Backward Raman amplification in plasmas with chirped wideband pump and seed pulses

Chirped wideband pump and seed pulses are usually considered for backward Raman amplification(BRA)in plasmas to achieve an extremely high-power laser pulse.However,current theoretical models only contain either a chirped pump or a chirped seed.In this paper,modified three-wave coupling equations are proposed for the BRA in the plasmas with both chirped wideband pump and seed.The simulation results can more precisely describe the experiments,such as the Princeton University experiment.The optimized chirp and bandwidth are determined based on the simulation to enhance the output intensity and efficiency.     

啁啾匹配和同步抖动对光参量啁啾脉冲放大的影响

 通过研究光参量啁啾脉冲放大过程转换效率随泵浦光啁啾参数的变化,以及信号光和泵浦光波长的对应关系,确立了信号光和泵浦光同步时实现线性啁啾匹配的方法。以磷酸二氢钾作为非线性晶体,研究了信号光和泵浦光之间的线性啁啾匹配和时间同步抖动对光参量啁啾脉冲放大后信号光脉冲波形和转换效率的影响。结果表明：在时间同步的情况下,线性啁啾匹配时的信号光脉冲波形很对称,转换效率也较高;在同步抖动程度一定的情况下,不同泵浦光啁啾参数时,信号光的增益及放大后的脉冲波形差异较大;在线性啁啾匹配程度一定时,信号光和泵浦光时间同步抖动越严重,放大信号光的脉冲波形变化越大,信号光增益越小,且转换效率也越低。     

Amplification of short laser pulses by Raman backscattering in capillary plasmas

Short laser pulses can be significantly amplified in the process of Raman backscattering in plasma inside an oversized dielectric capillary. A dielectric capillary allows obtaining high intensities of the output radiation by sustaining efficient amplification at large distances compared to the diffraction length. The efficiency of the interaction between the pump wave and the amplified pulse is shown not to be critically sensitive to the transverse structure of the wave fields. For a quasi-single-mode initial seed pulse and a low pump intensity, the amplified pulse tends to preserve its transverse structure due to nonlinear competition of the capillary eigen-modes. At a high power of the pump wave, multimode amplification always takes place but the growth of the front peak of the pulse still follows the one-dimensional model. The Raman backscattering instability of the pump wave resulting in the noise amplification can be suppressed in detuned interaction by chirping the pump wave or arranging an inhomogeneous plasma density profile along the trace of amplification. The efficiency of the desired pulse amplification does not significantly depend on detuning in the case of a smooth detuning profile. Density inhomogeneities are shown to exert less influence on the amplification within a capillary than in the one-dimensional problem. Parameters of a future experiment on the Raman amplification of a short laser pulse inside a capillary are proposed.     

Chirped pulse amplification in single mode Tm:fiber using a chirped Bragg grating

We report femtosecond pulse generation and chirped pulse amplification in Tm:fiber. A mode-locked oscillator operating in the soliton regime produced 800 fs pulses with 5 nm spectral bandwidth, at 40 pJ pulse energy. This oscillator seeded a pre-amplifier that utilizes a Raman soliton self-frequency shift to produce wavelength tunable pulses with 3 nJ energy, reduced pulse duration of 150 fs, and increased bandwidth of 30 nm. For further amplification, the pulses were stretched up to 160 ps using a chirped Bragg grating (CBG). Stretched pulses were amplified to 85 nJ after compression in single-mode Tm:fiber and recompressed with the CBG as short as 400 fs. Compressed pulses were coupled into a highly nonlinear tellurite fiber to investigate the potential of this ultrashort pulse 2-μm fiber source as a pump for mid-IR supercontinuum generation.     

Backward Raman amplification in a plasma waveguide

Backward Raman amplification of a short laser pulse in a plasma waveguide is demonstrated. With a guided seed pulse of 0.8-microJ energy and a pump pulse of 345-mJ energy in a 9-mm-long optically preformed plasma waveguide, 910-fold energy amplification is achieved. Heating of the plasma by the long pump pulse is identified to be a key issue for plasma-waveguide-based backward Raman amplifiers.     

Generation of synchronized signal and pump pulses for an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based multi-terawatt Nd:glass laser system

Synchronized signal (650 ps) and pump (1.3 ns) pulses were generated using 4-pass geometry in a grating pair based pulse stretcher unit. The pump pulse has been further amplified in a high gain regenerative amplifier. This amplified pulse was used as the pump in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based Nd:glass laser system. As the chirped signal pulse and the pump pulse originated from the same oscillator, the time jitter between the pump pulse and the signal pulse can be <50 ps.     

Chirped-pulse four-wave Raman mixing in molecular hydrogen

Four-wave Raman mixing (FWRM) in molecular hydrogen was studied using chirped pump and Stokes pulses emitting at 802 and 1,203 nm, respectively. The group delay dispersion (GDD) of the anti-Stokes pulse was examined employing a frequency-resolved optical gating system at different GDDs of the pump and Stokes pulses (0 or ±1,000 fs²). As a result, the energy and the sign of GDD for the anti-Stokes pulse remained unchanged, when the pump and Stokes pulses had the GDD with the same sign. When the sign was not the same, the energy decreased and only the portion useful for resonant FWRM was converted into a Raman emission. This technique has a potential for use in compensation of dispersion by passing the negatively chirped high-order Raman sidebands through the optics with positive chirps in the spectral region from the deep-ultraviolet to the near-infrared, to generate multiple transform-limited Raman pulses and then to produce an ultrashort optical pulse by a Fourier synthesis of these Raman emissions.     

