Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Chirped pulse amplification'

Rapidly developing areas of high field physics, generation of high order harmonics or isolated attosecond pulses, require high peak power few-cycle pulse sources. Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) has shown potential to satisfy these requirements and at present OPCPA is the leading technology for high energy few-cycle pulse table-top systems. The main objectives of this thesis were to investigate optical parametric amplification of broadband seed pulses in femtosecond and picosecond regimes, to develop and optimize a compact TW-scale OPCPA system intended for various applications in areas of high-field physics. In this thesis the main concept of such system is discussed, advantages and disadvantages of proposed approach are analyzed, the setup is compared to other world known systems. In this thesis an original approach for power scaling of regenerative amplifier by implementing several active elements in prolonged resonator has been proposed and investigated. Femtosecond pulse amplification in dual active element Yb:KGW regenerative amplifier has been demonstrated, resulting in boost of average output power to 30 W. Broad bandwidth pulse generation, parametric amplification and compression to transform limited values were analyzed both numerically and experimentally. White light continuum generation in bulk material for broadband seed formation, its further optical parametric amplification in noncollinear scheme were investigated and Yb:KGW driven... [to full text]
Stiprių laukų fizikos srities tyrimams, aukštų eilių harmonikų ir pavienių atosekundinių impulsų generavimui, yra reikalingos kompaktiškos teravatų smailinės galios kelių optinių ciklų išvadinių impulsų lazerinės sistemos. Optinis parametrinis „čirpuotų“ impulsų stiprinimas yra vienas pagrindinių metodų leidžiančiu pasiekti šiems taikymams reikalingus lazerinių sistemų parametrus. Šios disertacijos darbo tikslas – ištirti femtosekundinės ir pikosekundinės trukmės impulsų stiprinimą optiniuose parametriniuose stiprintuvuose užkratui naudojant ypač plataus spektro signalą, bei sukurti ir optimizuoti čirpuotų impulsų parametrinio stiprinimo sistemą, užtikrinančią patikimą teravatų smailinės galios impulsų formavimą. Disertacijoje aptariama bendra tokios sistemos architektūra, nagrinėjami privalumai ir trūkumai, palyginama su kitomis pasaulyje egzistuojančiomis sistemomis. Šiame darbe pasiūlytas ir ištirtas lazerių vidutinės išvadinės galios didinimo metodas, naudojant kelis aktyviuosius elementus viename rezonatoriuje, ir pademonstruotas femtosekundinių impulsų stiprinimas šio metodo pagrindu sukonstruotame dviejų Yb:KGW aktyvių elementų regeneratyviniame stiprintuve, tokiu būdu padidinant lazerio išvadinę galią iki 30 W. Darbo metu sukonstruota bei ištirta Yb:KGW femtosekundiniu lazeriu kaupinamos baltos šviesos kontinuumo generavimo ir nekolinearaus kaupinimo optinio parametrinio stiprinimo sistema, kurios išvadinių impulsų energiją siekia 20 mikrodžiaulių, o impulsai... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

The topic of this proposal is the development of high peak power laser sources with a focus on linearly chirped pulse laser sources. In the past decade chirped optical pulses have found a plethora of applications such as photonic analog-to-digital conversion, optical coherence tomography, laser ranging, etc. This dissertation analyzes the aforementioned applications of linearly chirped pulses and their technical requirements, as well as the performance of previously demonstrated parabolic pulse shaping approaches. The experimental research addresses the topic of parabolic pulse generation in two distinct ways. First, pulse shaping technique involving a time domain approach is presented, that results in stretched pulses with parabolic profiles with temporal duration of 15 ns. After pulse is shaped into a parabolic intensity profile, the pulse is compressed with DCF fiber spool by 100 times to 80 ps duration at FWHM. A different approach of pulse shaping in frequency domain is performed, in which a spectral processor based on Liquid Crystal on Silicon technology is used. The pulse is stretched to 1.5 ns before intensity mask is applied, resulting in a parabolic intensity profile. Due to frequency to time mapping, its temporal profile is also parabolic. After pulse shaping, the pulse is compressed with a bulk compressor, and subsequently analyzed with a Frequency Resolved Optical Gating (FROG). The spectral content of the compressed pulse is feedback to the spectral processor and used to adjust the spectral phase mask applied on the pulse. The resultant pulse after pulse shaping with feedback mechanism is a Fourier transform, sub-picosecond ultrashort pulse with 5 times increase in peak power. The appendices in this dissertation provide additional material used for the realization of the main research focus of the dissertation. Specification and characterization of major components of equipment and devices used in the experiment are present. The description of Matlab algorithms that was used to calculate required signals for pulse shaping are shown. A brief description of the Labview code used to control the spectral processor will also be illustrated.
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Physics
Sciences
Physics

With its broad gain bandwidth and high optical conversion efficiency, ytterbium (Yb)-doped silica fiber represents an attractive medium for the generation and amplification of ultrashort optical pulses. Research interest in Yb-doped fiber chirped pulse amplifier (CPA) systems first appeared in the late 1990s. However, the potential advantages and capabilities of Yb-doped fiber CPA systems were not fully studied during the early research. Further scaling of both the average power and the pulse energy have now become possible with the development of several key technologies that are associated with Yb-doped fiber CPA systems. Finally, the development of a novel fiber CPA system operating with strong selfphase-modulation (SPM) is described, which applied adaptive shaping of the spectral phase of the input pulses. The pre-compensation of both SPM induced phase distortion at high energies, and residual dispersion from mismatched stretcher/compressor technologies at low energies are investigated

