基于光纤延迟线的时间抖动测量系统

对飞秒激光器时间抖动的准确测量是推动其高精度应用的重要前提。为实现时间抖动的高精度、无参考测量,设计并搭建了一套基于光纤延迟线的测量系统。基于非对称迈克尔逊干涉仪的结构,在其中一臂引入一段长光纤延迟线鉴别时间误差,提高时间抖动测量精度。测量了一台实验室自制的重复频率为82 MHz的锁模光纤激光器的时间抖动功率谱,其在100 Hz~10 kHz的积分范围内RMS时间抖动为10.1 fs。     

Powerful and tunable operation of a 1-2-kHz repetition-rate gain-switched Cr:forsterite laser and its frequency doubling

We present a comprehensive study of the optimum operating regime in gain-switched Cr:forsterite lasers pumped at kilohertz repetition rates, comparing five crystals of similar quality but different dopant levels. The optimization of the cavity design includes selection of the proper pump fluence to account for excited-state absorption, optimum matching of the pump and laser modes, and consideration of thermal effects. As a result >1-W average output power is demonstrated at 2 kHz. The maximum conversion efficiencies achieved at 1 kHz are 24.2% (slope) and 20% (absolute). Narrow-band operation of this laser is possible with a birefringent filter, which is a prerequisite for efficient frequency doubling to cover the 585-660-nm part of the visible spectral range. Tunable second-harmonic generation in a temperature-tuned noncritical scheme that employs LiB(3)O(5) produces 60 mW of average power near 619 nm with 13.5% conversion efficiency.     

Edge isolation of transparent conductive polymer (TCP) thin films on flexible substrates using UV laser ablation

The purpose of this study was to directly use the writing techniques for the complex electrode edge isolation of transparent conductive polymer (TCP) thin films by a nanosecond pulsed UV laser processing system. The processing parameters including the laser pulse energy, the pulse repetition frequency, and the scan speed of galvanometers were examined to ablate the TCP films deposited on polyethylene terephtalate substrates of 188 microm thick. The thickness of TCP films was approximately 20 nm. The laser pulse repetition frequency and the scan speed of galvanometers were applied to calculate the overlapping rate of laser spots and to discuss the patterning region quality. Surface morphology, edge quality, and width and depth of edge isolated patterning structures after laser ablation process were measured by a three-dimensional confocal laser scanning microscope. In addition, the electrical conductivity of ablated TCP films was measured by a four-point probes instrument. After isolated line patterning was formed, the ablated TCP films with a better edge quality were obtained directly when the overlapping rate of laser spots, the scan speed, and the pulse repetition rate were 83.3%, 200 mm/s, and 40 kHz, respectively. The better surface morphology of electrode pattern structures was also obtained when the scan speed and the pulse repetition rate were 500 mm/s and 40 kHz, respectively.     

Experimental aspects of asynchronous rapid-scan fourier transform infrared imaging

In the asynchronous, rapid-scan approach to Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) imaging, data sampling is not correlated with the zero crossings of the interference fringes of the HeNe reference laser. The success of this data collection scheme depends on the reproducibility of the clock signals driving the interferometer mirror and focal plane array data collection. In previous studies, it was shown that this implementation provides for markedly faster data acquisition without sacrificing data quality, as compared with stepscan imaging. This approach to data collection introduces some unique peculiarities to the acquisition and processing of imaging data. The purpose of this paper is to address a few of these concerns in terms of their effect on final data quality. Also, the practical aspects of implementing such an acquisition scheme are described in detail.     

500 Hz ultraviolet dye laser with pulse energy 1.7 mJ and potential for PLIF imaging

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a high-pulse-energy frequency-doubled ultraviolet dye laser operating at a repetition rate of 500?Hz. The pump source is a laser-diode side-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG laser with a pulse energy of 29?mJ at 532?nm. A master oscillator power amplifier is employed to amplify the output pulse of the dye laser to 8.1?mJ at 566?nm, and by frequency doubling with BBO crystal a pulse energy of 1.7?mJ at 283?nm is achieved with a pulse width of 8?ns. This is more than four times the largest reported pulse energies generated by other fixed-frequency dye lasers when operating at repetition rates of more than 1?kHz. The conversion efficiency and stability of dye laser are discussed, which show the potential for high-speed laser diagnostics in the fields of combustion and turbulent flow detection.     