Reaching the nonlinear regime of Raman amplification of ultrashort laser pulses

The intensity of a subpicosecond laser pulse was amplified by a factor of up to 1000 using the Raman backscatter interaction in a 2 mm long gas jet plasma. The process of Raman amplification reached the nonlinear regime, with the intensity of the amplified pulse exceeding that of the pump pulse by more than an order of magnitude. Features unique to the nonlinear regime such as gain saturation, bandwidth broadening, and pulse shortening were observed. Simulation and theory are in qualitative agreement with the measurements.     

Phase matched scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on pump beam deflection

Combined with the optical beam deflection, a novel approach of phase matched broadband scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification(OPCPA) was proposed. For this scheme, there was no superfluous operations to the chirped signal pulse which propagated in a changeless direction straightforward, but the pump beam were deflected in space with time by passing through a KTN crystal, which was applied with varied driving voltage. The theories of phase matching of each chirped signal frequency based on pump beam deflection was analyzed detailedly. And the type-I amplification of chirped signal with 800 nm central wavelength and 20 nm bandwidth pumped by 532 nm in BBO crystal was simulated as a case in point. The simulation results showed that the spectral distribution of chirped signal pulse was almost the same as the initial form, i.e., there was nearly no narrowing on the amplified spectrum by using of the scanning OPCPA based on pump beam deflection. In addition, the simulations demonstrated that it was worth minimizing the voltage deviation applied to KTN crystal as much as possible for the sake of better waveform, larger bandwidth and higher conversion efficiency of amplified signal pulse in the proposed scanning OPCPA.     

啁啾脉冲参量放大特性的数值模拟研究

 根据啁啾脉冲激光参量放大技术,数值模拟了光参量放大在啁啾脉冲放大中的应用。研究啁啾脉冲参量放大增益及时间特性,特别是在大信号注入与小信号注入两种有代表意义的情况下,详细地分析了群速度失配、相位失配对放大过程的影响。研究了泵浦光脉冲与信号光脉冲的时间同步要求,讨论了放大系统的稳定性。     

Raman amplification and optical short pulse generation in a waveguide with periodic gain

In this paper a new configuration of amplification is proposed for Raman amplification. In this new configuration a spatial periodic Raman gain is used to amplify a CW Raman seed that generates a short optical pulse taking into account the SPM, XPM, walk-off and pulse depletion. The amplification process is accomplished by using an intense pump pulse where its energy is transferred through SRS effect. A CW weak seed is used to represent the signal to be amplified and for pump is used a Gaussian pulse. We discuss the advantages to this configuration. First, this scheme means that the Raman-gain coefficient assumes a periodic characteristic and like a modulation process, it gives possibility to control the energy transfer from the pump to Raman seed. Second, the efficient use of the parameters of the periodic Raman coefficient function, like amplitude and frequency of the modulation, can result in a more efficient control of the signal amplification. This new configuration provides some very interesting features in the Raman amplification process when compared to the standard procedure. A complete discussion of this configuration is presented.     

光子晶体光纤飞秒激光非线性放大系统的耦合动力学过程研究

构建了掺镱大模场面积单偏振光子晶体光纤飞秒激光非线性放大系统. 讨论了腔内净色散量和抽运功率对振荡级输出参数的影响和振荡级参数对放大级输出参数的影响. 在本实验条件下, 当腔内净色散量取较大负色散时, 振荡级直接输出的脉冲更宽, 且携带更少的啁啾. 当振荡级抽运4.53 W时, 选择最接近变换极限的脉冲作为种子脉冲, 放大级在60 W抽运时输出压缩后无基底的短脉冲, 宽度为45.7 fs, 平均功率28 W. 振荡级抽运功率增加到5.08 W, 放大级抽运70 W时, 获得最高输出功率34.5 W, 对应脉宽53.5 fs.     

发散光束抽运的宽带光参量啁啾脉冲放大系统的理论研究

对发散光束抽运的光参量啁啾脉冲放大器的增益带宽进行了系统的理论研究.采用空间傅里叶变换和四阶Runge-Kutta算法，分别模拟了非衍射极限情况下的高斯光束和空间频谱为矩形的发散光束作为抽运光时的增益曲线.结果表明：不管是在可见光或是在近红外光谱区，用发散光束均可以明显地改善光参量啁啾脉冲放大系统的增益带宽.选取合适的发散角和抽运光强，可以获得高增益、宽谱带的信号光输出. 关键词： 光参量啁啾脉冲放大 增益带宽 发散角 高斯光束     