In this thesis, I describe the development of a high repetition rate femtosecond fibre based chirped pulse amplification system (FCPA) for strong-field physics experiments. This project was set in a newly established sub-group of the Laser Consortium at Imperial College London with the aim to push the strong-field and attosecond science experiments to be conducted at 100s of kHz repetition rate. It was important to design and implement a compact, CEP stable, high repetition rate fibre CPA system. Custom optics and mounts were employed in order to achieve a compact stretcher and compressor design. The stretcher was designed to stretch the oscillator pulses with a bandwidth of 14nm and a duration of 90 fs to 1 ns to avoid non-linearities in the fibre amplifier. It is based on an Offner type configuration. The fast rise time RTP based Pockels cell can be adjusted to deliver 50 -350 kHz of repetition rate to the large mode area (LMA) ytterbium doped fibre with 30 um core and 250 um cladding (Yb1200-30/250DC-PM, Nlight). It was possible to generate up to 13 uJ of pulse energy at 100 kHz repetition rate before compression with 14W pump power. Higher pulse energies up to 130 uJ have been demonstrated at 38W of pumping (55W pump diode Nlight), however mechanical instabilities impaired the spectral and spatial performance at this power level. Improvements to optimise the performance of the system are suggested in the conclusion. Additionally to this experiments in the near-IR have been conducted on post compression mechanisms. The principle of filamentation was employed to generate tunable few-cycle pulses at wavelengths from 1.6 - 2 um and subsequent high harmonic generation in a proof of principle experiment. These results were published in Applied Physics Letters [1] and Journal of Physics B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. [2].

We demonstrate four experimentally simple methods for measuring very complex ultrashort light pulses. Although each method is comprised of only a few optical elements, they permit the measurement of extremely complex pulses with time-bandwidth products greater than 65,000. First, we demonstrate an extremely simple frequency-resolved-optical gating (GRENOUILLE) device for measuring the intensity and phase of pulses up to ~20ps in length. In order to achieve the required high spectral resolution and large temporal range, it uses a few-cm-thick second harmonic-generation crystal in the shape of a pentagon. This has the additional advantage of reducing the device's total number of components to three. Secondly, we introduce a variation of spectral interferometry (SI) using a virtually imaged phased array and grating spectrometer for measuring long complex ultrashort pulses up to 80 ps in length. Next, we introduce a SI technique for measuring the complete intensity and phase of relatively long and very complex ultrashort pulses. It involves making multiple measurements using SI (in its SEA TADPOLE variation) at numerous delays, measuring many temporal pulselets within the pulse, and concatenating the resulting pulselets. Its spectral resolution is the inverse delay range--many times higher than that of the spectrometer used. The waveforms were measured with ~ fs temporal resolution over a temporal range of ~ns and had time-bandwidth products exceeding 65,000, which to our knowledge is the largest time-bandwidth product ever measured with ~fs temporal resolution. Finally, we demonstrate a single-shot measurement technique that temporally interleaves hundreds of measurements with ~fs temporal resolution. It is another variation of SI for measuring the complete intensity and phase of relatively long and complex ultrashort pulses in a single shot. It uses a grating to introduce a transverse time delay into a reference pulse which gates the unknown pulse by interfering it at the image plane of an imaging spectrometer. It provided ~125 fs temporal resolution and a temporal range of 70 ps using a low-resolution spectrometer.

The objective of this dissertation is to generate high power ultrashort optical pulses from an all-semiconductor mode-locked laser system. The limitations of semiconductor optical amplifier in high energy, ultrashort pulse amplification are reviewed. A method to overcome the fundamental limit of small stored energy inside semiconductor optical amplifier called "eXtreme Chirped Pulse Amplification (X-CPA)" is proposed and studied theoretically and experimentally. The key benefits of the concept of X-CPA are addressed. Based on theoretical and experimental study, an all-semiconductor mode-locked X-CPA system consisting of a mode-locked master oscillator, an optical pulse pre-stretcher, a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) pulse picker, an extreme pulse stretcher/compressor, cascaded optical amplifiers, and a bulk grating compressor is successfully demonstrated and generates >kW record peak power. A potential candidate for generating high average power from an X-CPA system, novel grating coupled surface emitting semiconductor laser (GCSEL) devices, are studied experimentally. The first demonstration of mode-locking with GCSELs and associated amplification characteristics of grating coupled surface emitting SOAs will be presented. In an effort to go beyond the record setting results of the X-CPA system, a passive optical cavity amplification technique in conjunction with the X-CPA system is constructed, and studied experimentally and theoretically.
Ph.D.
Optics and Photonics
Optics

We have developed a one dimensional numeric simulation of the amplification of broadband laser light in a chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system containing an amplifier with a broadband gain spectrum. We present the theory concerning the generation of laser pulses and pulse shape altering effects. We model the amplification of monochromatic light in a narrow bandwidth amplifier as demonstrated by Lee M. Frantz and John S. Nodvik in their 1963 paper. Using the CPA method, we expand this model to describe the amplification of broadband laser pulses by an amplifier with a broadband gain profile. This model represents systems that are dominated by inhomogeneous broadening, as well as homogeneous broadening effects. Our model also addresses the effects of gain saturation within the amplifier. We present the theory supporting this model and discuss its implementation in a LabView hosted environment. We then present results modeled for several systems.

In the laser market, there have been various kinds of lasers designed and utilized for different purposes. As time goes on, their powers have been gradually increased from kilowatts (kW) to terawatts (TW). One of the most famous methods in laser science technology is Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) which enables table-top terawatt laser systems. This method provides high output power (tens of TW), very short pulse duration (few tens of femtoseconds) and large energy (mJ) for ultrafast lasers. One of the most well-known ultrafast lasers is Titanium:Sapphire laser. This thesis work concentrates on how delay a pulse generator should work so that Verdi and the oscillator pulse coincide. Moreover, by assembling a terawatt laser system, the most important issues are timing between seed pulse and pump pulse and time delays of all components of this system
autocorrelator, pump source, photodiode, Pockels cell, stretcher and dazzler were examined. This timing and the time delays were separately identified for terawatt laser systems. In this study, the aim is to attain the terawatt level output by arranging pump and seed pulses timing and the time delay on the components of the laser system setup.

