Ultrashort pulse generation and measurement techniques

The first section will discuss the generation of picosecond and femtosecond laser pulses, their propagation and compression in optical fibers, and their amplification for nonlinear spectroscopic applications. Laser systems for different wavelength regimes and pulse measurement techniques will be described. The second section will extend the discussion of picosecond and femtosecond measurement to studies of ultrafast processes in materials. Pump-probe and transient four-wave-mixing methods will be analyzed. Examples of application to both molecular and solid state systems will be presented.     

亚飞秒脉冲的产生与控制——饶毓泰基础光学一等奖介绍

亚飞秒脉冲是研究和控制发生在阿秒时间尺度超快物理过程的有效工具.基于分子调制过程,文章作者提出并发展了一系列哑飞秒脉冲产生和操控的技术;围绕频谱合成方案,利用级联二阶非线性效应,实现了多色圆锥辐射注入放大和二维多色阵列及其参量上转换放大;同时,还开展了基于飞秒振荡器及外腔增强技术的高重复频率高次谐波产生与输出耦合的相关研究.     

基于场效应晶体管的高压电脉冲产生技术

 以高速MOSFET器件为基础,对超快高压电脉冲产生技术进行了实验研究。采用多路并联的高速MOSFET与感应叠加相结合的形式,得到脉冲半宽度为300 ns、上升时间约为60 ns、时间间隔600 ns的超快方波双脉冲;在负载电阻为11.5 Ω时,可以产生365 A的脉冲峰值电流,并且能够提供1.5 MW的峰值输出功率。     

Optimization of attosecond pulse generation

The generation of attosecond pulses by superposition of high harmonics relies on their synchronization in the emission. Our experiments in the low-order, plateau, and cutoff regions of the spectrum reveal different regimes in the electron dynamics determining the synchronization quality. The shortest pulses are obtained by combining a spectral filtering of harmonics from the end of the plateau and the cutoff, and a far-field spatial filtering that selects a single electron quantum path contribution to the emission. This method applies to isolated pulses as well as pulse trains.     

High-power third-harmonic flat pulse laser generation

The generation of a high-power laser pulse at 266 nm that is longitudinally shaped according to a prefixed intensity profile is reported. The main features of the pulse shape modifications due to second- and third-harmonic conversions are measured, and the results are in good agreement with the theory. The UV temporal shape depends on the chirp of the fundamental pulse and on the crystal phase-matching angle. Exploiting the large stretching imposed on the third-harmonic signal, we show that the pulse intensity profile can be obtained by spectral single-shot measurements.     

Ultrashort pulse generation in diode lasers

The basic ideas and current state of the art of ultrashort pulse generation by injection lasers are reviewed. All developed techniques, including gain switching,Q-switching, and mode-locking are described and compared. A simple theoretical treatment of a diode laser which emits picosecond light pulses is discussed. Some fundamental limits of the pulse parameters are discussed. Finally, compression of chirped optical pulses by optical fibres and the soliton effect is considered.     

Supercontinuum generation and pulse compression in hollow waveguides

We present a theoretical study of temporal and spectral characteristics and pulse compression in hollow waveguides, using a global approach to dispersion without application of the slowly varying envelope approximation. A novel ultrawide self-phase modulation-induced spectral-broadening regime with spectra covering almost 3 octaves is predicted for a pressure at which the group-velocity dispersion parameter is small and anomalous. Compression to subcycle pulses by an appropriate broadband modulator and pulse shortening without chirp control by a spectral filter are studied.     

Entropy generation rate during laser pulse heating: Effect of laser pulse parameters on entropy generation rate

Laser pulse heating of solid surface and entropy generation during the heating process are considered. Time exponentially decaying pulse is accommodated in the analysis and the laser pulse parameter (β₁/β₂) resulting in minimum entropy generation rate is computed. Analytical solutions for temperature rise are presented and volumetric entropy generation rate is formulated. Two laser pulses resulting in low volumetric entropy generation rate are examined in detail and volumetric entropy generation rate is associated with the laser pulse parameter (β₁/β₂). It is found that volumetric entropy generation rate attains high values in the early heating period due to large (1/T²). Moreover, the laser pulse with high-peak intensity results in lower volumetric entropy generation rate than that corresponding to the low-intensity laser pulse with the same energy content.     

170 fs pulse generation by optical pulse compression at 308 nm

Pulses of 170 fs duration have been obtained by compression of 220–250 fs pulses of a hybrid excimer-dye laser setup.     

Subfemtosecond pulse generation and multiplicative increase of pulse spacing in high-order stimulated Raman scattering

We demonstrate a technique for multiplicatively increasing the pulse spacing of subfemtosecond pulse trains generated by high-order stimulated Raman scattering, which uses pairs of off-resonant two-photon excitation of a molecular Raman mode to establish strong molecular modulation in the medium. Every laser pair has two single-mode laser beams tuned slightly off two-photon resonance, and the laser pairs have their corresponding carrier frequencies shifted from each other by one half, one third, or one fourth of the selected molecular Raman mode frequency. Theoretical analyses and calculations based on the fundamental vibrational transition of solid hydrogen show that the pulse spacing of the subfemtosecond pulse trains thus generated can readily be doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled.     

