A compact Tirsapphire femtosecond pulse amplifier without stretcher at high repetition rate

We report a simple approach to amplify Ti:sapphire femtosecond pulses to moderate energy levels by a chirped regenerative amplifier. The seed pulses are broaden naturally because of the material dispersion of system components in regenerative cavity. The off-focusing Ti:sapphire crystal avoids effectively the optical damage. It sustains amplification over a wavelength range from 775 nm to more than 810 nm with a birefringent filter and an oscillation bandwidth of 7.7 nm, and produces 2.1 ps chirped output pulse energy of 100 uJ at 1.1-mJ pumping energy. This system shows good performances in stability and efficiency with the benefits of two thin-film polarizers and TEMoo mode pumping laser.     

Generation of 17-TW 23-fs Pulses with a Two-Stage Ti：Sapphire Amplifier at Repetition Rate 10 Hz

We have developed a two-stage Ti：sapphire amplifier system which can produce 17- TW/23-fs pulses at a repetition rate 10Hz. A birefringent plate is used in the regenerative amplifier to alleviate gain narrowing, while an all- reflective cylindrical-mirror-based pulse stretcher and an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter （AOPDF） are used to compensate for the higher order dispersion of the system.     

Generation of a Sub-10fs Laser Pulse by a Ring Oscillator with a High Repetition Rate

A compact femtosecond Ti：sapphire ring oscillator composed of chirped mirrors is designed. By accurately optimizing the intra-cavity dispersion and the mode locking range of the ring configuration, we generate laser pulses as short as 7.7fs with a repetition rate as high as 745 MHz. The spectrum spans from 660nm to 94Ohm and the average output power is 480mW under the cw pump laser of 7.5 W.     

Generation of high energy and good beam quality pulses with a master oscillator power amplifier

A high efficiency and high peak power laser system with short-pulse and good beam quality has been demonstrated by using a master oscillator power amplifier with two-pass amplification configuration. The master oscillator, end-pumped with a fiber-coupled laser diode array, provides low power but excellent beam quality pulses, and the amplifier boosts the pulse energy by orders without significant beam quality degradation. Short pulses of 8.5 ns with energy up to 130 mJ and approximately diffraction limited beam quality have been demonstrated.     

All-fiber laser seeded femtosecond Yb:KGW solid state regenerative amplifier

A high efficiency compact Yb:KGW regenerative amplifier using an all-fiber laser seed source was comprehensively studied. With thermal lensing effect compensated by the cavity design, the compressed pulses with energy of 1 m J at 1 k Hz and 0.4 m J at 10 k Hz in sub-400-fs pulse duration using chirped fiber Bragg grating(CFBG) stretcher were demonstrated.A modified Frantz–Nodvik equation was developed to emulate the dynamic behavior of the regenerative amplifier. The simulation results were in good agreement with the experiment. Numerical simulations and experimental results show that the scheme can be scalable to higher energy of multi-m J, sub-300 fs pulses.     

A High-Pulse-Energy High-Beam-Quality Tunable Ti:Sapphire Laser Using a Prism-Dispersion Cavity

A high-pulse-energy high-beam-quality tunable Ti:sapphire laser pumped by a frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser is demonstrated.Using a fused-silica prism as the dispersion element,a tuning range of 740-855 nm is obtained.At an incident pump energy of 774 mJ,the maximum output energy of 104 mJ at 790 nm with a pulse width of100 μs is achieved at a repetition rate of 5 Hz.To the best of our knowledge,it is the highest pulse energy at790 nm with pulse width of hundred micro-seconds for an all-solid-state laser.The linewidth of output is 0.5 nm,and the beam quality factor M~2 is 1.16.The high-pulse-energy high-beam-quality tunable Ti:sapphire laser in the range of 740-855 nm can be used to establish a more accurate and consistent absolute scale of second-order optical-nonlinear coefficients for KBe_2BO_3F_2 measured in a wider wavelength range and to assess Miller's rule q uantitatively.     

Compact and high-energy diode-side-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG slab laser system for space application

We develop a compact and high-energy Nd：YAG slab laser system consisting of an oscillator and an amplifier for space applications. The oscillator is a diode-side-pumped electro-optically Q-switched slab laser with a cross-Porro resonator. The KD＊P Pockels cell with a low driving voltage of 950 V is used to polarization output coupling. The amplifier is a Nd：YAG zigzag slab pumped at bounces. The maximum output pulse energy of 341 m3 with 13 ns pulse duration is obtained from the system at the repetition rate of 20 Hz and the beam quality factors are M2=3.1 and M2=3.5. The beam pointing stabilities of the laser system are 3.05μrad in the X-direction and 3.99 grad in the Y-direction, respectively.     