Laser high-order harmonic generation in the presence of relatively weak interfering light is investigated. The interfering pulses intersect the primary harmonic-generating laser pulse at the laser focus. The interfering light creates a standing intensity and phase modulation on the field, which disrupts microscopic phase matching and shuts down local high harmonic production. Suppression of the 23rd harmonic (by two orders of magnitude) is observed when a counter-propagating interfering pulse of light is introduced. A sequence of counter-propagating pulses can be used to shut down harmonic production in out-of-phase zones of the generating volume to achieve quasi phase matching. Harmonic emission is enhanced in this case. A new high-power laser system with higher pulse energy has been constructed to further investigate quasi phase matching of high-order harmonics generated in difficult-to-ionize atomic gases (e.g., neon as opposed to argon). The new system can also be used to study harmonic generation in ions. A new counter-propagating beam produces a train of 5 pulses with regulated timing. In preliminary tests, the new system has produced high harmonics up to the 65th order in neon. This should increase with additional adjustments to the laser system. The high-order harmonics have also demonstrated to be useful for polarized reflectometry measurements of optical surfaces in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelength range.

High power thulium fiber lasers are useful for a number of applications in both continuous-wave and pulsed operating regimes. The use of thulium as a dopant has recently gained interest due to its large bandwidth, possibility of high efficiency, possibility of high power and long wavelength ~1.8 – 2.1 [micro]m. The longer emission wavelength of Tm-doped fiber lasers compared to Yb- and/or Er-doped fiber lasers creates the possibility for higher peak power operation due to the larger nonlinear thresholds and reduced nonlinear phase accumulation. One primary interest in Tm-doped fiber lasers has been to scale to high average powers; however, the thermal and mechanical constraints of the fiber limit the average power out of a single-fiber aperture. One method to overcome the constraints of a single laser aperture is to spectrally combine the output from multiple lasers operating with different wavelengths into a single beam. In this thesis, results will be presented on the development of three polarized 100 W level laser systems that were wavelength stabilized for SBC. In addition to the development of the laser channels, the beams were combined using bandpass filters to achieve a single near diffraction-limited output. Concurrently, with the development of high average power systems there is an increasing interest in femotosecond pulse generation and amplification using Tm- doped fiber lasers. High peak power sources operating near 2 [micro]m have the potential to be efficient pump sources to generate mid-infrared light through supercontinuum generation or optical parametric oscillators. This thesis focuses on the development of a laser system utilizing chirped pulse amplification (CPA) to achieve record level energies and peak powers for ultrashort pulses in Tm-doped fiber. A mode-locked oscillator was built to generate femtosecond pulses operating with pJ energy. Pulses generated in the mode-locked oscillator were limited to low energies and contained spectral modulation due to the mode-locking mechanism, therefore, a Raman-soliton self-frequency shift (Raman-SSFS) amplifier was built to amplify pulses, decrease the pulse duration, and spectrally clean pulses. These pulses were amplified using chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in which, limiting factors for amplification were examined and a high peak power system was built. The primary limiting factors of CPA in fibers include the nonlinear phase accumulation, primarily through self-phase modulation (SPM), and gain narrowing. Gain narrowing was examined by temporally stretching pulses in a highly nonlinear fiber that both stretched the pulse duration and broadened the spectrum. A high peak power CPA system amplified pulses to 1 [micro]J energy with 300 fs compressed pulses, corresponding to a peak power >3 MW. High peak power pulses were coupled into highly nonlinear fibers to generate supercontinuum.
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Optics and Photonics
Optics and Photonics
Optics

The Apollon-10 PW laser chain is a large-scale project aimed at delivering 10 PW pulses to reach intensities of 10^22 W/cm^2. State of the art, high intensity lasers based solely on chirped pulse amplification (CPA) and titanium sapphire (Ti:Sa) crystals are limited to peak powers reaching 1.3 PW with 30-fs pulses as a result of gain narrowing in the amplifiers. To access the multipetawatt regime, gain narrowing can be suppressed with an alternative amplification technique called optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA), offering a broader gain bandwidth and pulse durations as short as 10 fs. The Apollon-10 PW laser will exploit a hybrid OPCPA-Ti:Sa-CPA strategy to attain 10-PW pulses with 150 J and 15 fs. It will have two high-gain, low-energy amplification stages (10 fs ,100 mJ range) based on OPCPA in the picosecond and nanosecond timescale and afterwards, and will use Ti:Sa for power amplification to the 100-Joule level.Work in this thesis involves the progression of the development on the Apollon-10 PW front end and is focused on the development of a high contrast, ultrashort seed source supporting 10-fs pulses, stretching these pulses prior to OPCPA and the implementation of the picosecond OPCPA stage with a target of achieving 10-mJ pulses and maintaining its bandwidth. To achieve the final goal of 15-fs, 150-J pulses, the seed source must have a bandwidth supporting 10-fs and a temporal contrast of at least 10^10. Thus from an initial commercial Ti:Sa source delivering 25-fs pulses with a contrast of 10^8, spectral broadening via self-phase modulation and contrast enhancement with cross polarized (XPW) generation was performed. Subsequently, the seed pulses were stretched to a few picoseconds to match the pump for picosecond OPCPA. Strecher designs using an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (dazzler) for phase control in this purpose are studied. A compact and straightforward compressor using BK7 glass is used and an associated compressor for pulse monitoring was also studied. Lastly, the picosecond OPCPA stage was implemented in single and dual stage configurations.

