Round-trip Dispersion Calculation for Martinez Pulse Stretcher

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A High Efficiency Yb3+-doped Fiber Ring Cavity Laser with Narrow Line-widthRound-trip Dispersion Calculation for Martinez Pulse Stretcher

A novel Yb3+-doped fiber ring cavity laser pumped by a 977 nm laser diode is presented with its output laser wavelength of 1060 nm. Based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG), the laser exhibits 0.20 nm line-width, 7.5 mW laser output power, 40 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and 66% slope efficiency.This paper proposed a ray-tracing model for the Martinez stretcher, derived the calculation formulae for the stretcher of a grating-spherical mirror system and discussed the error for the total dispersion resulted from the spatial dispersion. The calculated results show that the error could be ignored for the beam returned to the stretcher for the second pass in the wavelength range of 750 nm and 850 nm.     

啁啾脉冲放大激光系统中展宽器色散的解析算法

时域色散精密控制是超短激光产生及其应用中的关键技术之一,它通过控制各波长的光程产生相对延迟从而改变脉冲宽度.展宽器是啁啾脉冲放大激光系统中对激光脉冲展宽的装置,基于光线追迹法研究光线在展宽器中的传输路径,可计算飞秒脉冲中各波长的光程,进而计算脉冲展宽量并应用于系统设计.由于展宽器的光程表达式复杂,直接对其求导获得色散表达式较困难,目前只能采用数值导数获得近似解,这在计算过程中会引入误差,不利于激光系统精确设计和优化.本文介绍了一种易实现的求解展宽器色散的解析算法,通过归纳展宽器光程表达式特点,引入四个基元函数,将光程表达式分解和反复代换,可得到高阶色散的精确解析值.本文首先对Martinez型展宽器重新光线追迹,获得与Offner型展宽器一致的相位表达式,其次通过解析算法获得了两种展宽器的精确高阶色散值,最后将解析算法与数值算法的结果进行了比较.该解析算法对于啁啾脉冲放大系统的参数设计具有实用价值.     

Design considerations for a compact grism stretcher for non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

The dispersion management of a non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier is presented. A stretcher based on a combination of a grating and a prism pair (grism) is given and analyzed in detail. This combination can provide up to 300 nm acceptance bandwidth and is suitable for parametric amplification of few-cycle pulses. The amplified pulses can be compressed by the dispersion of optical glasses such as SF57 and the residual high-order dispersion may be compensated by adaptive optical filters and chirped mirrors.     

Ultrafast thulium-doped fiber-oscillator with pulse energy of 4.3 nJ

A femtosecond fiber laser based on thulium-doped double-clad silica fiber with an internal dispersion compensation is presented that generates pulses at a center wavelength of 1976 nm with an energy of 4.3 nJ and a duration of 1.2 ps. The dechirped pulse duration is 294 fs. The pulse energy is more than 2 orders of magnitude above the pulse energy demonstrated previously. Mode locking is achieved using additive pulse mode locking, and dispersion compensation is facilitated by a grating stretcher arrangement.     

Visualization of high-order dispersion for compression of few-cycle pulses

We present a visually intuitive method for higher-order dispersion compensation based on multi-photon interpulse interference pulse scans. The dispersion values obtained from these scans are fed back as a correction to an acousto-optical programmable dispersive filter to compensate residual higher-order dispersions up to fifth order. This method is applied to the dispersion management of a non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier. A grism-pair stretcher is designed based on a global dispersion balance which provides a large stretching factor and supports a spectral bandwidth of up to 320 nm. It is implemented in a two-stage three-pass non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier and stretches 6-fs seed pulses to about 80 ps from 700 to 1,000 nm. The amplified pulses are compressed by material dispersion. Pulses of less than 10-fs duration with a pulse energy of 125 μJ are obtained at 20-kHz repetition rate.     

