A simple and reliable short-pulse dye laser

A simple technique is described that allows the generation of a short pulses (1 ns) from dye lasers pumped by a much longer (7 ns) N₂-laser pulse. Dye-laser pulses, either with a narrow bandwidth or a short duration, can thus be obtained with the same N₂-laser pump.     

Power broadening of the Na-D lines in a flame—I. Time-dependent spectral and spatial properties of a flashlamp pumped dye laser

Prior to power broadening experiments on the Na-D lines in a flame (described in Part II), we investigated the time-dependent spectral and spatial properties of a flashlamp-pumped pulsed dye laser (pulse duration about 800 ns, FWHM), with Rhodamine-6G in methanol as dye liquid and an interference filter combined with a Fabry-Pérot etalon as bandwidth-restricting elements in the cavity. An experimental set-up is described that permits measurements of time-dependent spectra with a time-resolution of 10 ns and a spectral resolution of 2.5 × 10⁵. Results are given for different concentrations of the dye solution and for two different bandwidth settings of the laser. In general the spectral profiles at different moments during the pulse are well described by Gaussian curves. The spatial profiles at different moments during the pulse are best fitted by Lorentzian curves. At small concentrations of the dye solution, the time behaviour of the shift and the bandwidth are in (qualitative) agreement with theoretical predictions, i.e. a narrowing of the bandwidth and a shift to longer wavelengths of the line centre.     

Diode-pumped passively mode-locked Yb:LSO/SESAM laser

Diode-end-pumped passively mode-locked Yb³⁺:Lu₂SiO₅ (Yb:LSO) lasers both in the picosecond and the femtosecond regimes were demonstrated in this paper. The mode-locked lasers were initiated by using of semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAM). In the absence of intra-prisms for pulse compression, the laser emitted 1.6 W of output power with pulses width of about 4.3 ps. A pair of SF10 prisms was inserted into the laser cavity, pulses as short as 699 fs was generated around a center wavelength of 1043.6 nm with an average output power of 800 mW and a peak power of 11.0 kW.     

Second-harmonic generation taking into account dispersion of nonlinear susceptibility

Second-harmonic generation in the field of an ultrashort pulse and the propagation of extremely short pulses in a medium with quadratic nonlinearity are analyzed. Second-harmonic generation is analyzed taking into account the effect of second-and third-order group velocity dispersion and dispersion of nonlinear susceptibility up to the second order. Corrections, whose order of smallness is determined by the parameter (ω_L t _p)^?1, where t _p is the pulse duration and ω_L is the carrier frequency of the pump wave, are obtained. For a large phase mismatch, two new solutions are found that describe the stationary evolution of solitary pump and second-harmonic waves in the regions of both anomalous and normal group velocity dispersions.     

Narrow pulse width and high power passively Q-switched Nd3+:Gd3Ga5O12 laser with Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber

A compact, diode-pumped passively Q-switched Nd³⁺:Gd₃Ga₅O₁₂ (Nd:GGG) laser with Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber has been successfully demonstrated. Stable Q-switched pulses with pulse energy of 100 ??J and high peak power of 14 kW have been obtained. The pulse width was as short as 7 ns with low repetition rate of 10 kHz. The dependence of pulse width, pulse repetition rate, pulse energy and pulse peak power on pump power have been measured respectively. Experimental results reveal that the Nd:GGG crystal with Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber is suitable for narrow pulse width and high power passively Q-switched lasers.     

Dye laser multipass amplifier system

A system is described for producing high power, narrow bandwidth pulses by injecting electro-optically a dye laser pulse to a multipass flashlamp pumped amplifier cavity. Pulses of 280 MHz bandwidth have been generated with peak powers of 100 kW at 5 Hz repetition rate. A simple modification allows 300 ns long pulse trains to be obtained with pulse separations determined by the round trip time of the cavity.     