The ultrashort chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser technology opens the path to high intensities of 10^21 W/cm² and above in the laser focus. Such intensities allow laser-matter interaction in the relativistic intensity regime. Direct diode-pumped ultrashort solid-state lasers combine high-energy, high-power and efficient amplification together, which are the main advantages compared to flashlamp-pumped high-energy laser systems based on titanium-doped sapphire. Development within recent years in the field of laser diodes makes them more and more attractive in terms of total costs, compactness and lifetime. This work is dedicated to the Petawatt, ENergy-Efficient Laser for Optical Plasma Experiments (PENELOPE) project, a fully and directly diode-pumped laser system under development at the Helmholtz–Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf (HZDR), aiming at 150 fs long pulses with energies of up to 150 J at repetition rates of up to 1 Hz. The focus of this thesis lies on the spectral and width manipulation of the front-end amplifiers, trivalent ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride (Yb3+:CaF2) as gain material as well as the pump source for the final two main amplifiers of the PENELOPE laser system. Here, all crucial design parameters were investigated and a further successful scaling of the laser system to its target values was shown. Gain narrowing is the dominant process for spectral bandwidth reduction during the amplification at the high-gain front-end amplifiers. Active or passive spectral gain control filter can be used to counteract this effect. A pulse duration of 121 fs was achieved by using a passive spectral attenuation inside a regenerative amplifier, which corresponds to an improvement by a factor of almost 2 compared to the start of this work. A proof-of-concept experiment showed the capability of the pre-shaping approach. A spectral bandwidth of 20nm was transferred through the first multipass amplifier at a total gain of 300. Finally, the predicted output spectrum calculated by a numerical model of the final amplifier stages was in a good agreement with the experimental results. The spectroscopic properties of Yb3+:CaF2 matches the constraints for ultrashort laser pulse amplification and direct diode pumping. Pumping close to the zero phonon line at 976nm is preferable compared to 940nm as the pump intensity saturation is significantly lower. A broad gain cross section of up to 50nm is achievable for typical inversion levels. Furthermore, moderate cryogenic temperatures (above 200K) can be used to improve the amplification performance of Yb3+:CaF2. The optical quality of the doped crystals currently available on the market is sufficient to build amplifiers in the hundred joule range. The designed pump source for the last two amplifiers is based on two side pumping in a double pass configuration. However, this concept requires the necessity of brightness conservation for the installed laser diodes. Therefore, a fully relay imaging setup (4f optical system) along the optical path from the stacks to the gain material including the global beam homogenization was developed in a novel approach. Beside these major parts the amplifier architecture and relay imaging telescopes as well as temporal intensity contrast (TIC) was investigated. An all reflective concept for the relay imaging amplifiers and telescopes was selected, which results in several advantages especially an achromatic behavior and low B-Integral. The TIC of the front-end was improved, as the pre- and postpulses due to the plane-parallel active-mirror was eliminated by wedging the gain medium.

The ultrashort chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser technology opens the path to high intensities of 10^21 W/cm² and above in the laser focus. Such intensities allow laser-matter interaction in the relativistic intensity regime. Direct diode-pumped ultrashort solid-state lasers combine high-energy, high-power and efficient amplification together, which are the main advantages compared to flashlamp-pumped high-energy laser systems based on titanium-doped sapphire. Development within recent years in the field of laser diodes makes them more and more attractive in terms of total costs, compactness and lifetime. This work is dedicated to the Petawatt, ENergy-Efficient Laser for Optical Plasma Experiments (PENELOPE) project, a fully and directly diode-pumped laser system under development at the Helmholtz–Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf (HZDR), aiming at 150 fs long pulses with energies of up to 150 J at repetition rates of up to 1 Hz. The focus of this thesis lies on the spectral and width manipulation of the front-end amplifiers, trivalent ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride (Yb3+:CaF2) as gain material as well as the pump source for the final two main amplifiers of the PENELOPE laser system. Here, all crucial design parameters were investigated and a further successful scaling of the laser system to its target values was shown. Gain narrowing is the dominant process for spectral bandwidth reduction during the amplification at the high-gain front-end amplifiers. Active or passive spectral gain control filter can be used to counteract this effect. A pulse duration of 121 fs was achieved by using a passive spectral attenuation inside a regenerative amplifier, which corresponds to an improvement by a factor of almost 2 compared to the start of this work. A proof-of-concept experiment showed the capability of the pre-shaping approach. A spectral bandwidth of 20nm was transferred through the first multipass amplifier at a total gain of 300. Finally, the predicted output spectrum calculated by a numerical model of the final amplifier stages was in a good agreement with the experimental results. The spectroscopic properties of Yb3+:CaF2 matches the constraints for ultrashort laser pulse amplification and direct diode pumping. Pumping close to the zero phonon line at 976nm is preferable compared to 940nm as the pump intensity saturation is significantly lower. A broad gain cross section of up to 50nm is achievable for typical inversion levels. Furthermore, moderate cryogenic temperatures (above 200K) can be used to improve the amplification performance of Yb3+:CaF2. The optical quality of the doped crystals currently available on the market is sufficient to build amplifiers in the hundred joule range. The designed pump source for the last two amplifiers is based on two side pumping in a double pass configuration. However, this concept requires the necessity of brightness conservation for the installed laser diodes. Therefore, a fully relay imaging setup (4f optical system) along the optical path from the stacks to the gain material including the global beam homogenization was developed in a novel approach. Beside these major parts the amplifier architecture and relay imaging telescopes as well as temporal intensity contrast (TIC) was investigated. An all reflective concept for the relay imaging amplifiers and telescopes was selected, which results in several advantages especially an achromatic behavior and low B-Integral. The TIC of the front-end was improved, as the pre- and postpulses due to the plane-parallel active-mirror was eliminated by wedging the gain medium.

