopy or spectroscopy applications.     

基于单个BBO晶体载波包络相位稳定的高效率光参量放大器

基于单个BBO非线性晶体,利用非共线光参量放大技术,研究了载波包络相位稳定的高效率可调谐近红外脉冲产生.以载波包络相位稳定的飞秒激光放大系统产生的白光作为种子光,注入一个二类匹配的二级光参量放大器,在1350 nm波段获得抽运-信号光34%的转换效率.利用f—2f光谱相干测量技术,放大脉冲载波包络相位的抖动30 min内小于137 mrad.该方法提供了一种简单高效的载波包络相位稳定的红外脉冲产生技术.     

Tunable fiber-optic parametric oscillator

We report operation of a tunable optical parametric oscillator that employs a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer as a parametric amplifier. The amplifier, which consists primarily of dispersion-shifted fiber that has zero dispersion at 1538 nm, is synchronously pumped with 7.7-ps pulses at 1539 nm. The wide bandwidth of the parametric gain permits tuning of the output signal pulses over a 40-nm range centered on the pump wavelength. The Sagnac interferometer decouples the pump wave from the oscillator cavity while a bandpass filter in the cavity transmits only the signal wave, thereby creating a singly resonant parametric oscillator that is phase insensitive. Whereas we demonstrate tuning over almost the entire bandwidth of Er-doped-fiber amplifiers, one could construct a similar device that operates near the 1310-nm zero-dispersion wavelength of standard telecommunication fiber.