Determination of the temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by means of laser-induced air plasma

A new approach is presented to reveal the temporal structure of femtosecond laser pulses by recording the corresponding time-resolved shadowgraphs of the laser-induced air plasma. It is shown that the temporal structures of femtosecond laser pulses, normally not observable by the ordinary intensity autocorrelator, can be detected through intuitively analyzing the ultrafast evolution process of the air plasma induced by the femtosecond laser pulses under examination. With this method, existence of pre- and post-pulses has been clearly unveiled within the time window of ±150 fs in reference with the main 50-fs laser pulses output from a commercial 1-kHz femtosecond laser amplifier. The unique advantage of the proposed method is that it can directly provide valuable information about the pulse temporal structures' effect on the laser-induced ionization or material ablation.     

Quantitative deviation of the two-photon absorption coefficient based on three laser pulse models

The pulse profile influence of excitation light on the two-photon absorption coefficient β is theoretically and numerically studied. Based on Gaussian spatial and temporal laser, we obtain an expansion formula of energy transmission. As compared with a plain beam and a pulse beam that is rectangular in time but Gaussian in space, the relative deviations of β turn out to be about 214% and 47%, respectively. These differences indicate that a smaller β may be obtained than the real one in usual nonlinear transmission. Our result suggests that by taking real pulse profile into account, a more exact β can be derived in energy transmission measurement.     

Strain compensated robust semiconductor saturable absorber mirror for fiber lasers

We demonstrate a strain compensated long lifetime semiconductor saturable absorber mirror(SESAM) with a high modulation depth for fiber lasers. The SESAM was measured to have a damage threshold of 9.5 m J/cm~2, a modulation depth of 11.5%, a saturation fluence of 39.3 μJ/cm~2, and an inversed saturable absorption coefficient of 630 m J/cm~2. The SESAM has been applied to a linear cavity mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser, which has been working for more than a year without damage of the SESAM.