Frequency shifting of sub-100 fs laser pulses by stimulated Raman scattering in a capillary filled with pressurized gas

The technique of Raman conversion of sub-100 fs laser pulses based on excitation of active medium by two orthogonally polarized pulses has been developed for Raman lasers with a glass capillary. 52 fs Stokes pulse at the wavelength of 1200 nm has been generated by stimulated Raman scattering of 48 fs Ti:sapphire laser pulse at the wavelength of 800 nm in hydrogen. 13% energy conversion efficiency has been achieved at pulse repetition rate up to 2 kHz.     

Sub-20 fs visible pulses with 750 nJ energy from a 100 kHz noncollinear optical parametric amplifier

We demonstrate the operation of a 100 kHz noncollinear optical parametric amplifier that is pumped by just a few microjoules of 800 nm pulses with 50 fs duration. The device delivers sub-20 fs pulses tunable from 460 nm to beyond 1 microm and pulse energies up to 750 nJ when it is pumped with 7 microJ of energy. The design of the single-stage amplifier has been carefully optimized, and the design considerations are discussed.     

Tunable, high-repetition-rate, femtosecond pulse generation in the ultraviolet

We report efficient generation of tunable femtosecond pulses in the ultraviolet (UV) by intracavity doubling of a visible femtosecond optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The OPO, based on a 400 microm BiB3O6 crystal and pumped at 415 nm in the blue, can provide visible femtosecond signal pulses across 500-710 nm. Using a 500 microm crystal of beta-BaB2O4 internal to the OPO cavity, efficient frequency doubling of the signal pulses into the UV is achieved, providing tunable femtosecond pulses across 250-355 nm with up to 225 mW of average power at 76 MHz. Cross-correlation measurements result in UV pulses with durations down to 132 fs for 180 fs blue pump pulses.     

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.     

Enhancement of filamentation postcompression by astigmatic focusing

The energy scaling up of pulse postcompression is still an open issue. In this work we analyze the use of astigmatic focusing to improve the output pulses in a filamentation based postcompression setup. Unlike spherical conditions, astigmatic focusing enhances the output energy and the spectral broadening of the filament. This is due to the increase of critical power, allowing a considerable improvement of the postcompression energy and stability in a simple way. We demonstrated compression from FWHM 100 fs, 10 nm, 3 mJ input pulses to 13 fs, 142 nm, near 1 mJ pulses.     

Generation of tunable octave-spanning mid-infrared pulses by filamentation in gas media

The continued development of femtosecond mid-infrared (IR) sources with ultrabroad spectral width is critical for probing and controlling complex molecular structural dynamics on an ultrafast timescale. We report on a sub-20 fs, coherent mid-IR source with an octave-spanning spectral bandwidth (>2000 cm(-1)) tunable from 2-8 micrometers (37.5-150 THz), with energy >0.4 μJ/pulse at 1 kHz. The mid-IR pulses are generated by four-wave mixing during the filamentation of intense 800 nm and 400 nm pulses in various gas media. Spectral tunability is achieved by the choice of gas, pressure and input 800 nm pulse energy.     

全光纤高功率被动锁模掺铥光纤激光器

利用非线性光环形镜(NOLM)的可饱和吸收特性实现了可自启动的2μm全光纤高能量被动锁模掺铥光纤激光器。当泵浦功率大于3W时,激光器工作在连续或不稳定脉冲运转状态;泵浦功率达到4.69W后,输出为自启动锁模脉冲,重复频率4.26MHz,中心波长2 061.5nm,光谱半极大宽度18.1nm,平均输出功率8.8mW;继续增加泵浦功率到最大值7.56W,可以得到中心波长2 062.2nm、光谱半极大宽度17.1nm、斜率效率为6.2%、脉冲宽度和能量分别为424fs和65.6nJ的稳定锁模脉冲。这是目前已报道的在未经放大情况下脉冲能量最高的2μm锁模脉冲光纤激光器。     

Compression of high-energy laser pulses below 5 fs

High-energy 20-fs pulses generated by a Ti:sapphire laser system were spectrally broadened to more than 250 nm by self-phase modulation in a hollow fiber filled with noble gases and subsequently compressed in a broadband high-throughput dispersive system. Pulses as short as 4.5 fs with energy up to 20-microJ were obtained with krypton, while pulses as short as 5 fs with energy up to 70 microJ were obtained with argon. These pulses are, to our knowledge, the shortest generated to date at multigigawatt peak powers.     