Compact and high-power broadband terahertz source based on femtosecond photonic crystal fiber amplifier

We present a review of the development of a compact and high-power broadband terahertz (THz) source optically excited by a femtosecond photonic crystal fiber (PCF) amplifier.The large mode area of the PCF and the stretcher-free configuration make the pump source compact and very efficient.Broadband THz pulses of 150 μW extending from 0.1 to 3.5 THz are generated from a 3-mm-thick GaP crystal through optical rectification of 12-W pump pulses with duration of 66 fs and a repetition rate of 52 MHz.A strong saturation effect is observed,which is attributed to pump pulse absorption;a Z-scan measurement shows that three-photon absorption dominates the nonlinear absorption when the crystal is pumped by femtosecond pulses at 1 040 nm.A further scale-up of the THz source power is expected to find important applications in THz nonlinear optics and nonlinear THz spectroscopy.     

Spatial chirp in Ti:sapphire multipass amplifier

The spatial chirp generated in the Ti:sapphire multipass amplifier is numerically investigated based on the onedimensional(1D) and two-dimensional(2D) Frantz–Nodvik equations. The simulation indicates that the spatial chirp is induced by the spatially inhomogeneous gain, and it can be almost eliminated by utilization of proper beam profiles and spot sizes of the signal and pump pulses, for example, the pump pulse has a top-hatted beam profile and the signal pulse has a super-Gaussian beam profile with a relatively larger spot size. In this way, a clear understanding of spatial chirp mechanisms in the Ti:sapphire multipass amplifier is proposed, therefore we can effectively almost eliminate the spatial chirp and improve the beam quality of a high-power Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplifier system.     

Generation of Very Energetic Ions from Intense Femtosecond Laser Interactions with Rare Gas Clusters in a Dense Jet

Very energetic ions, which are detected by time-of-flight spectrometry with maximum energy up to 1.3 MeV and an average energy of 68keV, are generated in the explosion of large Xe clusters in a dense jet irradiated with a high-intensity (～10^16 W/cm2) 50fs laser pulse from a Ti:sapphire TW laser at 79Ohm wavelength. The interaction of intense laser pulses with a jet of argon clusters is also performed and high average ion energies are observed. The dependence of energy of the ions on the gas backing pressure is examined, suggesting that the results are consistent with the absorption efficiency of the laser energy by the cluster plasmas.     

A tuneable, single-mode titanium-doped-sapphire laser source with variable pulse duration in the nanosecond regime

We built and characterized a high-energy, injection-seeded, single-longitudinal-mode pulsed titanium-doped-sapphire laser with tuneable wavelength in the near-infrared and variable pulse temporal duration in the nanosecond regime. We show experimentally how the pulse duration can be easily varied either by changing the cavity length or by changing the pump energy. We successfully interpreted these results on the basis of a theoretical model which treats the operation of this type of laser as a gain-switching technique. Also, as far as the stabilization of the laser cavity, compared to the traditional techniques we employed a novel simplified solution involving the use of an avalanche photodiode.     

Influence of spatial mode matching in end-pumped solid state lasers

We present investigations on the influence of mode matching on the efficiency of longitudinally pumped solid state lasers. In a theoretical part we enhance an existing model for four level lasers from idealized cylindrical modes to arbitary pump and laser modes in a random relative position thereby neglecting beam deformation due to thermal effects. The theoretical predictions were confirmed experimentally with an end-pumped Nd:YAG rod operated at 1064 nm. To investigate the effect of misalignment on the efficiency we used a Ti-Sapphire pump laser which was displaced relative to the laser beam. To establish the influence of arbitary pump modes on laser performance a diode laser equipped with coupling optics served as pump source for the same resonator. The resulting decrease in slope efficiency compared to the Ti-Sapphire pumped system could be explained in terms of limited mode overlap due to the characteristic pump field distribution produced by the diode coupling optics.     

Mode profiles in resonators with a near 90° roof-top mirror

The transverse modes of a laser resonator comprising a near 90° roof-top mirror and a feedback mirror are studied theoretically. We relate this configuration to an almost plane roof-top resonator and apply the Fox and Li technique to compute the lowest-order symmetric and antisymmetric modes. The effects of perturbations to the vertex angle of the roof-top mirror, misalignments of the feedback mirror and curved feedback mirrors are examined.     