碰撞锁模环形染料激光器动力学过程的研究

本文在建立碰撞锁模(CPM)激光器数学模型的基础上,对碰撞锁模激光器中激光锁模脉冲形成的动力学过程进行了计算机模拟计算,并对其结果进行了理论分析和讨论,得到了脉冲宽度、脉冲波形及对称性与泵浦速率、腔长、增益介质和可饱和吸收介质在腔内的相对位置等因素间的关系。     

High-power ultrafast thin disk laser oscillators and their potential for sub-100-femtosecond pulse generation

Ultrafast thin disk laser oscillators achieve the highest average output powers and pulse energies of any mode-locked laser oscillator technology. The thin disk concept avoids thermal problems occurring in conventional high-power rod or slab lasers and enables high-power TEM₀₀ operation with broadband gain materials. Stable and self-starting passive pulse formation is achieved with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs). The key components of ultrafast thin disk lasers, such as gain material, SESAM, and dispersive cavity mirrors, are all used in reflection. This is an advantage for the generation of ultrashort pulses with excellent temporal, spectral, and spatial properties because the pulses are not affected by large nonlinearities in the oscillator. Output powers close to 100 W and pulse energies above 10 μJ are directly obtained without any additional amplification, which makes these lasers interesting for a growing number of industrial and scientific applications such as material processing or driving experiments in high-field science. Ultrafast thin disk lasers are based on a power-scalable concept, and substantially higher power levels appear feasible. However, both the highest power levels and pulse energies are currently only achieved with Yb:YAG as the gain material, which limits the gain bandwidth and therefore the achievable pulse duration to 700 to 800 fs in efficient thin disk operation. Other Yb-doped gain materials exhibit a larger gain bandwidth and support shorter pulse durations. It is important to evaluate their suitability for power scaling in the thin disk laser geometry. In this paper, we review the development of ultrafast thin disk lasers with shorter pulse durations. We discuss the requirements on the gain materials and compare different Yb-doped host materials. The recently developed sesquioxide materials are particularly promising as they enabled the highest optical-to-optical efficiency (43%) and shortest pulse duration (227 fs) ever achieved with a mode-locked thin disk laser.     

Generation and amplification of sub-picosecond pulses using a frequency-doubled neodymium YAG pumping source

Stable, tunable, sub-picosecond pulses have been obtained by synchronously pumping a Rhodamine 6G dye laser with a frequency-doubled CW modelocked neodymium YAG laser. Careful attention has been paid to minimize amplitude and timing instabilities, resulting in dye laser pulses shorter than 500 fs. The main advantage of this new pumping source over current synchronously pumped dye lasers is that it is particularly well suited to short pulse amplification. Using this technique amplification of 2 × 10⁶ has been achieved.     

Pulse structure studies and absolute cavity length determination for a synchronously pumped picosecond dye laser

Second harmonic cross correlation functions of a pulse with its near neighbor have been studied in a synchronously pumped cw dye laser. Measurements were made both as a function of dye laser cavity length mismatch and the number of cavity round trips separating the correlated pulses. The pulse envelope is found to have a characteristic interpulse frequency determined by the pump laser, whereas the pulse substructure has a characteristic frequency determined by the dye laser cavity length. The cross correlation measurements allow experimental determination of the dye laser length corresponding to exact synchrony. In contrast to theoretical predictions the length of exact synchrony corresponds to optimum pulse shape and duration. Our results are discussed in terms of a simple model which leads to pulse duration estimates as much as twice those obtained by conventional analysis of autocorrelation traces.     

