Highly Stable, Diode-Pumped Nd：YLF Regenerative Amplifier

We present the design and experimental results for a diode pumped Nd：YLF regenerative amplifier applied to amplify a nanosecond laser pulse. Numerical simulation shows that the maximum output energy and the best stability can be obtained when the regenerative amplifier operates in a saturated mode for all pulse duration and temporal profiles. Using extra post-pulse is a good method to decrease the square-pulse distortion caused by gain saturation effect. The amplifier shows output energy of 4.2mJ with a total energy gain of more than 10^7 and output energy stability of better than 1% rms. When extra post-pulse is added, square-pulse distortion is decreased from 1.33 to 1.17 for the amplifier that is seeded with an optical pulse of 3ns.     

An Ultra-Broadband Spatially Dispersed Regenerative Amplifier Free from Spatial Chirp

An ultra-broadband Ti：sapphire regenerative amplifier based on spatially dispersed amplification is demonstrated experimentally. Departing from previous reports, a new design of the cavity gets the amplified pulse free from spatial chirp. Utilizing this new regenerative amplifier, chirped pulses with bandwidth （FWHM） of about 80 nm are obtained, and the bandwidth is limited only by that of the incident seed pulses.     

Compact Single-Stage Femtosecond Multipass Ti：Sapphire Amplifier at 1 kHz with High Beam Quality

A compact femtosecond Ti：sapphire amplifier system is reported using single-stage multipass configuration with high beam quality. A high dispersion glass stretcher and a pair of double prisms for compression are introduced based on broadband femtosecond seed pulses. The non-grating-based pulse stretcher and compressor are advantageous to increase high beam quality and to reduce the high-order dispersion. A Gaussian filter is used to reduce the gain narrowing effect in amplification. The compact femtosecond Ti：sapphire nine-pass amplifier delivers pulses with a duration of 26 fs and an energy of 800μJ at 7mJ pumping pulses energy at I kHz. The 1-kHz femtosecond amplifier with high beam quality and high stability is very suitable for ultrafast physics research applications, such as attosecond science, ultra-precision micromachining, and THz wave generation.     

Highly efficient synchronous amplification of a picosecond dye laser at a kHz repetition rate

A short pulse, high energy, high repetition rate dye amplifier with superior conversion efficiency is reported. The dye amplifier is composed of three single-pass dye cells, longitudinally pumped by a frequency doubled 1 kHz Nd: YLF regenerative amplifier. The dye amplifier yields 3.5 ps, 150 J pulses at 595 nm, corresponding to a 12% conversion efficiency. The ASE is 1% or less, and the transverse mode quality is near-Gaussian.In absentia from the Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA     

Generation of a Sub-10fs Laser Pulse by a Ring Oscillator with a High Repetition Rate

A compact femtosecond Ti：sapphire ring oscillator composed of chirped mirrors is designed. By accurately optimizing the intra-cavity dispersion and the mode locking range of the ring configuration, we generate laser pulses as short as 7.7fs with a repetition rate as high as 745 MHz. The spectrum spans from 660nm to 94Ohm and the average output power is 480mW under the cw pump laser of 7.5 W.     

Highly Efficient Diode-Side-Pumped Six-Rod Nd:YAG Laser

We have demonstrated a highly efficient, high average output power laser based on the optimized resonator made up of multiple Nd:YAG rods. The laser consists of three groups, each of which contains two rods with one quartz 90° rotator between them. By a desirable design of the resonator, the average output power of 1906W at 1064nm is reached with repetition rate of 1.1kHz. The optical to optical conversion efficiency is up to 50.8% with the pulse width 224μs and it is the highest conversion efficiency of six rods resonator.     

Tunable Ti: Sapphire regenerative amplifier for femtosecond Chirped-Pulse Amplification

We describe a tunable Ti:Sapphire regenerative amplifier which is used to amplify 120 fs pulses from a self-mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser to energies in the range of 7–12 mJ from 760 nm to 855 nm. We have used three sets of cavity mirrors in the regenerative amplifier to vary the output wavelength of the laser.On leave from Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, 2-6, Yamada-oka, Osaka 565, Japan (Fax: +81-6/877-4799)     

Tunable and high-energy Q-switched operation of an alexandrite slave ring laser

Narrow bandwith tunable Q-switched operation of an alexandrite oscillator was used for injection-locking of a high-energy alexandrite slave ring laser. Pulses with up to 600 mJ in energy over a 600 cm^–1 tuning range were obtained.     

