Far-infrared raman laser with high intensity laser pumping

Theoretical and experimental results are presented for a pulsed far-infrared (FIR) molecular gas laser with high intensity laser pumping. In these FIR lasers, high intensity pumping is found to produce stimulated Raman emission at very large offsets (up to 30 GHz) from resonance with the intermediate state. A theoretical, density matrix model is developed for these lasers to account for simultaneous Raman emission on rotational levels in the ground and excited vibrational states (double Raman resonance). This theoretical approach is necessary in the case of off-resonant, high intensity pumping. Theory predicts the FIR emission frequency, the FIR laser gain, and the pump threshold intensity as a function of pump laser frequency. Experimental results are obtained onP-,Q-, andR-branch transitions in¹²CH3F and¹³CH3F using a single-mode, grating tuned CO2TEA pump laser with an intensity of up to 40 MW/cm². Good agreement is obtained between theory and experiment for the observed values of FIR emission frequency and pump threshold intensity. These results indicate that a widely tunable (150-1200 mum), pulsed FIR CH3F laser could be constructed with a tunable, multiatmospheric CO2pump laser of modest power (about 2-5 MW).     

Ultrashort-Pulse High-Power Yb3+-Doped Fiber Amplifiers

Ultrashort optical pulse propagation in high-power Yb³⁺-doped fiber amplifiers (YDFA) is studied using a spectrally resolved nonlinear power equation for the coupled pulse components. The Yb³⁺ ions transitions are modeled using a rate equation. Examples for high-power YDFAs with normal dispersion show good qualitative agreement with experimental results. We analyze the effects of the incident pulse wavelength, pulse peak power, Yb³⁺ concentration, pump filling factor, fiber length, pumping configuration, pump power and nonlinear index, on the intensity distribution of short amplified pulses. We also demonstrate the spectral compression of an initially negative-chirped pulse.     

利用非均匀抽运探测激光增强阿秒脉冲强度

为了增强高次谐波光谱及阿秒脉冲的强度，采用数值求解薛定谔方程的方法，理论研究了H₂+在抽运探测激光驱动下高次谐波辐射特点。结果表明，在抽运激光驱动下，H₂+首先被激发到多光子共振电离区间，进而增大电离几率; 随后在探测激光驱动下，谐波辐射强度得到增强; 当采用不对称非均匀激光场时，谐波截止频率可以进一步延伸，并且谐波平台区只由单一谐波辐射能量峰贡献; 最后通过叠加傅里叶变换后的谐波可获得脉宽在32as的脉冲。该研究对单个阿秒脉冲的产生是有帮助的。     

Experimental and modeling studies of a Brillouin amplifier

KrF laser-pumped backward Brillouin amplification of nanosecond pulses at 248 nm is investigated both experimentally and numerically. Gain and saturation of the amplifier system are studied for an SF₆ Brillouin medium at pressures of 5 to 15 atm and 24 ns pump pulses at an intensity of ≈9 MW/cm². The input Stokes intensity is varied from 0.001 to 1.0 MW/cm². Power gains of 20 are achieved at energy extraction efficiencies of 40%. Experimental results are compared to a time dependent numerical model of pulse amplification which incorporates arbitrary pump and Stokes pulse shapes and intensities. The effect of laser bandwidth is investigated in the model calculations in order to assess its influence on Brillouin amplification     

The effects of focusing on parametric oscillation

The threshold pump intensity for singly and doubly resonant parametric oscillators and the efficiency of doubly resonant parametric oscillators is calculated for the general case of unequal confocal beam parameters.     

Design of a multi-petawatt optical parametric chirped pulseamplifier for the iodine laser ASTERIX IV

A theoretical design is presented for the generation of peak powers up to ~5 PW and focused intensities higher than 10²³ Wcm^-2 with pulse duration ~20 fs using an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) pumped by the high-power iodine laser Asterix IV. These values represent an improvement to the existing Asterix laser by a factor of ~1000 and at least LOO 000 for the output peak power and focused intensity, respectively. The OPCPA system consists of two LBO preamplifiers and a KDP power amplifier and is pumped by the laser third-harmonic output (438 nm, 500 ps, 500 J). Numerical simulations show that saturation within the OPCPA can be effectively used to counteract the bandwidth narrowing effects brought about by the temporal variation of the pump pulse intensity. The results demonstrate that the OPCPA represents a powerful technique for the generation of ultrahigh powers with iodine lasers at a level currently not achievable with any other approach, and proves that the iodine system is particularly suitable as an OPCPA pump source     

The CW optically pumped 12.08µm Raman laser theory and experiments for high power-conversion efficiency

A model is developed to predict the performance of the continuous-wave CO2-pnmped 12.08 μm NH3laser which is operated by a two-photon or Raman-like process. The local gain and pump absorption are determined from a two-wave three-level treatment based on the density matrix formalism. A ring cavity configuration is considered and interaction of the two intensities inside the cavity are described using coupled wave equations. The subsequent 12.08μm output intensity is calculated for a wide range of operational parameters (injected pump intensity, NH3gas pressure, pump frequency offset, gain length, output coupling,... ). For a well optimized system, power-conversion efficiencies of 10-30 percent should be realistically obtained by pumping with a conventional CW CO2laser. Experiments illustrating the major conclusions are described.     

