Yb:YAG Innoslab amplifier: efficient high repetition rate subpicosecond pumping system for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

We report on a Yb:YAG Innoslab laser amplifier system for generation of subpicsecond high energy pump pulses for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) at high repetition rates. Pulse energies of up to 20 mJ (at 12.5 kHz) and repetition rates of up to 100 kHz were attained with pulse durations of 830 fs and average power in excess of 200 W. We further investigate the possibility to use subpicosecond pulses to derive a stable continuum in a YAG crystal for OPCPA seeding.     

Femtosecond pulse parametric amplification at narrowband high power gas laser pumping

In ultrashort pulse amplification a narrowband gas pump pulse laser has been used for the first time. An all-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) was driven by a single-shot iodine photodissociation laser. For the first time a broadband amplification was achieved in potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystal at 800 nm seeding. Ti:sapphire laser pulses stretched from 12.5 fs to 250 ps were amplified and compressed to 27 fs at a 0.5 TW output power. The results suggest using narrowband high power gas lasers as OPCPA drivers to generate petawatt beams.     

Multiterawatt laser system based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

A compact multiterawatt laser system based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification is demonstrated. Chirped pulses are amplified from 20 pJ to 900 mJ by two lithium triborate optical parametric preamplifiers and a final KDP optical parametric power amplifier with a pump energy of 5 J at 532 nm from Nd:YAG-Nd:glass hybrid amplifiers. After compression, we obtained a final output of 570-mJ-155-fs pulses with a peak power of 3.67 TW, which is the highest output power from an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification laser, to the best of our knowledge.     

Generation of 10-GHz ultra-short pulses with low time jitter in an actively mode-locked fiber laser

We have experimentally achieved the 8.3-ps ultra-short pulse at 10 GHz repetition rate with the time jitter as low as 590 fs in an actively mode-locked fiber ring laser. The ring-cavity laser is mode-locked by a semiconductor optical amplifier based on cross-gain modulation. The external CW source is modulated with radio frequency signal by an amplitude modulator as the external optical pulses and, then, injected into the fiber ring cavity to achieve active mode locking. Further investigating the laser output characteristics, it indicates that the linewidth of employed CW source affects properties of the generated ultra-short pulse, such as phase noise and time jitter. Ultra-short pulse at high repetition rate with low time jitter can be generated by the optimization of CW laser source.     

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.     

High-peak-power femtosecond pulse compression with polarization-maintaining ytterbium-doped fiber amplification

We report the generation of 140 fs pulses with a peak power of up to 270 kW using a fiber pulse source based on a polarization-maintaining ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier and a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror mode-locked fiber laser seed. The seed laser pulses were amplified and chirped in the fiber amplifier and subsequently compressed in an external transmission grating pair. The use of a polarization-maintaining amplifier addresses nonlinear polarization-induced limitations to the obtainable compressed pulse duration and quality that can arise if isotropic fiber amplification is used. Numerical simulations of the system support the experimental measurements and also confirm the role of fiber dispersion in obtaining high-quality compressed pulses.     

Gain-switched semiconductor laser amplifier as an ultrafast dynamical optical gate

A gain-switched semiconductor laser is shown to act as an optical gate with picosecond resolution and amplification for light pulses from another laser source. The amplification mechanism and the gate width change qualitatively when the gate laser undergoes a transition from a pumping rate slightly below the dynamic laser threshold to slightly above the dynamic threshold. If the gate laser is pumped below but close to its dynamical threshold, unsaturated amplification of an external signal pulse occurs over a delay time range between the external optical pulse and the electrical driving pulse of about 100–200 ps which is equivalent to the optical gate width. The signal amplification is observed to increase by two orders of magnitude and the gate width decreases by one order of magnitude if the gate laser is pumped slightly above the dynamical threshold. Amplification then occurs for input signals injected much earlier. A detailed theory of coherent, time-dependent amplification including the nonlinear dynamics of the semiconductor laser is shown to account for the observations. Both amplification regimes, below and above threshold, are reproduced in the numerical simulations. The extremely short and highly sensitive gate range above threshold is identified as being due to the gain maximum related with the first relaxation oscillation of the laser.     

