Generation of 7-fs laser pulse directly from a compact Ti:sapphire laser with chirped mirrors

A compact femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser resonator consisting of three chirped mirrors and one output coupler was designed. By accurately balancing the intra- cavity dispersions between Ti:sapphire crystal, air and chirped mirrors, we directly generated the laser pulse shorter than 7 fs at the average power of 340 mW with 3.1 W pump. The repetition rate of the laser oscillator is 173 MHz at the centre wavelength of 791 nm, and the ultrabroaden spectrum covers from 600 nm to 1000 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the simplest laser resonator capable of generating sub-10 fs laser pulse.     

Achieving strong doubling power by optical phase-locked Ti:sapphire laser and MOPA system

We show two external cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generations of 922 nm with periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystal,whose doubling cavities are locked separately with Hansch-Couillaud and intra-modulation methods.The outputs of second-harmonic generation reach 310 mW,54.8%of the conversion efficiency from the Ti:sapphire laser with the crystal length of 10 mm,and 208 mW,59% of the conversion efficiency from the MOPA system with the crystal length of 30 mm.It consists of heterodyning the Ti:sapphire laser and the MOPA system,and compares the phase of the beat frequency signal with the phase of a reference RF local oscillator.The resulting phase error is used as a feedback signal and fed back to the reference cavity of the Ti:sapphire laser to lock the two lasers in phase.A stable blue power of 520 mW is obtained,which supplies enough power for the cooling and trapping step of the strontium (Sr)optical lattice clock.Four stable isotopes of Sr, 84 Sr, 86 Sr, 87 Sr,and 88 Sr,are detected by probing the laser during a strong 460.7-nm cycling transition(5s 21 S0?5s5p 1 P1).     

All-optical phase locking of two femtosecond Ti:sapphire lasers: a passive coupling mechanism beyond the slowly varying amplitude approximation

Two independently tunable femtosecond Ti:sapphire lasers are passively synchronized with a stable relative carrier-envelope offset phase. By heterodyning the spectral overlap of the two frequency combs, we observe multiple regimes for the cavity length difference in which the relative round-trip phase slip is effectively locked to zero. The strong correlation of the femtosecond pulse trains is maintained over minutes without any external stabilization, and relative cavity length variations of 50 nm are compensated. The phase synchronization relies on phase-dependent cross-phase modulation, taking full advantage of the nonresonant optical nonlinearity of the shared gain medium, which is much faster than the optical cycle.     

Nonintrusive phase stabilization of sub-two-cycle pulses from a prismless octave-spanning Ti:sapphire laser

Carrier-envelope (CE) phase-stabilized sub-two-cycle pulses are generated from a 500 MHz compact prismless octave-spanning laser without extracavity nonlinear optical processes distorting the laser output. The necessary f and 2f spectral components are generated intracavity and coupled out independently from the main pulse through specially designed cavity mirrors, resulting in a 55 dB CE beat note (100 kHz resolution bandwidth). The in-loop CE phase error (integrated from 2.5 mHz to 10 MHz) is 67 mrad, equivalent to a timing jitter between carrier and envelope of 28 as at 790 nm.     

Phase-stable Ti:sapphire oscillator quasi-synchronously pumped by a thin-disk laser

We report on the combination of an octave-spanning Ti:sapphire oscillator and a frequency-doubled thin-disk laser used as pump source. Self-starting and self-synchronization of the two lasers has been observed. We demonstrate for the first time the stabilization of the carrier-envelope phase of a Ti:sapphire laser pumped by a mode-locked pump source.     

Ti:sapphire planar waveguide laser grown by pulsed laser deposition

We document the lasing performance of a waveguiding layer of Ti:sapphire, of ~12-mum thickness, grown by pulsed laser deposition from a 0.12-wt.% Ti(2)O(3) Ti:sapphire single-crystal target onto an undoped z-cut sapphire substrate. Lasing around 800 nm is observed when the waveguide layer is pumped by an argon-ion laser running on all-blue-green lines, with an absorbed power threshold of 0.56 W, with high-reflectivity (R>98%) mirrors. With a 5% pump duty cycle and a T=35% output coupler, a slope efficiency of 26% with respect to absorbed power is obtained, giving quasi-cw output powers in excess of 350 mW.     

Characterization of frequency-tripled nanosecond pulsed Ti:sapphire laser injection seeded by a frequency-scanning cw Ti:sapphire laser by use of optogalvanic spectroscopy of silicon atoms

The performance of a narrow-linewidth nanosecond pulsed deep-UV coherent light source consisting of a frequency-tripled nanosecond pulsed Ti:sapphire laser injection seeded by a frequency-scanning cw Ti:sapphire laser has been characterized by using optogalvanic spectroscopy of silicon atoms as a diagnostic. The envelope of the optogalvanic spectrum indicates the pure Doppler broadening of silicon atoms, which was estimated to be as broad as 4 GHz, without the broadening effect from the laser linewidth itself.     

Extreme events in the Ti:sapphire laser

We report experimental and theoretical evidence of the existence of extreme value events in the form of scarce and randomly emerging giant pulses in the femtosecond (self-pulsing or Kerr-lens mode-locked) Ti:sapphire laser. This laser displays complex dynamical behavior, including deterministic chaos, in two different regimes. The extreme value pulses are observed in the chaotic state of only one of these two regimes. The observations agree with the predictions of a well-tested theoretical model that does not include noise or self-Q-switching into its framework. This implies that, in this laser, the extreme effects have a nontrivial dynamical origin. The Ti:sapphire laser is hence revealed as a new and convenient system for the study of these effects.     