Energetic electronic ensembles: new rules for the interaction of radiation with matter

2 α, where Z is the number of cooperatively acting electrons, which leads to anomalously strong coupling between radiation and matter. Received: 13 October 1997     

Generation of 17-TW 23-fs Pulses with a Two-Stage Ti：Sapphire Amplifier at Repetition Rate 10 Hz

We have developed a two-stage Ti：sapphire amplifier system which can produce 17- TW/23-fs pulses at a repetition rate 10Hz. A birefringent plate is used in the regenerative amplifier to alleviate gain narrowing, while an all- reflective cylindrical-mirror-based pulse stretcher and an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter （AOPDF） are used to compensate for the higher order dispersion of the system.     

Laser frequency measurements and spectroscopic assignments of optically pumped 13CH3OH

A three-laser heterodyne system was used to measure the frequencies of twelve optically pumped laser emissions from ¹³CH₃OH in the far-infrared (FIR) region. These emissions, ranging from 54 to 142 μm, are reported with fractional uncertainties up to ±2×10^-7 along with their polarization relative to the CO₂ pump. Using the 9P32 and 10R14 CO₂ lines, complete spectroscopic assignments for two laser systems were confirmed. Received: 31 May 2001 / Published online: 19 September 2001     

Design of Highly Directive Ni-Like Ag X-Ray Laser at 13.9nm

We theoretically investigate a 13.9nm Ni-like Ag x-ray laser using a one-dimensional hydrodynamic code coupled with an atomic physics data package. The population inversion is transiently pumped by a grazing incident 0.5ps main pulse irradiating into an optimized plasma, which is generated by a normal incidence 300ps pulse and a subsequent grazing incidence 300ps pulse. The effect of the grazing-incidence angle on the source position of the output x-ray laser is investigated. Near zero deflecting angle is found for the peak output intensity of the Ni-like Ag x-ray lasers, with a small FWHM divergence of 5mrad. It is predicted that saturation can be achieved with a total pump energy of 165mJ.     

Cr4+:YAG as passive Q-switch for a Nd:YALO oscillator with an average repetition rate of 2.7 kHz,TEM00 mode and 13 W output

A conventional pulsed Nd:YALO oscillator was passively Q-switched with a Cr⁴⁺:YAG crystal. During each of the flashes, with a repetition rate of 100 Hz, a burst of 27 Q-switch pulses with a half width (FWHM) of 140 ns was generated. The minimal pulse-to-pulse time interval within the burst was about 5 µs. The average repetition rate of these Q-switch pulses was 27 × 100 Hz. Nd: YALO as active material does not show any thermally induced birefringence and therefore a good TEM₀₀ mode was realized despite the high thermal load of the crystal. The 4 × 79 mm laser rod produced 13 W average output power at 1080 nm with an efficiency of 0.5%. In contrast to earlier used LiF:F ₂ ^– absorbers as passive Q-switch the Cr⁴⁺:YAG-crystals did not bleach and therefore the system operated very stable and reliable.     

Efficient J=0-1 soft-X-ray lasing in neon-like ions at pump powers below 250 GW

2 . By using a 0.7% prepulse that precedes the main pulse by 5 ns and applying a total pump energy of 100 J or less, the J=0-1 lasing is at least one order of magnitude higher than the non-lasing background. For the 32.6-nm line of Ti, the 25.5-nm line of Fe, and the 23.1-nm line of Ni, gain coefficients of (±) 4.20.4cm^-1, (±) 3.90.3cm^-1, and (±) 3.60.6cm^-1, respectively, were measured for 2.4-cm-long curved targets, resulting in gain–length products of ∼10. Angle-resolved spectra indicate a beam divergence of 3 mrad (FWHM), typically. The space-resolved spectra show that the J=0-1 lasing lines are emitted from an approximately 60-μm-wide (FWHM) plasma region, whereas the nearby continuum emission is produced in a considerably broader plasma region of ∼250 μm. Lasing at 25.5 nm in neon-like iron was observed at a pump power as low as 180 GW (∼9 TW/cm²), with, however, considerable shot-to-shot scatter in the absolute laser output. Received: 5 September 1997/Revised version: 10 November 1997     