Pulse shaping fiber laser at 1.5 μm

In this paper we present, for the first time to our knowledge, a new pulse shaping technology (modulation schemes for seed laser) used to mitigate pulse narrowing effect and SBS effect in a high energy Er:Yb codoped fiber master oscillator power amplifier system at 1.5 μm to obtain longer pulse duration and higher energy. An average power of over 1.3 W and a pulse energy of over 0.13 mJ were obtained at 10 kHz repetition rate with a pulse duration of 200 ns and near-diffraction-limited beam quality (M(2)<1.2).     

Optimisation of GaAs nanocrystals synthesis by laser ablation in water

Laser ablation of a gallium arsenide (GaAs) wafer immersed in distilled water was carried out using the fundamental wavelength of a high frequency Nd:YAG laser with 240?ns pulse duration. Rate of nanoparticles generation through laser ablation for various amounts of laser pulse energies (0.4–0.94?mJ) and repetition rates (400–2000?Hz) were studied and a maximum ablation rate of 19.6?µgr/s was obtained. Formation of the pure GaAs nanocrystals (NCs) is confirmed using TEM micrograph and X-ray diffraction analysis. Band-gap energy of generated GaAs NCs is calculated by Tauc method to be between 2.48 and 2.60?eV which is larger than the band-gap energy of bulk GaAs. The band-gap energy of NCs is increased by increasing the energy of laser pulses and is decreased by increasing the pulse repetition rate.     

Diode-pumped Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier with high pulse energy, excellent beam quality, and frequency-stabilized master oscillator as a basis for a next-generation lidar system

A pulsed, diode-laser-pumped Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) in rod geometry, frequency stabilized with a modified Pound-Drever-Hall scheme is presented. The apparatus delivers 33-ns pulses with a maximum pulse energy of 0.5 J at 1064 nm. The system was set up in two different configurations for repetition rates of 100 or 250 Hz. The beam quality was measured to be 1.5 times the diffraction limit at a pulse energy of 405 mJ and a repetition rate of 100 Hz. At 250 Hz with the same pulse energy, the M2 was better than 2.1. The radiation is frequency converted with an efficiency of 50% to 532 nm. This MOPA system will be the pump laser of transmitters for a variety of high-end, scanning lidar systems.     

Frequency- and intensity-noise measurements of a widely tunable 2-/spl mu/m Tm-Ho:KYF laser

The measurement of the frequency and intensity noise in a novel single-mode 2-/spl mu/m Tm-Ho:KYF laser is presented. The laser frequency noise is measured by exploiting the fringe side of the transmission of a Fabry-Pe/spl acute/rot interferometer. The measured power spectral density of the frequency noise is principally characterized by a random-walk noise contribution, which sets an emission linewidth of /spl sim/ 600 kHz for the 2-/spl mu/m radiation. The relative intensity noise (RIN) reaches the quantum limit of -155 dB/Hz for Fourier frequencies above 1 MHz and shows a maximum level of -90 dB/Hz at the relaxation-oscillation frequency of 20 kHz.     

Laser Interferometer for Space Gravitational Waves Detection and Earth Gravity Mapping

The idea of using space laser interferometer to measure the relative displacement change between two satellites has been considered for space gravitational waves detection and Earth gravity filed mapping in recent years. Some investigations on the key issues of laser interferometer in our working team have been presented in this paper. An on-ground laser interferometer prototype used for the demonstration of satellite-to-satellite ranging has been constructed, which is equipped with phasemeter, laser pointing modulation and laser phase-locking control. The experimental results show that path-length measurement sensitivity of the laser interferometer reaches 200 pm/√ Hz, and phase measurement precision achieves 2π × 10^??5 rad/√ Hz, and laser pointing modulation precision is better than 80 nrad/√ Hz, and laser phase-locking control precision attains 2π × 10^??4 rad/√ Hz within the frequency regime of 1 mHz–1 Hz. All of these demonstrate that the proposed laser interferometer has very promising feasibility to meet the requirement of the Taiji, TianQin and Space Advanced Gravity Measurement (SAGM) missions which are put forward by Chinese scientists.     

