Noise characterization of an all-solid-state mirror-dispersion-controlled 10-fs Ti:sapphire laser

We characterized the phase and amplitude noise of a mirror-dispersion-controlled 10-fs Ti:sapphire laser pumped by a frequency-doubled cw diode-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser and compared with these of the Ti:sapphire laser pumped by an Ar-ion laser. The rms timing jitters and rms amplitude noise for the all-solid-state and Ar-ion laser pumped Ti:sapphire lasers are calculated to be 0.31 ps rms and 0.71 ps rms and 0.15% rms and 0.32% rms, in the frequency range from 20 kHz to 400 kHz, respectively. The phase and amplitude noise characteristics of the Ti:sapphire laser were greatly improved by using the diode-pumped solid state laser as a pump source.     

Multi-mJ carrier envelope phase stabilized few-cycle pulses generated by a tabletop laser system

A compact system for the generation of few-cycle multi-mJ Carrier Envelope Phase (CEP) stabilized pulses is presented. At the output 1.9?mJ, 5.7?fs pulses were achieved after hollow fiber compression (HFC) of 5?mJ, 25?fs circularly-polarized pulses from a Ti:sapphire multipass chirped pulse amplifier (CPA). Polarization control of the generated pulses was done using all reflective phase retarders which can be nearly arbitrarily scaled for increasing energies. The CEP noise from the amplifier system is shown to be 190?mrad rms over a period of more than 7?hours. The full system, i.e., oscillator, amplifier, CEP stabilization, and HFC is compact enough to fit on a standard optical table.     

Improved carrier-envelope phase locking of intense few-cycle laser pulses using above-threshold ionization

A robust nonoptical carrier-envelope phase (CEP) locking feedback loop, which utilizes a measurement of the left-right asymmetry in the above-threshold ionization (ATI) of Xe, is implemented, resulting in a significant improvement over the standard slow-loop f-to-2f technique. This technique utilizes the floating average of a real-time, every-single-shot CEP measurement to stabilize the CEP of few-cycle laser pulses generated by a standard Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplified laser system using a hollow-core fiber and chirped mirror compression scheme. With this typical commercially available laser system and the stereographic ATI method, we are able to improve short-term (minutes) CEP stability after a hollow-core fiber from 450 to 290 mrad rms and long-term (hours) stability from 480 to 370 mrad rms.     

Monolithic CEO-stabilization scheme-based frequency comb from an octave-spanning laser

We demonstrate a carrier-envelope phase-stabilized octave-spanning oscillator based on the monolithic scheme. A wide output spectrum extending from 480 nm to 1050 nm was generated directly from an all-chirped mirror Ti:sapphire laser. After several improvements, the carrier-envelope offset(CEO) beat frequency accessed nearly 60 d B under a resolution of 100 k Hz. Using a feedback system with 50-k Hz bandwidth, we compressed the residual phase noise to 55 mrad(integrated from 1 Hz to 1 MHz) for the stabilized CEO, corresponding to 23-as timing jitter at the central wavelength of790 nm. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the smallest timing jitter achieved among the existing octave-spanning laser based frequency combs.     

双折射光子晶体光纤中基于孤子分裂的超连续光谱产生

利用亚纳焦量级、脉冲宽度为100 fs的激光脉冲在双折射光子晶体光纤中获得了450—1050 nm 的超连续光谱,且超连续光谱具有明显的分立峰状结构.分析了光谱中分立峰状结构产生的物理机制,抽运光波长处于接近零色散波长的反常色散区,形成高阶光孤子,由于高阶非线性和高阶色散的影响,高阶孤子分裂成多个基孤子,使初始光谱上演化出红移的光孤子成分和蓝移的色散波成分.理论模拟了飞秒激光脉冲在光纤中的色散特性和传输特性,较好地解释了实验结果. 关键词： 光子晶体光纤 超连续光谱产生 孤子分裂 脉冲俘获     

Noise performance of a feed-forward scheme for carrier-envelope phase stabilization

The noise performance of a feed-forward scheme for carrier-envelope phase stabilization is discussed. This scheme uses an acousto-optic frequency shifter to directly correct for fluctuations of the carrier-envelope phase in a pulse train emitted by a mode-locked laser without manipulating the intracavity dispersion. Generation of zero-offset frequency combs is demonstrated. Furthermore, it is shown that pump laser noise has only a minor effect on the achievable performance. Limited only by the travel time of the acoustic wave in the shifter, pump laser noise can be corrected up to near-megahertz frequencies, which yields superior noise performance compared to traditional feedback operation. Residual phase jitters down to 45 mrad are experimentally verified.     

