A new method to measure the ultrashort pulse laser time jitter using autocorrelator

The power spectrum method to characterize mode-locked laser time jitter less than tens of femtosecond faces challenges from both the noise of the reference oscillator and the photodetector conversion rate. A method using autocorrelator to measure the time jitter probability density function is suggested. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation indicate that the time jitter less than 30 fs can be measured correctly by high accurate autocorrelator.     

Ultrafast pulse compression by semiconductor two-photon gain

We demonstrate experimentally the compression of femtosecond-scale pulses by two-photon gain in a compact electrically driven AlGaAs waveguide. Dynamic control of the pulse width from 240 to 140 fs is achieved by varying the current injection levels--in good agreement with the calculations. The pulse width is measured by a high-sensitivity intensity autocorrelator based on two-photon absorption in a GaAs photomultiplier tube.     

Highly stable, passively mode-locked fiber laser with low pump power for subpicosecond pulse generation

We present the design of highly stable, passively mode-locked fiber lasers which are based on a simple configuration and require a low pump power for the generation of optical pulses with subpicosecond pulsewidth. Our designed fiber laser uses a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror to realize the self-starting, passive mode locking at a low pump power of 29 mW, with which a stable optical pulse train is obtained at the fundamental repetition rate of 52.5 MHz and the central wavelength of 1557 nm. The output mode-locked optical pulses have a pulsewidth of 881 fs and an average output power of 1.78 mW, respectively.     

飞秒激光扫描自相关仪

本文报道了一种测量飞秒激光脉冲宽度的扫描自相关仪,其扫描频率为25Hz,测量范围从20fs到900fs.采用的是BBO倍频晶体,测量光谱范围从700nm～1000nm.     

Experimental evidence of 25-fs laser pulse distortion in singlet beam expanders

We report the measurement of spatiotemporal distortions of an ultrashort pulse in singlet beam expanders. With a simple second-order autocorrelator the temporal broadening of the pulse from 23 to 40 fs, due to propagation time difference (PTD), is determined. The delay due to PTD between different parts of the beam is also measured. This effect was theoretically studied for the first time by Bor [J. Mod. Opt. 35, 1907 (1988)]. These experimental results are in good agreement with the calculations of a dedicated three-dimensional ray-tracing program developed to simulate the spatial and temporal transformation of femtosecond pulses in optical systems.     

Noise Like Ultra-Short Bound Solitons Train

Asymmetrical bound solitons train with pulsewidth of 103fs and separation of 585.5fs without any CW components are observed from Figure-8 passive mode locked fiber laser, the separation and pulsewidth keep unchanged even after 1.2Km SMF.     

Laser-excited nonlinear properties of BaF2 and its application in a single-shot spatially insensitive autocorrelator

A detailed investigation of laser-generated nonlinear processes of undoped barium fluoride is presented including two-photon-excited exciton fluorescence, color-center formation and damage-threshold measurements. A single-shot autocorrelator based on two-photon fluorescence of BaF₂ was constructed to measure the phase and amplitude of pulses provided by large apeture excimer lasers. The capabilities of the autocorrelator are demonstrated at 248 nm and 268 nm with pulses in the regime of 100 fs to 10 ps.     

Materials processing by use of a Ti:Sapphire laser with automatically-adjustable pulse duration

We have developed an automatic pulsewidth-adjustable femtosecond Ti:Sapphire laser system that can generate an output of 50 fs-1 ps in duration, and sub-mJ/pulse at a repetition rate of 1 kpps. The automatic pulse compressor enables one to control the pulsewidth in the range of 50 fs-1 ps by use of a personal computer (PC). The compressor can change the distance in-between and the tilt angle of the grating pairs by use of two stepping motors and two piezo-electric transducer(PZT) driven actuators, respectively. Both are controlled by a PC. Therefore, not only control of the pulsewidth, but also of the optical chirp becomes easy. By use of this femtosecond laser system, we fabricated a waveguide in fused quartz. The numerical aperture is chosen to 0.007 to loosely focus the femtosecond laser. The fabricated waveguides are well controllable by the incident laser pulsewidth. We also demonstrated the ablation processing of hydroxyapatite (Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂), which is a key component of human tooth and human bone for orthopedics and dentistry. With pulsewidth tunable output from 50 fs through 2 ps at 1 kpps, the chemical content of calcium and phosphorus is kept unchanged before and after 50-fs-2-ps laser ablation. We also demonstrated the precise ablation processing of human tooth enamel with 2 ps Ti:Sapphire laser. PACS 42.65.Re; 42.62.-b; 42.70.Ce; 42.82.Et; 61.80.Ba     