Probe beam amplification via two- and four-wave mixings in a nematic liquid crystal film

We have observed very large probe beam gain (up to 600 percent) in a thin film (100 μm) of nematic liquid crystal for a low pump beam intensity on the order of 2 W/cm². The effect is nonlinearly dependent on the pump intensity and the wave mixing angle.     

Polarization Dependence of Femtosecond Optical Kerr Signals in Bismuth Glasses

Using the optical Kerr shutter (OKS) technique with an 800-nm femtosecond laser, we demonstrated that the response time of the glass was less than 85 fs. The nonlinear refractive-index of Bi₂O₃-B₂O₃-SiO₂ (BI) oxide glass was estimated to be about 2.93times10^{- 15}cm²/W. By measuring the dependence of the OKS signals on the pump power and on the polarization angle between pump and probe beams, we found that the OKS signals arose mainly from the photoinduced birefringence effect, and the polarization dependence of the signals was dependent on the intensity ratio of the pump beam to the probe beam.     

Avalanche region width in various structures of IMPATT diodes

The avalanche region of one-sided and two-sided abrupt junctions has been studied. These are the structures most commonly utilized for IMPATT diodes. Numerical results are presented which show that n⁺-p Si diodes have much narrower avalanche regions, due to the unequal ionization rates in Si, than the complementary p⁺-n type. The implications of these results with respect to IMPATT diode design are discussed.     

Pump-induced refractive index modulation and dispersions inEr3+-doped fibers

A novel measurement system provides determination of pump induced phase shifts in erbium doped fibers with an accuracy of ~π/20. Using this system, a systematical analysis of the pump induced modulation of the refractive index and dispersions for a signal at 1550 nm and a pump at 980 nm is reported. The analysis contains measurements of pump induced refractive index changes as function of wavelength, pump power, and doping concentration. A model taking account of the contribution to the refractive index changes from optical transitions between ⁴ I_15/2 states and ⁴I_13/2 states in Er³⁺ yields good agreement to experimental results apart from a wavelength independent offset. The offset is interpreted to originate from high energetic optical transitions. The results show that for a large refractive index modulation, a short and highly doped fiber should be used with limited amplified spontaneous emission effect. In optical communication systems comprising erbium doped fiber amplifiers, a tradeoff between dispersion and amplification must be made     

A tunable far infrared laser

A continuously tunable far infrared (FIR) laser has been demonstrated; experimental results are presented. A high-pressure (10-12 atm) continuously tunable CO2TE laser is used to pump Raman transitions in CH3F; the generation of continuously tunable radiation in the250-300 mum wavelength range is reported. Accurate frequency and bandwidth measurements have been made and the FIR bandwidth in superradiant emission isapprox4-5GHz. Consequently, the generation of frequency tunable, subnanosecond pulses in the FIR appears feasible. The generation of tunable laser radiation from 150 to 1000 μm by stimulated Raman scattering should be possible using higher pump intensity and/or other gases.     

铷原子磁力仪最佳抽运光强的研究

为了得到铷原子磁力仪的最佳抽运光强,进而优化原子磁力仪的灵敏度,理论分析了抽运光强与磁力仪的极化率、信噪比以及灵敏度之间的关系,设计了实验装置。采用自由感应衰减法对直径20mm的铷原子球形气室在不同抽运光强下对应的横向弛豫时间进行测量,并对相应的纵向弛豫时间进行测量,计算出了不同光强下的极化率,通过拟合得到了光强与极化率、信噪比以及灵敏度之间的关系曲线。结果表明,可在10mW/cm2附近得到系统最佳抽运光强。此研究结果为提高光强利用率并进一步优化铷原子磁力仪的灵敏度提供了指导。     

Noise Statistics in Fiber Optical Parametric Amplifiers

In this paper, we show both theoretically and experimentally that the probability density function of the intensity of an amplified signal by parametric amplifiers subject to a pump with excess noise is highly asymmetric. This is due to the nonlinear relationship between the optical pump power and the parametric gain. Because of this, the relationship between the noise figure (NF) and the bit error rate (BER) is modified, compared with that predicted by the chi² theory, which is an effect that is notable at large NFs and low BERs. The difference in predicted BER can be of several orders of magnitudes between the correct theory and the chi² approximation in single-stage parametric amplifiers. We also show that in the limit of many cascaded parametric amplifiers, the statistics of the noise of an amplified optical signal approaches chi². Furthermore, the BER of a parametric amplifier is generally lower compared with erbium-doped fiber amplifiers for the same NF values if we assume quantum-limited amplification     