Monolithic 0–f Scheme-Based Frequency Comb Directly Driven by a High-Power Ti:Sapphire Oscillator

A monolithic O-f scheme-based femtosecond optical frequency comb directly driven by a high-power Ti:sapphire laser oscillator is demonstrated.The spectrum covering from 650 nm to 950 nm is generated from the Ti:sapphire oscillator with a repetition rate of 170 MHz.The average output power up to 630 mW is delivered under the pump power of 4.5 W.A 44-dB signal-to-noise ratio(SNR) of the carrier-envelope phase offset(CEO) beat note is achieved under the resolution of 100 kHz and is long-term stabilized to a reference source at 20 MHz.The integrated phase noise(IPN) in the range from 1 Hz to 1 MHz is calculated to be 138 mrad,corresponding to the timing jitter of 63 as at the central wavelength of 790 nm.     

Implementation of the direct locking method for long-term carrier-envelope-phase stabilization of a grating-based kHz femtosecond laser

We have stabilized the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of amplified femtosecond laser pulses from a grating-based chirped-pulse amplification femtosecond laser by the direct locking method. Long-term CEP stabilization in the oscillator was achieved by employing a double-feedback loop to control both the pumping power and the cavity dispersion. Large CEP drift, induced during amplification, was compensated by adjusting the grating separation in the pulse compressor, and the CEP stabilization was maintained for four hours with a phase jitter of about 180 mrad. After pulse compression to 5.5-fs pulses in a filamentation pulse compressor, CEP-stabilized laser pulses were applied for high-harmonic generation to confirm the CEP stabilization.     

1-mJ, sub-5-fs carrier–envelope phase-locked pulses

We report the routine generation of sub-5-fs laser pulses with 1-mJ energy and stable carrier–envelope phase at 1-kHz repetition rate, obtained by compressing the multi-mJ output from a phase-locked Ti:sapphire amplifier in a rare-gas-filled hollow fiber. The dual-stage amplifier features a hybrid transmission grating/chirped mirror compressor providing 2.2-mJ, 26-fs pulses at 1 kHz with standard phase deviation of 190 mrad rms. We demonstrate hour-long phase stability without feedback control of grating position or rigorous control of the laser environment, simply by using small pulse stretching factors in the amplifier, which minimize the beam pathway in the compressor. The amplifier also integrates a versatile AOPDF (acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter) for closed-loop spectral phase optimization. The various factors influencing the overall phase stability of the system are discussed in detail. Using the optimized output, 1-mJ, 4.5-fs pulses are generated by seeding the neon gas filled hollow fiber with a circularly polarized input beam. A standard phase deviation of 230 mrad after the HCF is obtained by direct f-to-2f detection and slow-loop feedback to the oscillator locking electronics without any additional spectral broadening.     

Timing Jitter Induced by White Noise in Mode-locked Solid-state Lasers

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Spectrally resolved optical frequency comb from a self-referenced 5 GHz femtosecond laser

We report a mode-locked Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser with 5GHz repetition rate. Spectral broadening of the 24 fs pulses in a microstructured fiber yields an octave-spanning spectrum and permits self-referencing and active stabilization of the emitted femtosecond laser frequency comb (FLFC). The individual modes of the 5 GHz FLFC are resolved with a high-resolution spectrometer based on a virtually imaged phased array spectral disperser. Isolation of single comb elements at a microwatt average power level is demonstrated. The combination of the high-power, frequency-stabilized 5 GHz laser and the straightforward resolution of its many modes will benefit applications in direct frequency comb spectroscopy. Additionally, such a stabilized FLFC should serve as a useful tool for direct mode-by-mode Fourier synthesis of optical waveforms.     

Enhanced spectral broadening of short laser pulses in high-numerical-aperture holey fibers

The influence of the structure of holey-fiber cladding on the spectral broadening of femtosecond laser pulses is experimentally studied. These experiments demonstrate that the spectral broadening of 70-fs pulses of 800-nm Ti:sapphire laser radiation transmitted through 2- and 3-μm-pitch holey fibers can be enhanced by a factor of about 1.5 by increasing the air-filling fraction of the fiber cladding from 16 up to 65%. Received: 23 April 2001 / Revised version: 18 June 2001 / Published online: 18 July 2001     

Generation of 5-fs pulses and octave-spanning spectra directly from a Ti:sapphire laser

Spectra extending from 600 to 1200 nm have been generated from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser producing 5-fs pulses. Specially designed double-chirped mirror pairs provide broadband controlled dispersion, and a second intracavity focus in a glass plate provides additional spectral broadening. These spectra are to our knowledge the broadest ever generated directly from a laser oscillator.     