Direct diode-laser pumping of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser

Direct diode-laser pumping of a mode-locked Ti:Al(2)O(3) laser is reported. A single 1 W GaN-based diode laser operating at 452 nm is used as the pump laser. Pulse durations as short as 114 fs and average output powers of up to 13 mW are obtained.     

Period doubling of a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser by total mode locking

Period doubling of an 84-MHz repetition-rate Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser operated at 830 nm and producing ~300mW of average power has been observed and explained in terms of total mode locking of TEM(00) and TEM(01) modes in an effective confocal cavity. This configuration leads to a spatial sweeping action of a single-peaked pulse at 42 MHz. Period tripling and quadrupling is observed for certain cavity configurations.     

Amplification of femtosecond laser filaments in Ti:sapphire

Femtosecond laser filamentation is studied in a broadband amplifying medium, sapphire doped with electronically excited Ti ions. Evidence for fluence amplification of self-guided pulses, increase of filamentation length, as well as a lowering of the input laser power necessary for filamentation is reported.     

Sub-two-cycle pulses from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser

Pulses shorter than two optical cycles with bandwidths in excess of 400 nm have been generated from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with a repetition rate of 90 MHz and an average power of 200 mW. Low-dispersion prisms and double-chirped mirrors provide broadband controlled dispersion and high reflectivity. These pulse durations are to our knowledge the shortest ever generated directly from a laser oscillator.     

Self-starting 6.5-fs pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser

We demonstrate self-starting 6.5-fs pulses from a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with 200-mW average output power at a pulse repetition rate of ~86 M Hz. This is to our knowledge the shortest pulse ever generated directly from a laser. For dispersion compensation we used a prism pair in combination with double-chirped mirrors, which balances the higher-order dispersion of the prism pair and therefore flattens the average total group-delay dispersion in the laser cavity. For self-starting mode locking we used a broadband semiconductor saturable-absorber mirror.     

Generation of synchronized femtosecond and picosecond laser pulses in a two-beam-pumped Ti:sapphire laser

<正>Two operating modes,independent self-mode-locking and cross-mode-locking,are presented in a two-beampumped double-cavity dual-wavelength femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser.Synchronization of femtosecond and picosecond laser pulses is achieved by properly adjusting the cavity length matching and distributing the pump laser powers in the two laser cavities,and moreover,a timing jitter of 517 fs between femtosecond and picosecond pulses is obtained,with wavelength tuning ranges around 36 and 22 nm in the femtosecond and picosecond cavities,respectively.     

Propagation properties of apertured laser beams with amplitude modulations and phase fluctuations through atmospheric turbulence

The propagation properties of apertured laser beams with amplitude modulations (AMs) and phase fluctuations (PFs) through atmospheric turbulence are studied in detail both analytically and numerically. The analytical expressions for the average intensity, power in the bucket (PIB) and Strehl ratio (S _R ) of apertured laser beams with AMs and PFs propagating through atmospheric turbulence are derived. It is found that the worse the phase fluctuation and the higher the amplitude modulation are, the less laser beams are affected by turbulence. Furthermore, apertured Gaussian beams are more sensitive to turbulence than apertured laser beams with AMs and PFs. The average intensity of apertured laser beams with AMs and PFs may be even larger than that of apertured Gaussian beams due to turbulence. In particular, the influence of turbulence on the average maximum intensity of apertured laser beams with PFs and AMs may become serious if an unsuitable truncated parameter is chosen, which should be avoided in practice.     

Fiber delivery of femtosecond pulses from a Ti:sapphire laser

We propose a way to deliver nanojoule-energy, 100-fs pulses at 800 nm through a few meters of standard optical fiber. Pulses from a mode-locked laser are compressed temporally, and then spectrally, to produce the desired pulses at the end of the fiber. Initial experiments agree well with calculations and demonstrate the benefits of this technique: For an energy of ~0.5 nJ , the delivered pulses are ~5 times shorter than those delivered by other techniques. The issues that must be addressed to scale the technique up to delivered pulse energies of 5 nJ are identified, and the apparatus employs only readily available components. Thus we expect it to find use in the many applications that would benefit from fiber delivery of femtosecond pulses.     

Generation of 0.66-TW pulses at 1 kHz by a Ti:sapphire laser

A 1-kHz, 0.66-TW Ti:sapphire laser has been developed. We obtained 21-fs, 14-mJ pulses with an extraction efficiency of 32% in the final amplifier. The dispersion through the system was successfully compensated for by insertion of a pair of prisms in a regenerative amplifier. The pulses were characterized by frequency-resolved optical gating and were in good agreement with dispersion calculated by three-dimensional ray tracing.     

Stabilizing the frequency of femtosecond Ti:sapphire comb laser by a novel scheme

We demonstrated a novel scheme for scanning the absolute frequencies of a femtosecond Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser with the repetition rate unaffected, where the carrier-envelop phase of the pulse was controlled by slightly shifting pump beam and the repetition rate was phase locked to a stable radio-frequency oscillator. Since it was the first time to stabilize the frequency of a mode-locked laser by referring directly to the frequency of cesium two-photon-transition (TPT) stabilized diode laser, we evaluated the frequency instability and the frequency accuracy that showed the characteristic of being a comb laser. The feature of the comb laser in this report will be significant for multi-photon spectroscopy where the frequency difference between comb lines plays a key role. PACS  06.30.+v; 42.60.By     

Phase stabilization of an octave-spanning Ti:sapphire laser

We obtain direct stabilization of the carrier-envelope phase for a standard x-folded geometry, octave-spanning, Ti:sapphire laser. The in-loop accumulated carrier-envelope phase error is 0.175 rad (1.65 mHz to 102 kHz). Intracavity continuum generation, which is responsible for the octave bandwidth, is characterized through measurement of the beam parameters.