Efficient generation of 200 mJ nanosecond pulses at 100 Hz repetition rate from a cryogenic cooled Yb:YAG MOPA system

A diode-pumped Master Oscillator Power Amplifier (MOPA) laser system based on cryogenic cooled Yb:YAG has been designed, developed and its output performance characterised. The laser system consists of a fibre oscillator, an active mirror regenerative amplifier and a four pass main amplifier. 2.4 mJ, 10 ns, 100 Hz seed pulses from the fibre oscillator/regenerative amplifier arrangement were amplified up to pulse energies of over 200 mJ by using the four pass main amplifier arrangement. As a further study we have obtained an increased slope efficiency of 40% and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 30% using a pinhole vacuum spatial filter/image relay for laser mode control. With 1.8 mJ input seed pulses, output pulse energies of around 150 mJ were achieved.     

Analysis of a Novel Ka-band Folded Waveguide Amplifier for Traveling-Wave Tubes

A novel Ka-band folded waveguide （FW） amplifier for traveling wave tubes （TWT） is investigated. The dispersion curve and interaction impedance are obtained and compared to the normal FW circuit by numerical simulation. The interaction impedance is higher than a normal circuit through the whole band. We also study the beamwave interaction in this novel circuit, and the nonlinear large-signal performance is analyzed by a 3-D particlein-cell code MAGIC3D. A much higher continuous-wave （CW） output power with a considerably shorter circuit compared to a normal circuit is predicted by our simulation. Moreover, the novel FW even has a broader 3-dB bandwidth. It therefore will be useful in designing a miniature but high-power and broadband millimeter-wave TWT.     

Design and characterization of a near-diffraction-limited femtosecond 100-TW 10-Hz high-intensity laser system

We present the design and characterization of a femtosecond high-intensity laser system emitting a near-diffraction-limited beam. This system was dimensioned in order to reach intensities in excess of 10²⁰ W/cm² at a high repetition rate for ultrahigh-field physics experiments. We describe the improvements that were added to a conventional chirp pulse amplification configuration in order to decrease the deleterious effects of gain narrowing, gain shifting, thermal focusing in the amplifier stages, and spatial degradation due to multipass amplification processes. Received: 4 January 2002 / Published online: 14 May 2002     

Nd:YAG Lasers Operating at 1064nm and 946nm by Direct Pumping and Thermally Boosted Pumping

We demonstrate a 1064nm Nd：YAG laser by directly pumping into the upper lasing level with a tunable Ti：sapphire laser. The valid wavelength is demonstrated at 868.3nm, 875.2nm, 883.8nm, and 885.5nm, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first time that 1064nm Nd：YAG laser pumped by 875.2nm laser. In addition, laser wavelength at 946 nm is also generated by direct pumping together with traditional pumping.     

Prepulse dependence ofJ=0−1 lasing at 32.6 nm in neon-like titanium

The dependence of the intensity of the 3p—3s,J = 0–1 lasing line at 32.6 nm in neon-like titanium on the prepulse level has been investigated experimentally. Titanium slabs were irradiated with 1.315 µm/450 ps pulses from the Asterix IV iodine laser using a defined prepulse of 5.2 ns before the main pulse. It is found that for pump energies close to the minimum energy for which lasing is observed, a prepulse level of order 0.5% gives the highest XUV laser intensity, whereas a higher prepulse level, of order 10% and more, is required for optimum XUV lasing far above the threshold. For a 2.7 cm long titanium target lasing was observed down to a pump irradiance of 2.5 TW/cm² (50 J/450 ps) for the 0.5% prepulse.     

Enhancement of Gain in L-Band Bismuth-Based Erbium-Doped Fibre Amplifier Using an Un-pumped EDF and Midway Isolator

A hybrid L-band erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) with enhanced gain characteristic is demonstrated without a significant noise figure penalty. It uses a backward C-band amplified stimulated emission from both the ends of a bismuth-based EDFA system to pump an unpumped erbium-doped fibre (EDF) for gain enhancing. The maximum gain enhancement of 4.0dB is obtained at wavelength 1604nm with EDF length of 20m. The gain spectrum is reasonably fiat in this amplifier compared with the amplifier without an EDF. The gain varies from 27.4 dB to 30.2 dB at wavelength region 1564-1608 nm with incorporation of 20 m EDF. Noise figure also varies from 6.0 to 7.TdB at this wavelength region.