Les impulsions ultra-brèves de rayonnement ultraviolet extrême (UVX) ont un grand champ d’application dans les domaines tels que le diagnostic de plasmas, la spectroscopie ou l’étude de la dynamique ultrarapide dans les atomes et les molécules.Aujourd’hui, il existe trois sources délivrant ce genre d’impulsions. Les harmoniques d’ordre élevé (HHG, en anglais) générés dans les gaz rares ou sur les solides peuvent fournir des impulsions attosecondes. Cependant, leur énergie, le plus souvent de l’ordre du nanojoule, limite les applications. L’amplification des impulsions harmoniques dans les plasmas créés par laser (SXRL, en anglais) a démontré pouvoir fournir des énergies de plusieurs dizaines de microjoules. Des énergies plus élevées peuvent être obtenues avec les lasers à électrons libres (LEL) UVX injectés, mais ce sont des Très Grandes Infrastructures ayant un accès limité.Ces dernières années, des progrès significatifs ont été réalisé avec chacune des ces sources, avec pour objectif la génération d’impulsions plus brèves. Il est devenu nécessaire de développer des nouvelles techniques de métrologie temporelle des impulsions UVX ultra-brèves. De plus, beaucoup d’expériences, comme ceux impliquant des phénomènes non-linéaires, nécessitent de hautes intensités UVX. La focalisation efficace des impulsions de faibles énergies peut significativement augmenter le domaine d’application. De bons fronts d’onde sont nécessaires pour focaliser les impulsions UVX à haute intensité, et les optiques doivent aussi être de bonne qualité et alignées avec précision.Dans cette thèse, les propriétés spatiales des harmoniques d’ordre élevé ont été extensivement étudiées grâce à un senseur de front d’onde UVX. Cet appareil couplé à une source HHG a démontré être utile pour la caractérisation de table et à la longueur d’onde ainsi que pour l’optimisation de systèmes optiques UVX.Le problème de la mise en place de la complète caractérisation temporelle d’impulsions UVX est aussi discuté en détail, et deux nouveaux schémas pour la reconstruction d’impulsions de LEL injectés et de lasers X à plasma sont présentés. Finalement, la première implantation d’un système d’amplification à dérive de fréquence (CPA, en anglais) sur un LEL UVX est présentée et son implantation pour les lasers X à plasmas est aussi discutée
Ultrashort pulses of extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) radiation have a wide range of applications in fields such as plasma probing, spectroscopy, or the study of ultrafast dynamics in atoms and molecules.Nowadays, there are three main sources of such pulses. High-order harmonic generation (HHG) in rare gases or solid surfaces is able to provide attosecond pulses. However, their limited energy, of the order of nanojoules, limits its number of applications. The amplification of high-harmonic pulses in laser-driven plasmas (SXRL) has been demonstrated to provide energies of tens of microjules. Higher pulse energies can be obtained from seeded XUV free-electron lasers (FELs), large-scale facilities with more limited accessibility.In recent years, significant progress has been made with each of these sources towards the generation of shorter pulses. It is thus necessary to develop new techniques for full temporal metrology of ultrashort XUV pulses. Additionally, many experiments, such as those involving nonlinear phenomena, require high XUV intensities. Efficient focusing of low-energy pulses can significantly increase their range of application. Good wavefronts are required in order to focus XUV pulses to high intensities, and the optics must be of high quality and precisely aligned.In this thesis, the spatial properties of high-harmonic pulses are extensively explored thanks to the use of an XUV Hartmann wavefront sensor. This device is also proven here to be useful for tabletop, at-wavelength characterization and optimization of XUV optical systems with HHG sources.The problem of performing full temporal characterization of XUV pulses is also discussed in detail, and two new schemes for complete pulse reconstruction for seeded XUV FELs and seeded SXRLs are presented. Finally, the first implementation of chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in a seeded XUV FEL is reported, and its implementation in seeded SXRLs is discussed as well

The ultrashort chirped pulse amplification (CPA) laser technology opens the path to high intensities of 10^21 W/cm² and above in the laser focus. Such intensities allow laser-matter interaction in the relativistic intensity regime. Direct diode-pumped ultrashort solid-state lasers combine high-energy, high-power and efficient amplification together, which are the main advantages compared to flashlamp-pumped high-energy laser systems based on titanium-doped sapphire. Development within recent years in the field of laser diodes makes them more and more attractive in terms of total costs, compactness and lifetime. This work is dedicated to the Petawatt, ENergy-Efficient Laser for Optical Plasma Experiments (PENELOPE) project, a fully and directly diode-pumped laser system under development at the Helmholtz–Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf (HZDR), aiming at 150 fs long pulses with energies of up to 150 J at repetition rates of up to 1 Hz. The focus of this thesis lies on the spectral and width manipulation of the front-end amplifiers, trivalent ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride (Yb3+:CaF2) as gain material as well as the pump source for the final two main amplifiers of the PENELOPE laser system. Here, all crucial design parameters were investigated and a further successful scaling of the laser system to its target values was shown. Gain narrowing is the dominant process for spectral bandwidth reduction during the amplification at the high-gain front-end amplifiers. Active or passive spectral gain control filter can be used to counteract this effect. A pulse duration of 121 fs was achieved by using a passive spectral attenuation inside a regenerative amplifier, which corresponds to an improvement by a factor of almost 2 compared to the start of this work. A proof-of-concept experiment showed the capability of the pre-shaping approach. A spectral bandwidth of 20nm was transferred through the first multipass amplifier at a total gain of 300. Finally, the predicted output spectrum calculated by a numerical model of the final amplifier stages was in a good agreement with the experimental results. The spectroscopic properties of Yb3+:CaF2 matches the constraints for ultrashort laser pulse amplification and direct diode pumping. Pumping close to the zero phonon line at 976nm is preferable compared to 940nm as the pump intensity saturation is significantly lower. A broad gain cross section of up to 50nm is achievable for typical inversion levels. Furthermore, moderate cryogenic temperatures (above 200K) can be used to improve the amplification performance of Yb3+:CaF2. The optical quality of the doped crystals currently available on the market is sufficient to build amplifiers in the hundred joule range. The designed pump source for the last two amplifiers is based on two side pumping in a double pass configuration. However, this concept requires the necessity of brightness conservation for the installed laser diodes. Therefore, a fully relay imaging setup (4f optical system) along the optical path from the stacks to the gain material including the global beam homogenization was developed in a novel approach. Beside these major parts the amplifier architecture and relay imaging telescopes as well as temporal intensity contrast (TIC) was investigated. An all reflective concept for the relay imaging amplifiers and telescopes was selected, which results in several advantages especially an achromatic behavior and low B-Integral. The TIC of the front-end was improved, as the pre- and postpulses due to the plane-parallel active-mirror was eliminated by wedging the gain medium.

