Few-cycle pulse characterization with an acousto-optic pulse shaper

An acousto-optic pulse shaper has been used to characterize few-cycle pulses generated in a hollow-core fiber. A grism pair precompensates for the dispersion of the acousto-optic crystal, allowing the full pulse-shaping window to be used for replica generation rather than self-compensation. A 9.4 fs pulse was measured, the shortest ever measured with an acousto-optic pulse shaper, to our knowledge.     

Cross-validation of theoretically quantified fiber continuum generation and absolute pulse measurement by MIIPS for a broadband coherently controlled optical source

The predicted spectral phase of a fiber continuum pulsed source rigorously quantified by the scalar generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation is found to be in excellent agreement with that measured by multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan (MIIPS) with background subtraction. This cross-validation confirms the absolute pulse measurement by MIIPS and the transform-limited compression of the fiber continuum pulses by the pulse shaper performing the MIIPS measurement, and permits the subsequent coherent control on the fiber continuum pulses by this pulse shaper. The combination of the fiber continuum source with the MIIPS-integrated pulse shaper produces compressed transform-limited 9.6 fs (FWHM) pulses or arbitrarily shaped pulses at a central wavelength of 1020 nm, an average power over 100 mW, and a repetition rate of 76 MHz. In comparison to the 229-fs pump laser pulses that generate the fiber continuum, the compressed pulses reflect a compression ratio of 24.     

Multiphoton intrapulse interference. IV. Ultrashort laser pulse spectral phase characterization and compensation

We introduce a noninterferometric single beam method to characterize and compensate the spectral phase of ultrashort femtosecond pulses accurately. The method uses a pulse shaper that scans calibrated phase functions to determine the unknown spectral phase of a pulse. The pulse shaper can then be used to synthesize arbitrary phase femtosecond pulses or it can introduce a compensating spectral phase to obtain transform-limited pulses. This method is ideally suited for the generation of tailored spectral phase functions required for coherent control experiments.     

Intense femtosecond pulse shaping using a fused-silica spatial light modulator

We present the design concept of a setup of a pulse shaper to be used for high-power femtosecond lasers. The pulse shaper is constructed from a high-damage threshold fused-silica spatial light modulator and a 4-f optical system based on the design concept to avoid optical damage. We have successfully demonstrated a pulse compression of 20 fs, 5 mJ pulses obtained from a 1 kHz repetition rate Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplification system at an average power of 5 W.     

Direct space-to-time pulse shaper with reflective arrayed waveguide gratings and phase masks

We demonstrate for what we believe to be the first time the generation of sequences of ultrafast optical pulses by phase modulation in a direct space-to-time pulse shaper. The pulse shaper is based on the combination of a reflective arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer and an external reflector. The spatial modulation of the phase was obtained by fabricating corrugated patterns on the external reflector. We demonstrate that pulse sequences with different repetition rates can be obtained by changing the period in the patterned mask.     

Feedback-controlled femtosecond pulse shaping

We describe the experimental implementation of feedback-optimized femtosecond laser pulse shaping. A frequency-domain phase shaper is combined with different pulse characterization methods and appropriate optimization algorithms to compensate for any phase deviation. In particular, bandwidth-limited, amplified laser pulses are achieved by maximizing the second-harmonic generation (SHG) of the shaped laser pulses with the aid of an evolutionary algorithm. Real-time measurement of the absolute phases is achieved with spectral interferometry where the reference pulse is characterized by FROG, the so-called TADPOLE method. Using the complete electric field as feedback, arbitrary laser pulse shapes can be optimally generated in two different ways. First, a local convergence algorithm can be used to apply reliable and accurate spectral chirps. Second, an evolutionary algorithm can be employed to reach specific temporal profiles.     

Dispersion-free fiber transmission for femtosecond pulses by use of a dispersion-compensating fiber and a programmable pulse shaper

We demonstrate nearly distortionless 2.5-km fiber transmission of sub-500-fs pulses, using a combination of standard single-mode fiber, dispersion-compensating fiber, and a programmable pulse shaper for simultaneous quadratic and cubic dispersion compensation. The dispersion-compensating fiber corrects the bulk of the quadratic and the cubic phases for the single-mode fiber, and the fiber-pigtailed programmable pulse shaper exactly compensates the residual dispersion terms. Together these elements permit complete recompression of pulses, which first broaden by ~400 times in the single-mode fiber.     

Fully dispersion-compensated approximately 500 fs pulse transmission over 50 km single-mode fiber

We demonstrate essentially distortionless 50 km fiber transmission for approximately 500 fs pulses, using dispersion-compensating fiber and a programmable pulse shaper as a spectral phase equalizer. This distance is approximately five times longer than previously achieved at similar pulse widths.     

Spectral phase control and temporal superresolution toward the single-cycle pulse

The concept of temporal superresolution is applied to optical few-cycle laser pulses for the first time to our knowledge. Pulse durations of as little as to 3.7 fs, well below the Fourier limit, are achieved by pulse shaping of an octave-spanning Ti:sapphire oscillator spectrum. Our prism-based pulse shaper also enables us to generate a manifold of well-controlled pulse sequences that are important for coherent control applications on a femtosecond time scale.     

Bright and dark 40 GHz parabolic pulse generation using a picosecond optical pulse train and an arrayed waveguide grating

We demonstrate parabolic optical pulse generation by manipulating the intensity and phase of individual longitudinal modes of a 40 GHz picosecond optical pulse train in the spectral domain. Bright and dark parabolic pulses were generated from a 40 GHz mode-locked fiber laser using a 64-channel arrayed waveguide grating pulse shaper. The obtained parabolic pulse, which can easily generate a linear chirping, is useful for a number of applications to optical signal processing applications, including pulse compression and time-domain optical Fourier transformation.     