Pulse properties of a synchronously mode-locked,cavity dumped,picosecond dye laser system

A synchronously mode-locked, cavity-dumped picosecond dye laser is described. The structure and intensity of the picosecond pulses measured under different conditions are reported. It was found that the structure of the pulses from the synchronously pumped dye laser depends critically on the length of the Ar⁺ laser pulses. At the shortest Ar⁺ laser pulses of about 70 ps the dye pulses are as short as 1.1 ps. With Ar⁺ laser pulses of 200 ps the dye laser pulses contains a broad satellite pulse which contains a large fraction of the total intensity. When a cavity dumper is added to the system one gets dye laser pulses 15–20 ps long with a substructure, which indicates incomplete mode-locking. Well mode-locked 1.5–2.0 ps pulses were obtained in the red part of the dye laser action spectrum, i.e. 620–650 nm for R6G, 595–608 nm for R 110 and 657–662 nm for RB, respectively. Addition of mode-locking dyes also improved the pulse quality at some wavelengths.     

300 Femtosecond pulses at 497 nanometer generated by an excimer laser pumped cascade of distributed feedback dye lasers

The setup is a cascade of 3 lasers: A competing cavity dye laser pumped by a XeCl excimer laser, followed by two distributed feedback dye lasers. The typical durations of the pulses from the lasers are 100 ps, 5 ps, and 300 fs, respectively. The output pulses at 497 nm are amplified up to 500 MW. The shortest pulse duration obtained was 198 fs.     

Coupled-cavity passively Q-switched two-Stokes microchip laser

Experimental and theoretical studies of the coupled-cavity diode-pumped Nd:YAG/Cr:YAG microchip lasers with intracavity Raman conversion of laser pulses in a Ba(NO₃)₂ crystal into two Stokes pulses have been made. Two lasers with a different cavity length have been investigated. The minimal pulse durations at the 2nd Stokes wavelength were ??100 ps in the short-cavity laser at pulse energy of 5???J, and the pulse repetition rate reached 20?C24?kHz. The laser and Stokes pulse dynamics, as well as the spatial intensity distribution of the laser and the 1st Stokes beams at the output mirror have been recorded. A model describing such coupled-cavity microchip Raman lasers has been developed. The numerically simulated laser and Stokes pulse dynamics, and the calculated pulse energy, duration, and repetition rate are in good agreement with the experimental data.     

Generation of narrowband tunable VUV radiation at the Lyman-α wavelength

Tunable narrowband VUV radiation has been generated at the Lyman-α wavelength $\text{λ =}\text{1216}\text{\&}\text{A}\text{ring}$; by frequency tripling in krypton the frequency-doubled output of a powerful dye laser system which is excited with the second harmonic of a Nd-YAG laser. 5 ns long UV dye laser pulses ($\text{λ =}\text{3646}\text{A}\text{?}$) of 1.8 MW peak power yielded VUV light pulses of 2.2 W (5.4 × 19⁹ photons/pulse). The bandwidth of the dye laser radiation could be narrowed to 8.7 × 10^-3cm^-1 (4.6 × 10^-3 Å). The expected bandwidth of the VUV is less than 5.2 × 10^-2cm^-1 (7 × 10^-4 Å). The tunable VUV radiation is used for the recording of the absorption spectra of the Lyman-α resonance transitions in atomic hydrogen and deuterium with doppler-limited resolution.     

Two-photon pumping of random lasers by picosecond and nanosecond lasers

We experimentally demonstrated two-photon pumping of random lasers using picosecond and nanosecond pump lasers. The picosecond laser pumping experiment was performed with 400 ps laser pulses at 770 nm, and the gain media was a Coumarin 480D dye solution doped with TiO₂ nanoparticles. Onset of laser action was observed at a pump laser pulse energy below 500 μJ. The nanosecond laser pumping experiment was performed with 7 ns laser pulses at 1064 nm, and the gain media was a Rhodamine 640 dye solution doped with TiO₂ nanoparticles. Onset of laser action was observed at a pump laser energy ∼18 mJ. Our results suggest that there exists an optimal pulse duration of the pumping laser in two-photon pumped random lasing that leads to minimum photodamage of the gain media and still keeps a high pumping efficiency. PACS 33.50.Dq; 42.55.Mv; 42.55.Zz     