La technique d’amplification à dérive de fréquence "chirped pulse amplification" (CPA)a été développée pour augmenter la puissance des impulsions issues d’oscillateurs à verrouillage de mode, car l’énergie des impulsions n’étaient pas suffisantes pour des applications telles que la physique des champs forts et l’accélération de particules. Depuis son développement en 1985, elle a été utilisée dans une grande variété de systèmes laser industriels et dans des installations laser à ultra-haute puissance. Cette technique permet d’une part de s’affranchir de l’accumulation de phase non linéaire qui entrave la compression d’impulsions et d’autre part de maintenir la fluence des impulsions en dessous des seuils de dommages induits par laser aux composants. Dans cette thèse, nous développons des systèmes laser CPA à la longueurs d’onde de 2.05μm avec une puissance moyenne élevée et une énergie élevée, en commençant par le développement du laser à 2050nm jusqu’à la conception et la mise en oeuvre de l’étireur, des amplificateurs et du compresseur d’impulsions.Dans la première section de la thèse, nous introduisons les principaux concepts de physique et les phénomènes nécessaires à la compréhension de la technique d’amplification par dérive de fréquence et au développement du laser à fibre à 2050nm. Cela inclut la dispersion, l'automodulation de phase et la diffusion Raman.Dans la deuxième section de la thèse, nous présentons le développement d’un laser entièrement fibré à maintien de polarisation et accordable sur plus de 170nm, de 1880nmà 2050nm, via le phénomene de décalage de fréquence solitonique (Raman soliton selffrequencyshift, SSFS). Notre systéme est basé exclusivement sur des fibres disponibles commercialement. Nous avons caractérisé le laser en termes de puissance, de spectre et de durée d’impulsion, et nous avons inclus une étape de post-compression qui repose sur des effets non linéaires pour atteindre une durée inférieure à 100 fs sur toute la plage d' accordabilité. Les simulations sur la post-compression de solitons montrent la polyvalence du laser, qui permet de personnaliser la durée de l’impulsion sur une plage spectrale donnée, ou alternativement à une longueur d’onde particulière.Dans la troisième section, nous avons testé le laser accordable dans une grande variété d’architectures d’étirement et de compression adaptées au CPA. Nous avons examiné les fibres et les réseaux de Bragg en volume étiré (CVBG) en tant que dispositifs d’étirement d’impulsions, ainsi que les paires de réseaux de diffraction et les CVBG en tant que compresseurs d’impulsions. Nous discutons la manière de dimensionner une paire d’étireur compresseuren tenant compte de la phase non linéaire et de l’effet de rétrécissement du gain qui se produit pendant l’amplification d’impulsions, ainsi que de l’évaluation des performances de l’étireur-compresseur. Deux systèmes laser d’amplification à dérive de fréquence ont été conçus et présentés, le premier visant des impulsions fs à large bande avec une puissance moyenne élevée, et le second système visant des impulsions ps à haute énergie. La technologie peu mature dans la région spectrale de 2μm et la faible disponibilité de dispositifs d’étirement adaptés entravent la compression d’impulsions à cette longueur d’onde.Dans la dernière section de la thèse, nous avons étudié les performances des fibres co-dopées Tm:Ho en configuration d’amplification. Nous discutons des principaux défis de ces fibres, notamment les effets de transfert d’énergie, la disponibilité des sources de pompage qui donnent lieu à deux schémas de pompage principaux : le pompage par diode et le pompage intra-bande, ainsi que les limitations en termes de taille de fibre. Nous avons testé les fibres dopées Tm:Ho, y compris les fibres à coeur large pour l’amplification d’impulsions à bande étroite et à large bande
The chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique was developed to power scale the pulsesfrom mode-locked oscillators as the pulse energy was not sufficient to target applicationssuch as strong field physics and particle acceleration. Since its development in 1985 ithas been applied in a wide variety of commercially available laser systems and ultra-highpower laser facilities. The technique allows to circumvent the accumulation of non-linearphase which hampers pulse compression and allows to maintain the fluence of the pulsesbelow the laser induced damage thresholds (LIDT) of components. In this thesis wedevelop CPA laser systems operating at 2.05μm wavelengths with high average powerand high energy starting from the development of the seed laser up to the design andimplementation of the pulse stretcher, amplifiers and pulse compressor.In the first section of the thesis we introduce the physics background and phenomenarequired for understanding the chirped pulse amplification technique and the developmentof the seed laser. This includes dispersion, self-phase modulation and Raman scattering.In the second section of the thesis we present the development of an all-fiber polarizationmaintaining laser tunable over 170nm, from 1880nm up to 2050nm via Ramansoliton self-frequency shift (SSFS). The system is based on exclusively commercially availablestandard fibers. We have characterised the laser in terms of power, spectrum andpulse duration and we have included a post-compression stage that relies on non-lineareffects to reach the sub-100 fs duration across the whole tunability range. Simulations ofthe soliton post-compression shows the versatility of the laser which allows to customisethe pulse duration over a spectral range or for a particular wavelength. We believe thatthe laser is a versatile and robust alternative to Tm and Tm:Ho oscillators.In the third section we have tested the tunable laser in a wide variety of stretchingand compression architectures suitable for CPA. We have investigated fibers and chirpedvolume Bragg gratings (CVBG) as pulse stretching devices and grating pairs and CVBGsas pulse compressors. We discuss how to dimension a stretching-compressor pair takinginto account the non-linear phase and gain narrowing effect that takes place during pulseamplification and how to evaluate the stretching-compressor performance. Two differentchirped pulse amplification laser systems have been designed and presented, the first onetargets broadband fs pulses with high average power and the second system targets highenergetic ps pulses. The non-mature technology in the 2μm spectral region and the weakavailability of suitable stretching devices hinders pulse compression at this wavelength.In the last section of the thesis we investigated the performance of Tm:Ho co-dopedfibers in amplification configuration. We discuss the main challenges of these fibers includingthe cross-relaxation effects, the availability of pump sources which gives rise totwo main pumping schemes: diode pumping and in-band pumping and the limitations interms of fiber size. We tested Tm:Ho doped fibers, including LMA for narrowband andbroadband pulse amplification