Multiwavelength Q-switched CO2 laser with continuous discharge

A low-pressure (20 mbar) CO₂ laser allows to extract pulses at several selected wavelengths simultaneously from the same active medium. We demonstrated this, using an industrial laser modified by a Q-switch and a resonator with two branches. In one branch the wavelengths are spatially separated, whereas in the other they oscillate in one common transverse mode. We designed a multi-wavelength resonator which requires a single additional reflector compared to usual laser cavities. It provided tunable oscillation at six wavelength simultaneously.     

An All-Solid-State Tunable Dual-Wavelength Ti：Sapphire Laser with Quasi-Continuous-Wave Outputs

A high power dual-wavelength Ti：sapphire laser system with wide turning range and high efficiency is described, which consists of two prism-dispersed resonators pumped by an a11-solid-state frequency-doubled Nd：YAG laser. Tunable dual-wavelength outputs, with one wavelength range from 750nm to 795nm and the other from 80Ohm to 850nm, have been demonstrated. With a pump power of 23 W at 532nm, a repetition rate of 6.5kHz and a pulse width of 67.6ns, the maximum dual-wavelength output power of 5.6 W at 785.3nm and 812.1 run, with a pulse width of 17.2ns and a line width of 2nm, has been achieved, leading to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 24.4%.     

Controlled two-pulse generation in Q-switch mode from a single laser using Q-modulator with frustrated total internal reflection

In this work a cavity design for double-pulse generation in Q-switched mode from a single laser is proposed, based on the construction of a second laser channel using a FTIR (frustrated total internal reflection) Q-modulator. A time interval between the two pulses from 500 ns to 120 μs is obtained in a Nd:YAG laser. A comparison with other methods and cavity designs for double-pulse generation is presented. The case when this technique is applied on a tunable laser with metastable upper laser level (Cr:LiCAF, Cr:LiSAF, Alexandrite, Co:MgF₂ or other) is also considered. Even though the method presented in the paper does not rely only on the cavity configuration proposed, some advantages can be obtained – both polarization and wavelength-independent tuning without polarization and wavelength restrictions in combination with the possibility of different wavelengths and polarizations in each pulse. Moreover, by using an active medium generating wavelengths around and up to 3 μm, the Pockels-cell-Q-switch optical transmission problems can be avoided. Received: 9 May 2001 / Revised version: 2 August 2001 / Published online: 15 October 2001     

An Ultra-Broadband Spatially Dispersed Regenerative Amplifier Free from Spatial Chirp

An ultra-broadband Ti：sapphire regenerative amplifier based on spatially dispersed amplification is demonstrated experimentally. Departing from previous reports, a new design of the cavity gets the amplified pulse free from spatial chirp. Utilizing this new regenerative amplifier, chirped pulses with bandwidth （FWHM） of about 80 nm are obtained, and the bandwidth is limited only by that of the incident seed pulses.     

Precise rf tuning for cw dye lasers

Laser beams are rf amplitude modulated to generate side frequencies which are used to tune a cw dye laser with rf accuracy. In a laser spectroscopic test experiment a precision of ±15kHz has been realized.     

Generation of nearly diffraction-free laser beams

Laser beams which behave like the so-called diffraction-free beams have been generated by an argon ion laser with a new type of cavity. They have almost the same intensity distributions and propagation characteristics as those predicted for the Bessel-Gauss beams which were introduced recently. Beams corresponding not only to the lowestorder but also to higher-order Bessel-Gauss beams have been obtained.     

A continuous-mode model of the mode locking in a pump-modulated laser

The active mode-locking process of the multimode laser with an external pump modulation is theoretically investigated in the frequency domain within the framework of the continuous-mode approximation. Intermode interaction and mode-coupling effects, including both AM and FM modulations, are naturally considered in a hierarchical equation of the mode components derived from the multimode Maxwell-Bloch equations. It is reduced to a continuous-mode equation that can be solved analytically in a stationary case, and used to discuss the spectral line shape and the phase dynamics of mode-components as a function of modulation amplitude and detuning of the modulation frequency. We predict a novel oscillation existing below the threshold of the ordinary complete mode-locking: The intensity of the total electric field yields a stable pulse train but its phase varies irregularly in time. This semi-locked state is characterized by a nonlinear chirping, an asymmetric spectrum, and drifting phases of the field mode-components.