Compact direct space-to-time pulse shaping with a phase-only spatial light modulator

A very compact and innovative pulse shaper is proposed and demonstrated. The standard architecture for pulse shaping that is composed of diffraction gratings associated with an amplitude-phase spatial light modulator (SLM) is replaced by a single phase-only SLM. It acts as a pulse stretcher and as an amplitude and phase modulator at the same time. Preliminary experiments demonstrate the accurate control of amplitude and phase of shaped pulses.     

Adaptive pulse compression for transform-limited 15-fs high-energy pulse generation

We demonstrate the use of a deformable-mirror pulse shaper, combined with an evolutionary optimization algorithm, to correct high-order residual phase aberrations in a 1-mJ, 1-kHz, 15-fs laser amplifier. Frequency-resolved optical gating measurements reveal that the output pulse duration of 15.2 fs is within our measurement error of the theoretical transform limit. This technique significantly reduces the pulse duration and the temporal prepulse energy of the pulse while increasing the peak intensity by 26%. It is demonstrated, for what is believed to be the first time, that the problem of pedestals in laser amplifiers can be addressed by spectral-domain correction.     

Femtosecond pulse shaping by dynamic holograms in photorefractive multiple quantum wells

Femtosecond pulses can be shaped in the time domain by diffraction from dynamic holograms in a photorefractive multiple quantum well placed inside a Fourier pulse shaper. We present several examples of shaped pulses obtained by controlling the amplitude or the phase of the hologram writing beams, which modifies the complex spectrum of the femtosecond output.     

Adaptive compression of tunable pulses from a non-collinear-type OPA to below 16 fs by feedback-controlled pulse shaping

The self-controlled compression of widely tunable pulses in the visible generated by a non-collinear-type optical parametric amplifier is accomplished by a pulse shaper based on a 4f setup with a pixeled mask in the Fourier plane which is controlled by an evolutionary algorithm in a feedback loop. Pulse durations below 16 fs are achieved by shaping the pulses such that their second-harmonic signal is maximized. The optimization process generally requires less than five minutes. It is shown that the algorithm eventually determines the shaper settings which produce the global optimum for the SH signal. Moreover, pulses having propagated through a disturbing medium which introduced additional group velocity dispersion have been recompressed to below 16 fs. An acceptable value for the phase difference between two adjacent pixels of the liquid crystal mask is experimentally found to be 1.6. The described setup provides a powerful tool for delivering ultrashort tunable pulses to any location within an experiment, as well as tailored sub-20-fs pulses for optimal control studies.     

Quartic-phase-limited grism-based ultrashort pulse shaper

By replacing the dispersive element in a zero-dispersion pulse shaper with a grism, we have constructed a quartic-phase-limited pulse shaper. We demonstrate compensation of 4500 fs2 without the use of a dynamic element in the pulse shaping line, which is approximately the amount of dispersion induced by a typical multiphoton microscope. We also demonstrate that detuning the pulse shaper to compensate for quadratic phase induces negligible spatial chirp, thereby maintaining a high-quality focal spot for a microscopy setup.     

The study of numerical character for femtosecond pulse shaping

This paper describes the generation of shaped femtosecond multiple pulses by using the phase-only Dammann filters in 4f femtosecond shaper and gives the experimental result of femtosecond pulse characterization by the frequency- resolved optical gating （FROG） technique. With the theoretical simulation, it concludes that the quality of the generated output array is relevant to the number of pixels and the spacing between the components.[第一段]     

Femtosecond optical packet generation by a direct space-to-time pulse shaper

We demonstrate femtosecond operation of a direct space-to-time pulse shaper in which there is direct mapping (no Fourier transform) between the spatial position of the masking function and the temporal position in the output waveform. We use this apparatus to generate trains of 20 pulses as an ultrafast optical data packet over an ~40-ps temporal window.     

Femtosecond direct space-to-time pulse shaping in an integrated-optic configuration

We demonstrate femtosecond operation of an integrated-optic direct space-to-time pulse shaper for which there is a direct mapping (no Fourier transform) between the spatial position of the masking function and the temporal position in the output waveform. The apparatus is used to generate trains of more than 30 pulses as an ultrafast optical data packet over approximately an 80-ps temporal window.     

Broadband coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectroscopy using soliton pulse trains from a photonic crystal fiber

Pulse trains of fundamental soliton pulses with different center wavelengths and delay times from a photonic crystal fiber were generated and used as Stokes optical pulses in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) spectroscopy. The pulse trains were created by shaping optical pulses with a pulse shaper and their waveforms were measured by a cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating method. By the use of pulse trains, the time required for obtaining broadband CARS signals was reduced to be about one third compared with our previous study without using pulse trains. With this setup, broadband CARS signals between 500 and 3100 cm⁻¹ of a single polystyrene bead sample have been measured and the most of the Raman peaks in this frequency range of samples have been observed clearly.     

Full parametric pulse shaping in phase, amplitude, and polarization using an effective four-array modulator

We present an analytical method for generating ultra-fast pulse sequences. In this approach, the physically intuitive parameters of the sub-pulses—energy, position in time, relative phase, chirp, and the polarization state—can be controlled individually. The pulses are experimentally generated by a pulse shaper which has been recently introduced. It uses three commercial double liquid crystal array modulators to mimic the optimal setup which utilizes four liquid crystal arrays for modulation. A series of double pulses systematically demonstrates the separate and independent control of the sub-pulse parameters. Furthermore, complex multi-pulse sequences are shown.