La nécessité de prouver l'existence de nouvelles particules comme les quarks et le boson de Higgs a entrainé le développement de deux nouveaux pans de la recherche : la physique des hautes énergies ou physique des particules, dédiée à prouver expérimentalement l'existence de ces particules puis à étudier leurs propriétés et la physique des accélérateurs, dédiée au développement de nouveaux instruments pour la physique des hautes énergies.Dans ce contexte, des collisionneurs linéaires électrons/positrons polarisés de forte luminosité dont l'énergie serait connue et accordable pourrait permettre d'étudier plus finement des particules se situant dans des énergies autour du TeV telles que le Boson de Higgs. C'est dans ce sens que le projet International Linear Collider (ILC) est conçu et c'est dans le cadre du développement de ce collisionneur linéaire de particules que cette thèse de doctorat se situe. Un des points critiques de l'ILC est la source de positrons polarisés. Sans entrer dans des explications sur la physique du processus de création de positrons polarisés, nous précisons simplement que ceux-ci sont créés lorsque des rayons gamma polarisés circulairement interagissent avec la matière. Le point critique est donc la source de rayons gamma polarisés circulairement. Une alternative pour cette source est la diffusion Compton inverse et c'est finalement dans le cadre de la recherche et du développement de systèmes lasers de fortes puissances moyennes asservis à des cavités Fabry-Perot pour la production de rayons gamma polarisés par diffusion Compton inverse que se situe cette thèse.Dans un premier temps, nous posons plus précisément le contexte de cette thèse, le principe de la diffusion Compton inverse ainsi que le choix d'une architecture optique basée sur un laser fibré et une cavité Fabry-Perot. Nous finissons sur une énumération des différentes applications possibles de la diffusion Compton inverse montrant que les travaux présentés pourraient bénéficier de transfert technologique vers d'autres domaines. Dans un second temps, nous présentons les différentes architectures d'amplification laser fibrée étudiées ainsi que les résultats obtenus. Dans un troisième temps, nous faisons un rappel du principe de fonctionnement d'une cavité Fabry-Perot et présentons celle utilisée pour notre expérience ainsi que ses spécificités. Dans un quatrième temps, nous abordons l'expérience de diffusion Compton inverse qui nous a permis de présenter pour la première fois à notre connaissance l'utilisation conjointe d'un laser à fibre optique et d'une cavité Fabry-Perot dans le cadre d'un accélérateur de particules pour générer des rayons gamma. Le dispositif expérimental ainsi que les résultats obtenus sont alors présentés. Finalement, nous résumons les résultats présentés dans ce manuscrit et proposons différentes possibilités d'évolution pour le système dans une conclusion générale.

The goal of this thesis is developing a two-color Ytterbium (Yb) fiber amplifier system that can be used for generation of mid-infrared radiation. Previously, our group reported generating 20 µW of average power, at a wavelength of 18µm. This was accomplished through the amplification of a two color-seed with peaks at 1040nm and 1110nm, through a two stage amplification without any compression. The mid-infrared radiation (MIR) was generated with a 4.5 ps pulse duration by the method of difference-frequency mixing, using 300 mW of average power from the two-color Yb-fiber amplifier. Because there was no limitation by two-photon absorption, MIR output power could be scaled by increasing the amplifier power. The current project aims to increase the peak power of the laser pulses to improve the efficiency of the nonlinear mixing. The two-colour seed is generated by continuum generation in a photonic crystal fibre, pumped by 200 mW of average power from a mode-locked Yb:fibre laser. In order to efficiently increase the energy of the two wavelengths, the 4.6 mW seed pulse is now pre-amplified up to 21 mW in a 2.7 m length single mode, single core Yb:fibre . The pre-amplifier used a double-ended pumping scheme with two single mode diode lasers at 976 nm each having 150 mW maximum pump power. A notch filter was placed in the output beam to eliminate any Amplified Spontaneous Emission. After further amplification in a 7 m length of double clad, Yb-fibre, a maximum average power of 727 mW was achieved for two colours peaked at 1035 nm and 1105 nm wavelengths. The pump power for this stage was 6 W. A grating stretcher is now used to select the two-colour input along with stretching the pulses. A three grating compressor is used to compress the output pulses to 466 fs pulse duration. After compression the average power of the two colours is 350 and 110 mW for wavelengths at 1035 and 1105nm, respectively. These higher power pulses are planned to be used to increase the mid-infrared generation efficiency.

We have developed several broad-spectrum technologies for high-intensity chirped pulse amplification. We present the design and performance of two 20 TW laser systems. THOR is a Ti:sapphire, 10 Hz, ultra-fast laser that produces femtosecond pulses with a peak intensity of 18.4 TW. The laser operates near the bandwidth limit of the medium maintaining sufficient spectrum to produce 38 fs pulses. This equates to a near transform limited time-bandwidth product of 0.490. The second laser system was developed to study broad-spectrum pulse amplification in mixed Neodymium-doped laser glasses. Our efforts were to produce a multi-Joule laser with sufficient bandwidth to compress near 100 fs using mixed-glasses in the final amplifier. We present the GHOST laser with modeling and experimental analysis of the precise gain ratios between the mixed glasses. GHOST examines the bandwidth limit of the mixed-glass architecture in order to produce the broadest amplified spectrum with the shortest compressed pulsewidth. The laser has a total gain of 4x109 with a net gain of 260 from glass. The measured optimum gain ratio of 3.3 (G[subscript phos]/G[subscript sil]) produced 14.4 nm (FWHM) of bandwidth with a 103 fs pulsewidth. This constitutes a time-bandwidth product of 0.398. Additionally we have investigated two novel laser glasses in an effort to generate high energy (>1 kJ), broad spectrum pulses from a chirped-pulse amplification Nd:glass laser. Both glasses have significantly broader spectra (>38 nm FWHM) than currently available Nd:phosphate and Nd:silicate glasses. We present calculations for small signal pulse amplification to simulate spectral gain narrowing. The technique of spectral shaping using mixed-glass architecture with an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification front-end is evaluated. Our modeling shows amplified pulses with energies exceeding 10 kJ with sufficient bandwidth to achieve 120 fs pulse widths are achievable with the use of the new laser glasses. With further development of current technologies, a laser system could be scaled to generate one exawatt in peak power. Finally we report controlled enhancement of optical third harmonic generation from hydrodynamically expanding clusters of noble gas atoms several hundred femtoseconds following ionization and heating by ultrashort pump pulses.