Generation of ultrafast pulse via combined effects of stimulated Raman scattering and non-degenerate two-photon absorption in silicon nanophotonic chip

A project of ultrafast pulse generation has been presented and demonstrated by utilizing the combined nonlinear effects of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and non-degenerate two-photon absorption (TPA) based on silicon nanophotonic chip, in which a continuous wave (CW) and an ultrafast dark pulse are co-propagating in the silicon chip so that the CW will be modulated inversely by the dark pulse during the propagation. As a result, an ultrafast bright pulse is achieved using the technique. Simulation results show that an ultrafast pulse with a pulsewidth (full-width at half-maximum (FWHM)) of about 50 fs is generated at the end of a 5-mm long silicon chip, when the initial conditions, including an input maximum of 0.5 W and FWHM of ∼176 fs for dark pulse, and CW with power of 5 W, are chosen.      

All-reflective high fringe contrast autocorrelator for measurement of ultrabroadband optical pulses

We describe an all-reflective interferometric autocorrelator designed to measure ultrabroadband optical pulses in the UV through IR spectral regions. By carefully choosing the device geometry we are able to obtain approximations for the nonlinear autocorrelation functions that reduce computation times to values acceptable for use in iterative pulse reconstruction schemes. We describe the optical design, autocorrelation functions, and present proof-of-principle experimental results measuring 20.6 fs pulses with a transform limit of 9.6 fs.     

Generation of an ultrashort optical pulse by four-wave Raman mixing in deuterium cooled at 77 K

When a 100-fs Ti:sapphire laser is focused into molecular deuterium cooled at 77 K, rotational stimulated Raman emission is generated based on four-wave Raman mixing. By phase locking the emission lines, the laser pulsewidth was reduced to 40 fs, when a nearly transform-limited pulse was utilized as a fundamental laser. The pulsewidth was further reduced to 20 fs, when a positively chirped pulse was employed. Computer simulation suggests that the Raman emission is strongly chirped and a train of pulses with lower intensities are formed when a chirp pulse is used as a fundamental laser. PACS 42.65.Dr; 42.55.Ye; 42.50-p     

强超短脉冲抽运下半导体光放大器中的非线性过程

建立了包含载流子浓度脉动(CDP)、自由载流子吸收(FCA)、受激辐射(SE)、双光子吸收(TPA)、光谱烧孔(SHB)和超快非线性折射(UNR)过程的半导体光放大器(SOA)理论模型,通过与已报道的实验结果的比较对模型进行了验证,实现了对已有 SOA模型的修正,并对UNR,FCA和TPA效应对强超短光脉冲传输特性的影响进行了分析.当脉宽为几个皮秒的强光脉冲注入工作于透明电流下的SOA时,其强度特性主要受FCA和TPA效应的影响.由于加入了FCA效应,使模型对200fs脉冲强度传输特性的仿真结果与实验结果 关键词： 非线性过程 强超短光脉冲 SOA理论模型 增益透明     

Spectral phase retrieval of 8 fs optical pulses at 600 nm by using a collinear autocorrelator with 300-μm-thick lithium triborate crystals

We report on noniterative spectral phase retrieval of 1.1 nJ, 8 fs pulses at 600 nm by using 300-μm-thick lithium triborate crystals in a standard collinear autocorrelator with ≈2 min data acquisition time. This method is simple, sensitive, and immune to the spectral distortion and UV absorption of the linear and nonlinear optics.     