Spectral broadening of 40-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses in photonic-molecule modes of a cobweb-microstructure fiber

Photonic-molecule modes of a cobweb-microstructure fiber allow efficient nonlinear optical spectral broadening of nanojoule femtosecond light pulses. Spectral widths of approximately 200 nm are achieved at the output of a 6-cm sample of such a fiber for 40-fs Ti:sapphire laser pulses with an energy of a few nanojoules coupled into photonic-molecule modes. Higher values of the group index and a lower group-velocity dispersion, attainable with higher-order photonic-molecule modes, allow the efficiency of spectral broadening of femtosecond laser pulses to be increased relative to the efficiency of spectral broadening in the fundamental photonic-molecule mode. Received: 9 June 2002 / Revised version: 29 June 2002 / Published online: 22 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +7-095/939-3959, E-mail: zheltikov@top.phys.msu.su     

双路光谱展宽的钛宝石飞秒光学频率梳系统

对中国计量科学研究院研制的第一代基于钛宝石飞秒激光器的光学频率梳系统进行了改进和优化. 通过对激光器重复频率、光谱展宽以及拍频信号探测等方面的改进,有效地降低了光谱展宽的复杂性,提高了飞秒光学频率梳系统的稳定性和激光频率测量的便捷性. 采用该光学频率梳系统对碘稳频532 nm和碘稳频633 nm激光绝对频率进行了测量,测量结果在国际推荐值的不确定度范围之内. 关键词： 光学频率计量 飞秒光学频率梳 光谱展宽     

Long-term carrier-envelope-phase stabilized fiber-bulk hybrid laser with millihertz linewidth and 50 W average power

Long-term carrier-envelope-phase stabilization was demonstrated in high-power large-modearea fiber chirped-pulse spectral fraction amplification at 1030 nm of a broadband femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser. The carrier enveloped phase was stably controlled with the maximum average power up to 50 W by pre-compensating the carrier-envelope phase changes in the high-power fiber amplifiers. The locked in loop and out of loop frequency fluctuation was measured to be 1.44 and 46 mHz within half an hour. The locked carrier-frequency exhibited an in loop and out of loop beat signal linewidth of 1.66 and 2.27 mHz, accordingly accumulated phase jitter was estimated to be 0.22 and 0.73 rad, respectively, with the integration range from 10 mHz to 100 kHz. The phase stabilization was measured to change little as the output power increased, confirming negligible amplitude-to-phase noise conversions in the linear high-power fiber chirped pulse amplification.     

Carrier-envelope frequency stabilization of a Ti:sapphire oscillator using different pump lasers: part II

Complementing an earlier report (Vernaleken et al. in Opt Exp 20:18387, 2012), we investigate the residual phase jitter of a carrier-envelope frequency stabilized Ti:sapphire oscillator when pumped by additional commercially available pump lasers that were not part of the first study. We find that all tested pump lasers allow stabilization of the oscillator with a residual rms phase noise (integrated between 2 Hz and 5 MHz) of less than 150 mrad despite their different design and properties. Possible sources of technical noise and their elimination for specific models are discussed.     

Generation of high-energy, sub-20-fs pulses in the deep ultraviolet by using spectral broadening during filamentation in argon

Generation of sub-20-fs UV pulses with more than 300 μJ energy at 268 nm is reported. First, the UV pulses are produced by successive second-harmonic and third-harmonic (TH) generation of 805 nm pulses of a 1 kHz Ti:sapphire laser amplifier. The spectral broadening of TH pulses is realized in a filament, generated in argon. The produced pulses are compressed in a simple double-pass prism-pair compressor. Starting from 100 fs pulses, we achieve a fivefold pulse shortening.     

Characterization of frequency-tripled nanosecond pulsed Ti:sapphire laser injection seeded by a frequency-scanning cw Ti:sapphire laser by use of optogalvanic spectroscopy of silicon atoms

The performance of a narrow-linewidth nanosecond pulsed deep-UV coherent light source consisting of a frequency-tripled nanosecond pulsed Ti:sapphire laser injection seeded by a frequency-scanning cw Ti:sapphire laser has been characterized by using optogalvanic spectroscopy of silicon atoms as a diagnostic. The envelope of the optogalvanic spectrum indicates the pure Doppler broadening of silicon atoms, which was estimated to be as broad as 4 GHz, without the broadening effect from the laser linewidth itself.     

Few‐optical‐cycle light pulses with passive carrier‐envelope phase stabilization

One of the most advanced frontiers of ultrafast optics is the control of carrier‐envelope phase (CEP) ϕ of light pulses, which enables the generation of optical waveforms with reproducible electric field profile. Such control is important for pulses with few‐optical‐cycle duration, for which a CEP variation produces a strong change in the waveform, so that strongly nonlinear optical phenomena, such as multiphoton absorption, above‐threshold ionization and high‐harmonic generation become CEP‐dependent. In particular, CEP control is the prerequisite for the production of isolated attosecond pulses. Standard laser systems generate pulses that are CEP unstable; the CEP can be stabilized using either active or passive methods. Passive, all‐optical schemes rely on difference‐frequency generation (DFG) between two pulses sharing the same CEP: in this process the phases of the two pulses add up with opposite signs, leading to cancellation of the shot‐to‐shot CEP fluctuations. This paper presents an overview of passive CEP stabilization schemes, starting from the basic concepts and progressing to the details of the practical implementations of the idea. The passive approach allows the generation of CEP‐controlled few‐optical‐cycle pulses covering a very broad range of parameters in terms of carrier frequency (from visible to mid‐IR), energy (up to several mJs) and repetition rate (up to hundreds of kHz)