碩士
國立清華大學
光電工程研究所
103
In this thesis, we studied experimentally and theoretically spectrally shaped chirped pulse amplification (CPA) of a high-power ytterbium-doped fiber laser amplifier with a central wavelength at 1064 nm. The seed source is an all-normal dispersion (ANDi) passively mode-locked fiber laser. For the amplified stages, we employ the 10 m-core and 30 m-core non-polarization maintaining Yb-doped fiber to be used in the pre-amplifier and main amplified stages respectively. The seed laser generated pulses with a repetition rate of ~15 MHz, spectral bandwidth ~ 9 nm and an output power of 28 W. According to the numerical simulation results of the nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE), both spectral bandwidth and spectral profile of the seed laser would affect the outcome of pulse compression. Especially, the spectral profile of the seed pulse plays a dominant role. Thus, a spectral filter was employed such that the spectrum of the seed laser output was Gaussian-like. The maximum output of the pulse energy can be as high as 2.0 J. The peak power of the best compressed pulse was ~ 60 kW and the pulse duration was as short as 350 fs (FWHM). Approximately 40% of the pulse energy is in the main pulse.

The work described in this thesis was performed at the Laboratory for Intense Lasers (L2I) of Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon (IST-UL). Its main contribution consists in the feasibility study of the broadband dispersive stages for an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on the nonlinear crystal yttrium calcium oxi-borate (YCOB). In particular, the main goal of this work consisted in the characterization and implementation of the several optical devices involved in pulse expansion and compression of the amplified pulses to durations of the order of a few optical cycles (20 fs). This type of laser systems find application in fields such as medicine, telecommunications and machining, which require high energy, ultrashort (sub-100 fs) pulses. The main challenges consisted in the preliminary study of the performance of the broadband amplifier, which is essential for successfully handling pulses with bandwidths exceeding 100 nm when amplified from the μJ to 20 mJ per pulse. In general, the control, manipulation and characterization of optical phenomena on the scale of a few tens of fs and powers that can reach the PW level are extremely difficult and challenging due to the complexity of the phenomena of radiation-matter interaction and their nonlinearities, observed at this time scale and power level. For this purpose the main dispersive components were characterized in detail, specifically addressing the demonstration of pulse expansion and compression. The tested bandwidths are narrower than the final ones, in order to confirm the parameters of these elements and predict the performance for the broadband pulses. The work performed led to additional tasks such as a detailed characterization of laser oscillator seeding the laser chain and the detection and cancelling of additional sources of dispersion.

This thesis deals with the design of a stretcher and compressor systems used for the chirped pulse amplification method for the L4 beamline. The L4 beamline is being developed for the ELI Beamlines project and aims to deliver pulses with peak power of 10 petawatt, central wavelength of 1060 nanometers, pulse duration of 150 femtoseconds and energy of 1500 Joules. Since the laser induced damage threshold and aperture of commercial diffraction gratings is currently a limiting factor in reaching higher peak powers, it was necessary to increase the effective aperture of the compressor using either tiled grating or object-image-grating self tiling methods. These two methods are compared for two compressor configurations using either 1740 ln/mm or 1136 ln/mm diffraction gratings, methods for their alignment are discussed and the selected alignment method is experimentally tested. Moreover, an analytical theory connecting the Seidel aberrations of the stretcher imaging system with the spectral phase deviation of the stretched pulse is presented. This theory is applied to commonly used Banks and Offner stretcher designs and it is demonstrated how it can be employed for the suppression of residual spectral phase of compressed pulses. Next, the design of the stretcher for the L4 beamline based on this theory is...

In some high-field laser-plasma experiments, it is advantageous to accompany the main high-energy (~1 J) laser with a second high-energy pulse (~0.1 J) which has been frequency-shifted by ~10-20%. Such a pulse-pair would have a low walk-off velocity while remaining spectrally distinct for use in two-color pump-probe experiments. Moreover, by shifting the second pulse by ~plasma frequency, it is theoretically possible to exercise some amount of control over a variety of laser-plasma instabilities, including forward Raman scattering, electromagnetic cascading, and relativistic self-focusing. Alternatively, the two pulses may be counter-propagated so that the collide in the plasma and create a slowly-propagating beatwave which can be used to inject electrons into a laser wakefield accelerator. The design, characeterization, and performance of a hybrid chirped-pulse Raman amplifier (CPRA)/Ti-Sapphire amplifier are reported and discussed. This hybrid system allows for the generation of a high-energy (>200 mJ), broadband (15-20 nm bandwidth FWHM), short duration (>100 fs duration) laser sideband. When amplified and compressed, the Raman beam's power exceeds 1 TW. This sideband is combined with the primary laser system to create a bi-color terawatt laser system which is capable of performing two-color high-field experiments. This two-color capability can be added to any commercial terawatt laser system without compromising the energy, duration or beam quality of the primary system. Preliminary two-color laser-plasma experiments are also discussed.
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碩士
國立清華大學
物理系
104
In the thesis, we studied the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system based on a dual-stage Yb-doped polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers seeded with a picosecond-scale all-normal dispersion (ANDi) fiber laser with pulse duration of 15 ps and average output power of 50 mW. The dual-stage amplifier was composed of 7-m-long 10-μm Yb-doped PM fiber and 5-m-long 30-μm Yb-doped PM fiber as a pre-amplifier and a main amplifier, respectively. In the experiment, due to strong nonlinearities induced by PM fibers and third order dispersion (TOD) of the fiber stretcher, we could not obtain sub-picosecond pulses in CPA system. But the power efficiency was raised up to about 50% for the characteristic of PM fibers in maintaining polarization of pulses so that the power would not loss due to the selection of polarization in grating compressor. Under the condition of the best compensation in SOD and TOD, the highest peak power of the compressed pulse was ~90 kW with pulse duration of 1.7 ps in FWHM and 1.94 ps in EA definition and the pulse energy was 174 nJ with 65% pulse energy concentration which was improved up to 35% comparing to normal-fiber-based CPA system.