Close spaced ultra-short bound solitons from DI-NOLM Figure-8 fiber laser

Ultra-short soliton pulses of 72 fs without any pedestal and CW components are observed from Figure-8 passively mode-locked fiber laser, which is incorporated with a dispersion-imbalanced nonlinear optical loop mirror (DI-NOLM). Bound states of asymmetrical solitons with pulse width of 103 fs and separation of 585.5 fs are also observed. The bound soliton separation and pulsewidth remain unchanged even after passing through 1.2 km single mode fiber (SMF) transmission.     

TEMPORAL CHARACTERIZATION OF LASER PULSES FROM JIGUANG-I LASER FACILITY WITH A COMPACT DUAL FUNCTION AUTOCORRELATOR

An optical pulse autocorrelator for rapid and slow scanning is described in this paper. Using an audio loudspeaker on one arm, an interferometric rapid-scanning signal of the output from a high-repetition laser oscillator is obtained. However, by adjusting the positions of the mirrors and using a step-motor on another arm, the intensity autocorrelation function of the output from a low-repetition laser amplifier can be easily measured. Using all-reflecting optics and an adequate nonlinear crystal, the whole instrument is very compact and has been used to measure sub-20 fs light pulses in both configurations with excellent agreement. In the slow-scanning configuration, a pulse train as long as 500ps has been determined. Using this autocorrelator, the home-made JIGUANG-I CPA laser facility was characterized for its pulse duration evolution.     

Femtosecond ultraviolet autocorrelation measurements based on two-photon conductivity in fused silica

We utilize the two-photon conductivity of a fused-silica substrate to produce a photoconductive switch for use in an intensity autocorrelator for ultraviolet ultrashort pulses. We perform measurements at 267 nm with pulse durations in the range of 110-330 fs and with energies as weak as 10 nJ. Based on the bandgap of fused silica, this device can potentially operate in the wavelength range of 140-280 nm.     

Bound soliton pulses in passively mode-locked fiber laser

A passively mode-locked soliton fiber ring laser was successfully demonstrated, and bound soliton pulses with an FWHM pulsewidth of 326 fs and fixed separation of 938 fs were first observed. The number of bound soliton pairs in the cavity can be controlled under lower pump power. The transmission effects were investigated by injecting bound soliton pulses into a single mode fiber.     

Adjusting pulse-front tilt and pulse duration by use of a single-shot autocorrelator

We present a method of adjusting the pulse duration and eliminating the pulse-front tilt of an ultrashort pulse in real time by use of a specially configured single-shot autocorrelator. Pulse-front tilt, or a temporal delay across the pulse front, is a common ultrashort-pulse phenomenon when dispersive elements are being used. We show the design of an autocorrelator that can be used to eliminate the pulse-front tilt and simultaneously adjust the pulse duration in real time by adjustment of the pulse compressor of a chirped-pulse amplified laser system.     

SOA-based actively mode-locked fiber ring laser by forward injecting an external pulse train

An actively mode-locked fiber ring laser based on cross-gain modulation (XGM) in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) is demonstrated to operate stably with a simple configuration. By forward injecting an easily-generated external pulse train, the mode-locked fiber laser can generate an optical-pulse sequence with pulsewidth about 6 ps and average output power about 7.9 mW. The output pulses show an ultra-low RMS jitter about 70.7 fs measured by a RF spectrum analyzer. The use of the proposed forward-injection configuration can realize the repetition-rate tunability from 1 to 15 GHz for the generated optical-pulse sequences. By employing a wavelength-tunable optical band-pass filter in the laser cavity, the operation wavelength of the designed SOA-based actively mode-locked fiber laser can be tuned continuously in a wide span between 1528 and 1565 nm. The parameters of external-injection optical pulses are studied experimentally to optimize the mode-locked fiber laser.     

简易自相关仪对飞秒激光脉冲宽度的测量

用自制的简易自相关仪测量了飞秒的光脉冲宽度,测量结果与理论结果基本一致,并在此基础上分析了一些实验中的光学器件对飞秒激光脉冲宽度的影响.