Low-threshold, 12-MHz, multipass-cavity femtosecond Cr4+: Forsterite laser

We report on the development of an extended-cavity, low-threshold femtosecond Cr⁴⁺:forsterite laser operating near 1270 nm. The resonator was end-pumped by a continuous-wave Yb-fiber laser at 1060 nm. The 195-MHz short cavity could be operated with absorbed threshold pump powers as low as about 300 mW. To scale up the pulse energy, the cavity length was increased by using a q-preserving multipass cavity (MPC) consisting of a flat and a curved (R = 4 m), notched high-reflector. Kerr-lens mode locking was used to generate femtosecond pulses and double-chirped mirrors were included in the cavity for dispersion compensation. With an absorbed pump power of 1250 mW, the mode-locked laser produced 4 nJ of pulse energy at an average output power of only 47 mW. The corresponding repetition rate of the extended cavity was 11.7 MHz. The pulse-width was 90 fs and the spectral bandwidth was 23 nm, corresponding to a time-bandwidth product of 0.37.     

High-energy single pulse and multi-spike operation with a passive polymer Q-switch

Stable highly efficient polymer passive switch based on a polyurethane composite and organic dye BDN were developed for the neodymium lasers. The maximum energy of 0.98 J was obtained for a single pulse at passive Q-switching of these lasers. Repetition of single pulses at 50 Hz was possible. Repetitively pulsed operation with a peak output power up to 2 MW and an energy of train of nanosecond pulses 14.1 J were achieved in an yttrium aluminate laser for the first time. Variation of the initial switch transmittance made it possible to vary the pulse (spike) duration in the range 28–90 ns. The maximum pulse repetition rate in a train was 350 kHz when the Q-switching efficiency was 98%. The damage threshold of the investigated polymer matrix was achieved 14 and 18 J/cm² for single pulse duration (15 and 35 ns correspondingly) and 52 J/cm² in multi-spike generation regime (duration 80 ns).     

用时域ABCD矩阵对调Q锁模激光器的研究

用时域ABCD矩阵讨论了调Q锁模脉冲激光器输出脉冲的宽度和啁啾特性,主要给出了调Q元件作为幅度调制元件时的时域ABCD矩阵,并将光脉冲在激光腔中往返一周的ABCD矩阵写出,用此矩阵讨论了它对锁模脉冲的影响.给出了Nd:YAG激光器中用Cr⁴⁺:YAG作调Q元件时的调Q锁模脉冲激光器特性,并讨论了腔内色散、饱和吸收强度、增益带宽对输出脉冲特性的影响.用时域ABCD矩阵大大简化了计算过程.     

Numerical analysis of pulse generation in synchronously mode-locked cw dye lasers

We present theoretical results on the characteristics of pulses generated by a synchronously pumped dye laser. Our analysis indicates the important influence of spontaneous emission on shape and frequency chirp of the pulse. Dye-laser operation is possible within a wide range of cavity mismatch. A large mismatch of the lengths of the dye and the pump-laser cavity results in the generation of noise bursts caused by the influence of spontaneous emission. At small cavity mismatch pulse profile and frequency chirp of the pulse are directly generated in the steady-state regime by algebraic equations. Our formulas indicate that the sign of the pulse chirp depends only on the sign of the shift between laser frequency and centre frequency of the amplifying transition.     

Picosecond duration laser pulse generation by simultaneous active-passive mode-locking in Ar+ ion and dye lasers

We use a rate equation model to analyse a technique for the generation of picosecond duration laser pulses in argon pumped dye lasers. The system is based on passive mode-locking of the Ar⁺ laser by saturable absorption of the dye which is inserted in the Ar⁺ laser cavity. Simultaneously, the dye is forced to oscillate in a regime of synchronously pumped mode-locking. The system is relatively simple, does not require the use of an acousto-optical light modulator and can be easily implemented in commercially available lasers. Pulses shorter than 100 ps and having an average power of 20 mW were obtained at a repetition rate of 110 MHz. Good agreement between the model and experimental results was also obtained.