Tunable-chirp pulse compression in quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation

We demonstrate continuously tunable compensation of linear chirp on a first-harmonic pump pulse to produce a near-transform-limited second-harmonic output pulse through the use of a chirped, fanned, periodically poled lithium niobate quasi-phase-matching grating. Compensation of positive and negative chirps is possible through reversal of device orientation. The device is simple and monolithic and can be applied to compensation of a higher-order phase with minor modification.     

Ultrashort pulse generation using fiber FM laser

Ultrashort optical pulse generation using a fiber FM laser is presented and analyzed in detail. Fiber FM laser operation is realized using a fiber ring with an internal phase modulator and an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. To compress FM laser pulses, an external dispersive single-mode fiber is employed. Furthermore, by external intensity modulation, the pulse background is removed. The background ratio of the generated ultrashort pulse is calculated and compared with the experimental results. The experimental results show an output optical pulse width of 1.77 ps and a spectral bandwidth of 0.5 THz.     

Mid-infrared pulse generation using a sub-picosecond OPO

We describe a synchronously pumped LBO parametric oscillator pumped by a cw mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser. We demonstrate the synchronization between the pump pulses and the signal pulses by measuring a 100 fs cross correlation. We then generate pulses tunable from 2.6 to 5.3 µm by mixing the signal and idler pulses in an AgGaS₂ crystal and obtain as much as 400 µW of average power.     

A computational theory of short pulse generation

The semi-classical equations for the electric field and population inversion in a two-level medium are simplified for the case of a saturable absorber cell which is shorter than the length of fluctuations in the optical-pulse envelope. The spatial coordinates in the cell are effectively lumped, and the integration is reduced to the one dimension of time. The pulse is passed through an amplifying medium and frequency selective elements by a fast Fourier transform into its spectral components. The case of pulse formation in a ruby laser, starting from a noise fluctuation is computed for the parameters of a recently reported accurate measurement of pulse duration. Good agreement is obtained with experiment. Finally, a pulse length is predicted for a cavity containing an etalon which cancels gain narrowing.     

Tunable infrared generation in KTA and applications

Noncollinear difference frequency mixing of dye laser and Nd:YAG second harmonic (fundamental) radiation from a commercial laser system is employed for the generation of 2.7–5.3 μm (1.6–1.7 μm) radiations in a flux-grown KTiOAsO₁ crystal. The generated radiation is used to scan the methane absorption in the fundamental (v ₃) and its first overtone (2v ₃) band at pressure 90 torr in a laboratory made single pass gas cell of length 33 cm.     

Dispersion measurements for femtosecond-pulse generation and applications

Dispersive phenomena provide limits in the generation, measurement and applications of femtosecond optical pulses. Optical elements such as prisms, gratings, air, mirrors, filters, and laser crystals all contribute to the total dispersion in optical systems. Interferometric techniques enable measurements of dispersion of individual elements, and new techniques allow dispersion measurement inside the cavity of operating modelocked femtosecond tunable lasers. These techniques provide access to detailed information about dispersion errors which can distort pulses and produce undesirable effects in modelocked lasers. In this article, we review techniques for the measurement of dispersion in optical components and systems. In several cases, we compare measurements made with intracavity dispersion techniques with extracavity measurements and point out common features.     

Short laser pulse generation: Part one

The status of short laser pulse generation is reviewed. Achievements, limitations and potential of techniques producing pulses shorter than 50 ns, from the ultra-violet to the infra-red, are examined.In this half of the paper the physical principles underlying the generation of ultra-short pulses are introduced and the methods of Q-switching, gain switching, cavity dumping and mode-locking are considered.     

Difference-frequency pulse generation in quantum well heterolasers

It is shown that mid-to far-infrared (IR) and terahertz (THz) pulse generation via difference-frequency mixing in quantum well (QW) dual-wavelength heterolasers can be rather efficient under the modelocking regime for one or both lasing fields even at room temperature. In such a device, the long-wavelength field is produced in the process of intracavity difference-frequency mixing of two optical fields: continuous wave (CW) and pulsed (or both pulsed), due to the resonant intersubband quantum coherence in QWs, as well as due to the nonresonant second-order semiconductor bulk nonlinearity. The mode-locking regime of the optical generation allows one to significantly enhance the pulsed driving fields in comparison with those under CW operation and, therefore, substantially increase the output difference-frequency power. Within a simple model, an explicit formula for the intensity and shape of the generated IR or THz pulse is derived. It is shown that this method is capable of producing picosecond pulses at a ∼ 1-GHz repetition rate with a peak power of the order of 1 W and ≲0.2 mW at 10 and 50 μm wavelengths, respectively. Original Text ? Astro, Ltd., 2007.     

Quasiperiodic Raman technique for ultrashort pulse generation

We report the experimental demonstration of a new Raman technique that produces 200 sidebands, ranging in wavelength from 3 microm to 195 nm. By studying multiphoton ionization of nitric oxide (NO) molecules, we show mutual phase coherence among 15 visible sidebands covering 0.63 octaves of bandwidth.