High power all-fibered femtosecond master oscillator power amplifier at 1.56 μm

Direct amplification of output from chirped pulse oscillator (CPO) to 3.3?W of average power (pulse energy of 118?nJ in 20?ps pulse duration before compression) was achieved in a properly designed cladding pumped large mode area Er-doped fiber. Various configurations of CPO cavity with different FWHM of output spectrum and pulse duration were investigated. Fourier limit compression with 480?fs pulse duration and 32?kW peak power has been obtained for pulses with 14.8?nm FWHM spectrum. Subsequent nonlinear compression in a standard SMF-28 fiber yielded pulses as short as 145?fs.     

Compression of long-cavity Ti:sapphire oscillator pulses with large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers

Motivated by the pulse compression challenge of novel long-cavity, high-pulse-energy Ti:sapphire laser oscillators, we report on ~280 nm supercontinuum generation and 4.5-times compression of close to transform limited, high-energy oscillator pulses using different large-mode-area photonic crystal fibers and standard chirped mirrors. As input, we used pulses of a long-cavity Ti:sapphire oscillator with 190 nJ pulse energy, 70 fs pulse length and 3.6 MHz repetition rate. Compressed pulses at the fiber/compressor output had a duration of 15–18 fs with up to 100 nJ pulse energy representing as much as 53 % throughput for the fiber/chirped mirror system. Using transform-limited input pulses, we could use short fiber pieces and thus a simple, low-dispersion chirped mirror compressor comprised of one pair of mirrors.     

Group-velocity control by quadratic nonlinear interactions

We give direct experimental evidence that the group velocity of ultrashort pulses can be controlled through chi(2)-cascaded interactions, under the condition of large group-velocity mismatch. The group velocity can be finely tuned by acting on pulse intensity and phase mismatch. Group-delay shifts up to 50 fs are achieved by propagating 40 fs pulses around 1400 nm in a 25 mm long periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate crystal.     

Ultra-short pulse compression at 1065 nm in nonlinear photonic crystal fiber

A pulse compressor has been designed using a 13 mm highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber to compress pulses centered at 1065 nm from 28 fs to 1.8 fs with a compression factor of 16.2. This compression is achieved by using a high level of energy and generating different orders of solitons without resorting to large values of fiber's dispersion.     

Vacuum ultraviolet pulses of 11 fs from fifth-harmonic generation of a Ti:sapphire laser

We demonstrate that in a short Ar cell, generation of the fifth harmonic from 12 fs pulses at 810 nm directly results in ultrashort vacuum UV pulses at 162 nm. They have a spectral width of approximately 5 nm and a duration of 11+/-1 fs (1.4 times the transform limit), as measured by cross correlation with the fundamental pulses. Their energy (estimated to 4 nJ) turned out to be sufficient for use as a pump in time-resolved experiments.     

钕玻璃啁啾脉冲放大器产生百焦耳亚皮秒脉冲

以钕玻璃为增益介质研制了高能啁啾脉冲激光放大器系统,实验演示输出啁啾脉冲能量在百焦耳量级时,光谱宽度保持在4—6 nm.最大能量168 J,相应谱宽5.5 nm,中心波长1054 nm.压缩脉冲宽度最短710 fs. 关键词： 啁啾脉冲放大 钕玻璃 高能拍瓦     

Tunable visible and near-infrared pulse generator in a 5 fs regime

Transform-limited (TL) visible pulses with as short a duration as 4.7 fs with a 5 7J pulse energy have been generated for the first time from a novel noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (NOPA). Both signal-idler group-velocity matching and pulse-front matching are essential to generate coherent down-converted pulses compressible to the TL pulse with more than a 150-THz bandwidth. Tunable operation with bandwidth-limited sub-10-fs pulses in the visible (550-700 nm) and near-infrared (900-1300 nm) ranges, achieved by increasing the seed chirp, is also a remarkable property. The NOPA is believed to be on useful light source for ultrafast spectroscopy on an extremely short time-scale.     