无展宽器的高重复率钛宝石啁啾飞秒脉冲再生放大器的研究

通过优化放大腔结构参数和采用高光束质量的泵浦激光,依靠放大器腔内各个元件的色散展宽种子脉冲, 用钛宝石作为增益介质, 在低泵浦能量下, 实现了高光束质量,高稳定的中等能量的高重复率飞秒脉冲再生放大. 将钛宝石晶体离焦放置,有效的避免了光学损伤. 在1.1 mJ的绿光泵浦下, 获得了2 ps, 120 μJ, 重复频率为1 KHz, 光谱带宽7.8 nm的放大脉冲, 用石英棱镜对压缩可得到130 fs的激光脉冲.     

新型无象差展宽器色散量的光线追迹计算法

对无象差展宽器的结构进行了改进,利用光线追迹法计算了其色散量,分析了展宽结果与展宽器各参量的关系,数值模拟了飞秒脉冲的展宽过程,为该展宽器的优化设计与精细调节提供了依据.     

新型无象差展宽器色散量的光线追迹计算法

对无象差展宽器的结构进行了改进，利用光线追迹法计算出其色散量，分析了展宽结果与展宽器各参量的关系，数值模拟了飞秒脉冲的展宽过程，为该展宽器的优化设计与精细调节提供了依据。     

Chirped pulse amplification with a nonlinearly chirped fiber Bragg grating matched to the Treacy compressor

We demonstrate a fiber chirped pulse amplification system that uses an engineered nonlinearly chirped fiber Bragg grating stretcher dispersion matched to the Treacy compressor. The seed pulses at 1558 nm are stretched to 720 ps, amplified by more than 50 dB to 6.5-microJ energy, and recompressed to 940 fs. After almost 1000 times compression the pulses are within 30% of the bandwidth limit and have a contrast ratio of better than 30 dB.     

Investigation of tunable stretcher for ultrashort pulses based on silica wires with subwavelength-diameters

A new type of tunable stretcher for ultra-short pulses is presented based on silica wires with subwavelength-diameters. Through proper design of the diameters of wires and the refractive indices of surrounding environment, we obtain large second-order dispersion and small higher-order dispersion, which are beneficial for pulses broadening around the operation wavelength. Analysis proves that 5-cm of such wires can broaden over 180 times for ultra-short pulses with 30-fs pulse-width. Tunable stretching ratio of stretcher is obtained by changing refractive indices of surrounding environment.     

飞秒脉冲放大器中色散的计算和评价方法

用光线追迹法论证了光栅球面镜系统与普通的光栅对系统是一对相位共轭元件,并提出了光栅球面镜系统色散的解析计算公式,以及对一个典型的放大系统做了模拟.模拟结果表明,对于一个放大系统,存在一个最佳的材料色散,用它可以获得最大的无色散带宽. 关键词： 飞秒激光放大器 展宽器 压缩器 色散补偿     

使用马丁内兹展宽器的啁啾脉冲放大器特性研究

导出了使用马丁内兹展宽器的啁啾脉冲放大（CPA）系统的相位解析表达式，用此公式讨论了展宽器中各参数对系统的影响，并用此方法优化了实际的CPA系统- 关键词： 马丁内兹展宽器 啁啾脉冲放大系统 相位修正因子 优化     

Optimization of grating size in chirped-pulse-amplification. laser system

We performed calculations for a chirped-pulse-amplification laser system with a sub-100-fs pulse duration including the finite size of gratings in an aberration-free stretcher/compressor design. Both the higher-order phase dispersion and the spectral clipping, which is due to the finite size of the optics in the stretcher and the compressor, are taken into account in the calculation. We discuss the influence of both phase dispersion and spectral clipping on the important parameters of the recompressed pulse, such as pulse duration, pulse contrast, and peak intensity, employing different phase-dispersion compensation methods. The calculations show that the use of a small compressor grating reduces the higher-order phase errors and smoothes the sharp spectral cut-off caused by spectral clipping in the stretcher, which consequently improves the pulse contrast ratio of the main pulse to the pedestal. Received: 1 April 2000 / Published online: 8 November 2000     