Highly Efficient Self-Starting Femtosecond Cr:Forsterite Laser

We report a highly efficient and high power self-starting femtosecond Cr：forsterite laser pumped by a 1064-nm Yb doped fibre laser. Five chirped mirrors are used to compensate for the intra-cavity group-delay dispersion, and the mode-locking is initiated by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror （SESAM）. Under pump power of 7.9 W, stable femtosecond laser pulses with average power of 760mW are obtained, yielding a pump power slope efficiency of 12.3%. The measured pulse duration and spectral bandwidth （FWHM） are 46 fs and 45 nm; the repetition rate is 82 MHz.     

Diode-pumped femtosecond Yb:CaNb2O6 laser

We report to our knowledge a diode-pumped passively mode-locked Yb:CaNb(2)O(6) (Yb:CN) laser for the first time. Both CW and passive mode-locking operation of the laser are experimentally investigated. A maximum CW output power of 1.4 W with a slope efficiency of 20% is obtained on a 7 mm long 1.5 at.% Yb:CN crystal, while stable passive mode-locking with a commercial semiconductor saturable absorption mirror (SESAM) was achieved on a 3 mm long 3 at.% Yb:CN crystal. The mode-locked pulses have pulse width of 251 fs and an average output power of 44 mW at 1038 nm.     

0.85-PW, 33-fs Ti:sapphire laser

We have successfully produced a laser pulse with a peak power of 0.85 PW for a pulse duration of 33 fs in a four-stage Ti:sapphire amplifier chain based on chirped-pulse amplification. To our knowledge this result represents the highest peak power pulses yet produced in any Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification system.     

Generation of high-power frequency combs from injection-locked femtosecond amplification cavities

We demonstrate a scalable approach for the generation of high average power femtosecond (fs) pulse trains from Ti:sapphire by optically injection locking a resonant amplification cavity. We generate up to 7 W average power with over 30% optical extraction efficiency in a 68 fs pulse train operating at 95 MHz. This master oscillator power amplifier approach allows independent optimization of the fs laser while enabling efficient amplification to high average powers. The technique also enables coherent synchronization among multiple fs laser sources.     

低重复率的Ti:Al2O3飞秒激光放大器研究

本文报道了重复频率为10Hz的Ti:Al₂O₃飞秒激光放大器的研究.基于脉冲啁啾放大技术和采用再生/多通放大装置,得到了能量为8mJ的放大光脉冲,在该放大系统中,激光脉冲获M净增益约8×10⁷.     

高重复频率飞秒掺镱光纤放大器

 数值分析了掺镱单模光纤放大器的最佳增益光纤长度,并在实验上对掺镱单模光纤放大器和光栅对压缩器进行了研究。以最大平均输出功率为7 mW、重复频率为25.4 MHz、脉宽为56 ps的被动锁模环形腔掺镱光纤激光器作为种子脉冲,用250 mW的976 nm单模半导体激光器分别泵浦3种不同长度的掺镱单模光纤,对种子光进行放大,并用光栅对压缩器对放大后的脉冲在不同光栅距离上进行了压缩实验研究。当掺镱单模光纤长度为1.2 m时得到了较好的放大效果,种子脉冲被放大到140 mW,相应的增益为13 dB,放大后的单脉冲能量为5.5 nJ。在光栅距离为14.1 cm时获得了最短440 fs的脉冲,压缩后的功率为43 mW,相应的峰值功率为3.8 kW。     

Femtosecond diode laser MOPA system at 920 nm based on asymmetric colliding pulse mode-locking

We report on the generation of 267 fs long pulses with a peak power of 661 W emitted by an InGaAs diode laser master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) system with an external grating compressor. The oscillator emits strongly chirped picosecond pulses with several nanometer of bandwidth, which can be amplified without significant phase modulation and are compressed to femtosecond pulses after leaving the amplifier. We used a diode laser module for asymmetric colliding pulse mode-locking and optimized the collision point and the relative intensity of the counter-propagation pulses.     