A CuBr laser with high efficiency in the double-pumping-pulse mode

The results of examination of characteristics of a CuBr laser operated in the double-pumping-pulse mode with a lasing pulse repetition rate of 50 Hz are presented. The potential to enhance the laser efficiency by choosing the optimum voltages of dissociation and excitation pulses and time delay values is discussed. It is confirmed that a more than twofold increase in the laser efficiency may be achieved through optimization and matched injection of the excitation-pulse energy into the active medium plasma. A laser efficiency as high as 2.6% (with respect to an excitation pulse) with an average power of 16 mW, an energy of 0.32 mJ, a halfamplitude laser pulse duration of 40 ns, and a time delay of 150 μs is demonstrated. The maximum average radiation power is 37 mW with an energy of 0.7 mJ and a laser efficiency of 0.7% at an energy density of 24 (2.7) mJ/cm³ of a dissociation (excitation) pumping pulse.     

Diode side-pumped 1.3414 microm Nd:YAP laser in Q-switched mode

A diode side-pumped acousto-optic Q-switched Nd:YAP laser operating at 1.3414 microm has been reported. The stabilities of resonators and the influence of the temperature of cooling water on output power have been experimentally investigated. The average output powers and pulse widths with different couplers and repetition rates have also been measured and analyzed. Under the repetition rate of 5 kHz, a maximum average output power of 47.5 W was obtained with an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 8.6% and a slope efficiency of 20.2%. The peak power and the pulse width were 48.8 kW and 195 ns FWHM. The beam quality factors M(2) directed along the a and c axes were 22 and 28, respectively.     

Development of a flashlamp-pumped Cr:LiSAF laser operating at 30 Hz

Cr3+:LiSrAlF6 crystals are an interesting laser medium because of their spectroscopic characteristics: They present a broad emission band in the near infrared and can be pumped either by a flashlamp or by diodes. Up to now, their limitation has been mostly due to their poor thermal properties that limit the laser performance either in the repetition rate in a pulsed system or output power in cw systems. We have designed and constructed a flashlamp-pumped laser using a standard rod pumping cavity that avoids most of the heat generated in the pumping process and allows operation at a fairly high repetition rate of 30 Hz with a high average power of 20 W in a conservative operation mode.     

Photothermal analysis of polymeric dye laser materials excited at different pump rates

The photothermal properties and heat diffusion of polymeric lasers, made up from solutions of Rhodamine 6G in solid matrices of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) with different amounts of the cross-linking monomer ethylene glycol dimethacrylate and copolymers of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and methyl methacrylate have been studied through photothermal deflection spectroscopy. The heat load that is due to the pumping process was quantified as a function of the pump excitation repetition frequency (0.25-10 Hz), determining the time-dependent temperature changes at different locations within the laser matrix. A theoretical model, which reproduces these changes with high accuracy, was developed on the basis of the heat-diffusion equation of optically dense fluids. The observed thermal effects became important for impairing the laser stability at pump repetition frequencies higher than 1 Hz. In addition, the irreversible optical changes produced in the laser matrices at high pump fluence values (>1 J/cm2) were also analyzed. These effects originate, most likely, from a two-step photothermal mechanism.     

Effect of laser repetition frequency on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films by PLD

ZnO thin films were grown on Si (1 1 1) substrates by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) at various laser repetition frequency in order to investigate the structural and optical properties of the films. The optical properties of the films were studied by photoluminescence spectra using a 325 nm He-Cd laser. The structural properties of the films were investigated by XRD measurement. The results suggest that films grown at 5 Hz have excellent UV emission and high-quality crystallinity. Laser repetition frequency can affect the structural and optical properties obviously. In addition, the thickness of all samples is about 200 nm and is not as expected that the film thickness was in direct proportion to laser repetition frequency. The authors think that one laser pulse is not corresponding to one growth instantaneousness. There is a growth ambience containing essential components and partial pressure in the work cavity.     

Trapping and manipulating gas bubbles in water with ultrashort laser pulses at a high repetition rate

We have experimentally observed the trapping of a gas bubble in water by focused laser radiation. The optical trap was provided by 200-fs pulses of a Ti-sapphire laser operating at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The laser radiation was focused in water by an objective with a numerical aperture of 0.5. The trapping force in water is estimated as ∼200 pN at an average laser power of 20 mW, which is by two orders of magnitude greater than the efficiency of a traditional laser tweezers. The trapping force arises upon local heating of gas inside a bubble due to nonlinear absorption in the focal region.     