Pulsed CO2laser with double modulation

For the pulse pumped CO2laser we used Q-switching to investigate inversion kinetics. The pump was synchronized with the Q-switching mirror. It was possible to obtain the Q-switch pulses at any phase of the pump pulse. The repetition rate was 50 Hz and the pump pulse duration was 4 or 10 ms. It was found that there is an optimum delay in switching the cavity Q-factor after the discharge started. The giant pulse intensity increased several times after the discharge was switched from CW to pulses. The inversion rise time was 1-2 ms and its lifetime was strongly dependent on the discharge current, due to plasma heating during the current pulse. Increasing the helium percentage in the discharge prolonged the inversion lifetime because of high thermal conductivity of helium gas. Gaseous BCl3was chosen to obtain the CO2laser giant pulses with bleachable filter. The vibronic frequency V3of the B¹¹Cl3molecules coincides with thePlines of the CO2laser. Rarer B¹⁰Cl3corresponds to less activeRlines. Pure BCl3did not give the giant pulses. Adding helium to the BCl3cell gave the pulses. The best results came from adding very small amounts of ammonia NH3because of the effective vibrational energy transfer between colliding BCl3and NH3molecules.     

Dispersion in a laser-pumped molecular laser

The dispersion equations are derived for two laser fields of arbitrary intensity interacting with a homogeneously broadened, three-level molecular system. The results obtained apply to laser-pumped molecular lasers and may be used to analyze frequency pulling of the emitting laser and self-focusing or defocusing of the pump laser. The laser fields are allowed to be of arbitrary intensity and to be on or off resonance. The dispersion function for the emitting laserchi'(omega_{s})is evaluated in various limits. The present theory is applied to analyze previous experimental data for cavity frequency pulling in CO2laser-pumped molecular lasers, including a 385-μm D2O laser and a 496-μm CH3F laser. Good agreement is found between theory and experiment.     

Influence of Pump-to-Signal RIN Transfer on Noise Figure in Silicon Raman Amplifiers

The effect of the relative intensity noise (RIN), transferred from the pump to the signal, in 1-cm-long chip scale silicon Raman amplifiers is investigated in the presence of nonlinear losses. We show that due to the short waveguide length, the reduction in fluctuations that normally occurs due to “walk-off” between pump and signal waves in fiber amplifiers is inefficient in chip scale Raman amplifiers. In the counterpropagating pump configuration, which leads to minimum frequency RIN transfer, fluctuations up to 1.5 GHz are transferred from the pump to the signal. As a case study, the noise figure degrades by as much as 11 dB in the silicon waveguide with the free carrier life time of 0.1 ns, when it is pumped with a laser with a RIN value of $-$125 dB/Hz.      

Oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser pumped Nd:YVO4 microchip lasers

In this letter, we demonstrate an experimental study of using a large area oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) to pump a Nd:YVO₄ microchip laser. The maximum output power of 1.2 mW in TEM₀₀ mode is obtained with a pump power of 8.2 mW. Experimental results show that the complex transverse modal behavior of VCSELs in the higher injection current may cause an impediment of power scaling     

Dynamic Stark effect in CH3F and other optically pumped lasers

The dynamic Stark effect in optically pumped lasers is discussed. Javan's theory of three-level masers is extended and elucidated by transforming his expressions into new forms in which all of the major terms can be deduced from a modified energy-level diagram through simple physical arguments. The gain spectra of high-power 496-μm CH3F lasers are calculated from the theory. Contrary to previous interpretations, the wide emission bandwidth at pump intensities above 30 kW/cm²is shown to be primarily due to the dynamic Stark effect onK= 1, 2,and 3 components. It is found that to obtain a narrow emission bandwidth the pump intensity should be kept below 10 kW/cm².     

Gain and saturation intensity of the green Ho:ZBLAN upconversionfiber amplifier and laser

The gain and saturation intensity of the green Ho-doped fluorozirconate (ZBLAN) glass fiber amplifier and laser, pumped in the red (643 ⩽ λ_p ⩽ 649 nm; ⁵F₅ ← ⁵I₈), have been measured. For a 2.4-μm core diameter fiber 45 cm in length, the single-pass gain at 543.4 nm exceeds 12 dB for 90 mW of pump power at 643.5 nm. The saturation power for the ⁵F₄, ⁵S₂ → ⁵I₈ lasing transition was determined from gain measurements to be 970 ± 175 μW, which corresponds to a saturation intensity of 19.8 ± 3.5 kW · cm^-2 , and a stimulated emission cross section approximately one order of magnitude larger than theoretical estimates