C. 超短激光光源

本文对超短激光脉冲的产生、压缩技术的最新发展做了详细评述。     

Nd:YVO₄ amplifier for ultrafast low-power lasers

An Nd:YVO₄ amplifier consisting of two modules end pumped at 808?nm at 30?W total absorbed power has been designed for efficient, diffraction-limited amplification of ultrafast pulses from low-power seeders. We investigated amplification with a 50?mW, 7?ps Nd:YVO₄ oscillator, a 2?mW, 15?ps Yb fiber laser, and a 30?mW, 300?fs Nd:glass laser. Output power as high as 9.5?W with 8?ps pulses was achieved with the 250?MHz vanadate seeder, whereas the 20?MHz fiber laser was amplified to 6?W. The femtosecond seeder allowed extracting Fourier-limited 4?ps pulses at 7?W output power. To our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses from any Nd:YVO₄ laser device with at least 7?W output power. This suggests a novel approach to exploit the gain bandwidth of vanadate amplifiers with high output power levels. Such amplifier technology promises to offer an interesting alternative to high-power thin disk oscillators at few picoseconds duration, as well as to regenerative amplifiers with low-repetition-rate fiber seeders.     

Energy limits imposed by two-photon absorption for pulse amplification in high-power semiconductor optical amplifiers

We study the combined effects of dynamic gain saturation and two-photon absorption on the amplification of short pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers and show that two-photon absorption can saturate the amplifier gain and limit the output pulse energies even for amplifiers with large gain saturation energies. We discuss the upper limits for the pulse energies obtainable from semiconductor optical amplifiers in the presence of two-photon absorption and show that for single transverse mode waveguide amplifiers these upper limits can range from values as small as a few picojoules to several hundred picojoules for pulse widths in the 0.5 ps to 20 ps range, respectively.     

Experimental and theoretical studies of a high repetition rate fiber laser, mode-locked by external optical modulation

An experimental and theoretical study of a high repetition rate laser source operating on a novel mode-locking technique is presented. This technique relies on the fast saturation and recovery of a semiconductor optical amplifier induced by an external optical pulse and has been used to obtain 4.3 ps pulses at 20 GHz. A complete mathematical model of the fiber ring laser is presented describing the mode-locking process in the laser oscillator and providing solutions for the steady-state mode-locked pulse profile. The critical parameters of the system are defined and analyzed and their impact on the formation of the mode-locked pulses is examined. The comparison between the theoretical results and the experimental data reveals very good agreement and has allowed the optimization of the performance of the system in terms of its critical parameters.     

High-power output from a compact OPCPA laser system

With a tabletop hybrid Nd:YAG-Nd:glass laser as pump source, a compact optical parametric chirpedpulse amplification(OPCPA)laser system with a peak output power of 16.7 TW and a pulse duration of120 fs has been demonstrated.Chirped pulses are amplified from 50 pJ to more than 3.1 J with an energygain of above 6×10~(10)by three LBO optical parametric amplifiers with a pump energy of 12.4 J at 532nm.After compression, a final output of 2.0-J/120-fs pulse is obtained. To the best of our knowledge,itis the highest peak output power from an OPCPA laser so far.In addition, a practical design of 1-PWlaser system based on the technique of OPCPA is also proposed.     

1.5 mJ, 6.4 fs parametric chirped-pulse amplification system at 1 kHz

We demonstrate an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system with the pulse energy of 1.5 mJ at a 1 kHz repetition rate. The newly developed 100 ps Ti:sapphire pump laser system, which was optically synchronized with OPCPA seed pulses, delivered 10 mJ, 400 nm pump pulses. After three-stage parametric amplification, recompression of the amplifier output from 45 ps to 6.4 fs was performed. The pulse width of 6.4 fs is, to our knowledge, the shortest ever obtained by OPCPA, and the average power of 1.5 W (1.5 mJ, 1 kHz) is believed to be the highest among few-cycle OPCPA systems.