Optimizing input and output chirps up to the third-order for sub-nanojoule,ultra-short pulse compression in small core area PCF

Compression of sub-nanojoule laser pulses using a commercially available photonic crystal fiber (PCF) with zero dispersion wavelength of 860 nm is discussed. A twofold pulse compression starting from 24 fs transform limited seed pulses around 800 nm is experimentally demonstrated as a verification of our simulations. Theory shows that by the optimization of input and output chirp parameters up to the third order, high quality, 5.7 fs pulses can be generated from a cost efficient experimental setup. Further calculations show that 1 ps pulses with central wavelength of 800 nm can be compressed down to 50 fs in the normal dispersion regime of the fiber with proper dispersion compensation. Calculations also show that dispersion flattened fibers can improve both the quality and the duration of compressed pulses. PACS 42.65.Re     

Generation of 10 to 50 fs pulses tunable through all of the visible and the NIR

Noncollinearly phase-matched optical parametric amplifiers (NOPAs) pumped by the blue light of a frequency-doubled Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier are a convenient source of continuously tunable ultrashort pulses in the visible and near infrared for spectroscopic experiments. We present the underlying principles, report recent improvements and describe the experiences gained from the routine use of a number of NOPAs in our laboratories. We find that the setup can easily be optimized for the given experimental requirements. Typical output-pulse energies in the visible are 5 to 10 μJ and a few μJ in the NIR from 200 μJ regenerative-amplifier pulses at 800 nm. From 460 to 700 nm, pulse lengths between 10 and 20 fs are routinely achieved, while the length increases monotonically from about 20 fs at 900 nm to just below 50 fs at 1600 nm. In all cases this corresponds to a dramatic shortening compared to the length of the pump pulses of around 100 fs. First results show that the 700 to 900 nm region can be accessed with sub-50-fs pulse lengths by use of an intermediate white-light generator in a two-stage setup. Received: 29 November 1999 / Published online: 5 July 2000     

Few-cycle pulse compression through cascade of bulk media and hollow-core fiber

We experimentally demonstrated a new few-cycle pulse compression technique through the cascade of bulk media and hollow-core fiber (HCF) and this compression system has been intensively studied. The pulses with the duration of ∼5 fs and the energy of 0.33 mJ near 800 nm have been generated by compressing the ∼40 fs input pulse from a commercial laser system. In principle, this technique allows compression of pulses with duration of picoseconds to a few cycles (sub-7 fs) and the output can be above 1 mJ.     

Tunable sub-100 femtosecond dye-laser pulses generated with a nanosecond pulsed pumping

Subpicosecond pulses at a fixed wavelength produced with a low-Q cavity dye laser pumped by a single, nanosecond laser (Q-switched Nd:YAG) are converted into tunable high-power sub-100 femtosecond pulses by generation, spectral selection, amplification and compression of a supercontinuum. The tunable, chirped, high-energy pulses obtained are compressed with a prism pair. Energies up to 50 J in sub-100 fs pulses were obtained in the 540 to 650 nm range using 40 mJ of the Nd: YAG-laser pumping pulses at 532 nm. The whole sub-100 fs system including the low-Q dye laser uses only one Nd:YAG laser as a pump source.     

Femtosecond optical parametric converter in the 168–182-nm range

Femtosecond pulses continuously tunable in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectral range between 168 and 182 nm were generated using four-wave frequency mixing in an argon-filled capillary. The pulse energy reached 200 nJ at a pump-to-VUV conversion efficiency of 1%. The bandwidth at 181 nm was up to 27 THz corresponding to a transform limited duration of 17 fs. The upper limit in the shortest measured pulse duration was 75 fs.