啁啾匹配OPCPA方案用于消除超短激光脉冲的预脉冲

采用了一种利用啁啾匹配光参量啁啾脉冲放大（OPCPA）技术来消除泵浦脉冲时间窗口内的预脉冲的方法,并对该方法展开了数值模拟研究。分析了泵浦光脉冲形状、预脉冲提前时间等因素对预脉冲消除效果以及信噪比提升情况的影响。通过与传统的非共线OPCPA方案对比,发现啁啾匹配OPCPA方案可以消除掉离主脉冲更近的预脉冲,且它对预脉冲的消除效果受泵浦光脉冲形状的影响较小。     

用于宽带啁啾脉冲光参量放大系统精确同步的新方法

基于非共线光参量放大,以波长800 nm飞秒激光的倍频光为抽运光,以激光二极管640 nm连续波激光为信号光,产生了与800 nm飞秒激光精确同步的无直流本底的1064 nm脉冲光。实验结果显示该1064 nm的光脉冲在脉冲能量和空间光束质量上均可作为1064 nm波长脉冲放大器的种子光。仅通过一级简单紧凑的非共线参量放大就可实现光周期量级的光参量啁啾脉冲放大系统的抽运激光和种子光的精确同步。     

Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on photonic crystal fibre

A compact two-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on photonic crystal fibre is demonstrated.A 1064-nm soliton pulse is obtained in a home-made photonic crystal fibre (PCF) with femtosecond pulse pumping and then amplified to 2 mJ in an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier.After the amplified pulses pass through the LBO crystal,the 532-nm double-frequency light with an energy of 0.8 mJ and a duration of over 100 ps at 10-Hz repetition rate is generated as a pump source in the following two-stage optical parametric amplification (OPA).The 850-nm chirped signal light gain from the stretcher is 1.5×10 4 in the first-stage OPA while it is 120 in the second-stage OPA.The total signal gain of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) can reach 1.8×10 6.     

Noncollinear phase-matching geometries in ultra-broadband quasi-parametric amplification

Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) shows great potential in producing ultrashort high-intensity pulses because of its large gain bandwidth. Quasi-parametric chirped pulse amplification (QPCPA) may further extend the bandwidth. However, behavior of QPCPA at a limited pump intensity (e.g., ≤ 5 GW/cm² in a nanosecond pumped QPCPA) has not yet been investigated fully. We discuss detailedly the ultra-broadband amplification and the noncollinear phase-matching geometry in QPCPA, model and develop a novel noncollinear geometry in QPCPA, namely triple-wavelength phase-matching geometry, which provides two additional phase-matching points around the phase-matching point at the central wavelength. Our analysis demonstrates that the triple-wavelength phase-matching geometry can support stable, ultra-broadband amplification in QPCPA. The numerical simulation results show that ultrashort pulse with a pulse duration of 7.92 fs can be achieved in QPCPA when the pump intensity is limited to 5 GW/cm², calculated using the nonlinear coefficient of YCa₄O(BO₃)₃.     

时频分布技术在激光与等离子体相互作用粒子模拟诊断中的应用

在对超短超强激光与等离子体相互作用进行粒子模拟诊断的研究中,输出量普遍为时间或空间上的非平稳信号。将时频分布技术引入粒子模拟结果的诊断,指出用时频分布技术等现代信号处理技术诊断模拟结果中的非平稳信号具有重要意义。作为实例,考察了用线性啁啾激光打靶条件下,包含nc/4(nc为等离子体临界密度）的非均匀等离子体区域中的受激拉曼散射的演化,并用时频分布技术得到了清晰的物理图像。     

高功率2 μm波长可调谐超短脉冲光纤激光器

高功率2 μm波长可调谐的超短脉冲激光具有峰值功率高、脉冲宽度窄、波长可调谐等优势,在医疗手术、大气通信、光电对抗等领域具有广泛的应用。利用高峰值功率的掺铒光纤放大器泵浦高非线性光纤,在全光纤化结构中获得了1895～2165 nm可调谐的拉曼孤子输出。采用啁啾脉冲放大技术对拉曼孤子的脉冲能量进行提升,放大后拉曼孤子的单脉冲能量为1.56 μJ,平均功率达到50.6 W,脉冲宽度为83 ps。经过光栅对压缩后,脉冲宽度降低至1.23 ps,平均功率为22 W,峰值功率达到0.55 MW。放大后的脉冲仍具有波长调谐的能力,当输出功率为5 W和50.6 W时,脉冲的波长调谐范围分别为38 nm和8 nm。     

Improvement of contrast ratio in saturated OPCPA system by using pump pulse shaping and time delay control

We theoretically investigated the temporal profile of a background pedestal in a single-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system, and showed that the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) prepulse in the saturation regime degrades the contrast ratio. To improve the contrast ratio in a saturated OPCPA system, a method using pump pulse shaping and the time delay control between pump and seed pulses was utilized. Through numerical simulations, the effect of the rising time and the time delay of a pump pulse on the background pedestal was subsequently investigated in terms of the contrast ratio. From the simulation results, it was determined that an optimal rising time and the time delay of the pump pulse are critical for obtaining a high-contrast broadband laser pulse from a saturated OPCPA system.