Stable,Efficient, Single-mode Operation of a High Repetition Rate Grazing Incidence Dye Laser

Abstract

A pulsed, grazing incidence dye laser has been designed to oscillate at a repetition rate of 6·5 kHz in a single, narrow and stable, axial mode with a high excitation conversion efficiency. A single mode efficiency of 12% has been measured in a near diffraction limited beam. No measurable fluctuations of the central laser wavelength or the 100–150 MHz single mode linewidth were observed during an hour of observation. The effect of grating incident angle and dye flow rate on laser operation have been investigated and a correlation has been found between the state of polarization of the dye laser output and the polarization of the pump laser.     

Laser-induced fluorescence of se, as, and sb in an electrothermal atomizer

Trace detection of Se, As, and Sb atoms has been performed by electrothermal atomization laser-induced fluorescence (ETA-LIF) approaches. Production of far-UV radiation necessary for excitation of As atoms at 193.696 nm and Se atoms at 196.026 nm was accomplished by stimulated Raman shifting (SRS) of the output of a frequency-doubled dye laser operating near 230 nm. Both wavelengths were obtained as second-order anti-Stokes shifts of the dye laser radiation and provided up to 10 μJ/pulse, which was shown through power dependence studies to be sufficient for saturation in the ETA. An excited-state direct line fluorescence approach using excitation at 206.279 nm was also investigated for the LIF detection of Se. High-sensitivity LIF of Sb atoms was accomplished using 206.833-nm excitation and detection at 259.805 nm. The accuracy of the ETA-LIF approaches was demonstrated by determining the As and Se content of aqueous reference samples. The limits of detection (absolute mass) were 200 fg by ground-state LIF and 150 fg by excited-state direct line fluorescence for Se, 200 fg for As, and 10 fg for Sb; these LODs compare favorably with results reported previously in the literature for ETA-LIF, GFAAS, and ICP-MS methods.     

Stabilization of mode-locked trains,and dark resonance of two-photon lambda-level structures

Our ultimate objective is to design a combined frequency standard for optical as well as radio frequencies. A mode-locked laser provides frequency components that can be used as a ruler to measure any unknown optical source through direct beating. The frequency spacing of a pair of teeth of this comb is in itself a radio frequency reference. Fast control and correction for both the average frequency and the repetition rate of a mode-locked Ti : sapphire laser are achieved by locking the laser to a reference cavity of ultra-low expansion quartz with equal mode spacing. We measure an optical frequency with a mean square deviation of 700 Hz, instability limited by the radio-frequency sources used to count the repetition rate. As a reference standard to achieve absolute accuracy, we use the Λ transition 5S^1/2 (F = 1) → 5D^5/2 (F = 3) → 5S^1/2 (F = 2) of rubidium. The theory for this coherent interaction shows that, with one mode resonant with the two-photon 5S^1/2 (^F = 1) → 5D^5/2 (^F = 3) transition, the fluorescence goes through a resonance for a change in repetition rate of less than 10 kHz. These results suggest that, by locking to the peak of that resonant feature, optical stability and absolute accuracy better than 1 kHz can easily be achieved.     

Continuous-wave-laser versus pulsed-laser excitation for crossed-beam photothermal detection in small volume applications: comparative features

Crossed-beam thermal lens spectrometry can be implemented using continuous-wave- (cw) laser or pulsed-laser excitation. In both cases, the signal depends on the position of the sample with respect to the probe beam waist, the size of the excitation beam, the beamsize ratio into the sample, and the power or energy of the excitation beam. However, due to differences in the rate of formation and relaxation of the thermal lens, both methods exhibit distinct key features. Optimization of the experimental setup and understanding the thermal lens signal are more complicated under cw-laser excitation than with pulsed-laser excitation. Unlike that observed under pulsed excitation, the effect of the excitation beam waist, of the sample size, and of the flow rate are closely related to the effective size of the thermal element and depend on the chopping frequency. Although the intrinsic sensitivities are almost the same, the performance can significantly differ depending on the chopping frequency or pulse repetition rate, which should be high enough to allow fast data collection and efficient signal averaging.