(O)ffner展宽器曲面镜误差对输出脉冲对比度的影响

在(O)ffner展宽器的设计研究中,对曲面镜曲率半径的误差研究非常重要,它直接影响输出脉冲的质量.因此有必要分析(O)ffner展宽器中曲面镜曲率半径的误差对输出脉冲对比度的影响.参考(O)ffner展宽器的光线追迹模型,建立了(O)ffner展宽器中曲面镜曲率半径存在误差时的光线追迹模型;根据建立的模型.详细分析了曲面镜曲率半径的误差对输出脉冲质量的影响;发现在目前曲面镜曲率半径的加上误差在0.2%～0.5%的情况下,完全可以满足神光Ⅱ拍瓦激光装置中对展宽器的要求;同时发现如果曲面镜曲率半径存在误差时,应该尽量使两曲面镜之间的距离保持为凹面反射镜曲率半径的一半,而不是使两曲面镜保持同心.     

Theoretical and experimental studies on a compact stretcher with large spectral bandwidth and high transmission efficiency

To ensure safe and effective amplification for the chirped pulse amplification laser facility, many factors such as pulse spectral width, pulse duration, grating parameters and incidence angle parameter are considered carefully in the design of the pulse stretcher. A compact four pass Offner stretcher design is given out. Experiment results show that the stretcher has broad spectral width, large stretching ratio and high transmission efficiency. By comparison, the calculated result of the dispersion effect on the pulse duration is completely consistent with the experiment result.     

Application of unfolding technique to dispersion calculating of reflective grating dispersion delay lines in the chirped pulses amplifier

Dispersion delay lines (such as the compressor and the stretcher) consisting of reflective optical elements (mirrors and reflection diffraction gratings), are now widely used in chirped-pulse amplification technique. It is shown that for their calculations the unfolding technique can be applied. According to this technique, the dispersion of the compressor and the stretcher can be characterized by the "zero-distant pulse fronts" in their spatial chirps.     

Dispersion and nonlinear phase-shift compensation in high-peak-power short-pulse fiber laser sources using photonic-crystal fibers

Photonic-crystal fibers (PCFs) with a specifically designed dispersion profile and nonlinearity are shown to enable an accurate broadband compensation of the stretcher-compressor dispersion in fiber laser sources of high-peak-power ultrashort light pulses. We demonstrate that the nonlinear phase shift in such systems can partially compensate for the fourth-order dispersion, allowing the stretcher—compression group delay to be compensated up to the fourth-order dispersion terms by using a sequence of only two fibers—a standard optical fiber and a PCF.     

Validity condition of separating dispersion of PCFs into material dispersion and geometrical dispersion

When using normalized dispersion method for the dispersion design of photonic crystal fibers （PCFs）, it is vital that the group velocity dispersion of PCF can be seen as the sum of geometrical dispersion and material dispersion. However, the error induced by this way of calculation will deteriorate the final results. Taking 5 ps/（km.nm） and 5% as absolute error and relative error limits, respectively, the structure parameter boundaries of PCFs about when separating total dispersion into geometrical and material components is valid are provided for wavelength shorter than 1700 nm. By using these two criteria together, it is adequate to evaluate the simulated dispersion of PCFs when normalized dispersion method is employed.     

Compact curved-grating stretcher for laser pulse amplification

A compact pulse stretcher using curved diffraction gratings is presented. It introduces positive group-delay dispersion and can operate in conjunction with a standard grating-pair compressor in chirped-pulse amplification systems. It presents several advantages over other systems proposed: It has no degrees of freedom and so is not highly sensitive to alignment errors, it is easy to align, it has a compact and robust design, and it uses standard optics. The frequency-dependent delay, dispersions up to third order, and the design parameters of the stretcher-compressor system that will yield good matching are analyzed. Examples of design specifications for a 40-fs pulse with a central wavelength of lambda=800 nm are given.