A novel method,combining an asymmetric four-grating compressor(AFGC)with pulse post-compression,is numerically demonstrated to improve the spatial uniformity of laser beams and hence to suppress small-scale self-focus...A novel method,combining an asymmetric four-grating compressor(AFGC)with pulse post-compression,is numerically demonstrated to improve the spatial uniformity of laser beams and hence to suppress small-scale self-focusing(SSSF)during the beam propagation in nonlinear materials of high peak power lasers.The spatial uniformity of laser beams is an important factor in performing post-compression,due to the spatial intensity modulation,or hot spots will be aggravated during the nonlinear propagation and then seriously damage the subsequent optical components.Three-dimensional numerical simulations of post-compression are implemented based on a femtosecond laser with a standard compressor and an AFGC,respectively.The simulated results indicate that post-compression with the AFGC can efficiently suppress the SSSF and also shorten the laser pulses from 30 fs to sub-10 fs.This work can provide a promising route to overcome the challenge of SSSF and will be meaningful to promote the practical application of the post-compression technique in high peak power lasers.展开更多
We demonstrate efficient and economical all-solid-state post-compression based on dual-stage periodically placed thin fused silica plates driven by a more than 100 W ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet Innoslab am...We demonstrate efficient and economical all-solid-state post-compression based on dual-stage periodically placed thin fused silica plates driven by a more than 100 W ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet Innoslab amplifier seeded by a fiber frontend.Not only is a more than eight-fold pulse compression with 94%transmission achieved,but also the pulse quality and spatial mode are improved,which can be attributed to the compensation for the residual high-order dispersion and the spatial mode self-cleaning effect during the nonlinear process.It enables a high-power ultrafast laser source with 64 fs pulse duration,96 W average power at 175 k Hz repetition rates and good spatiotemporal quality.These results highlight that this all-solid-state post-compression can overcome the bandwidth limitation of Yb-based lasers with exceptional efficiency and mitigate the spatiotemporal degradation originating from the Innoslab amplifier and fiber frontend,which provides an efficient and economical complement for the Innoslab laser system and facilitates this robust and compact combination as a promising scheme for high-quality higher-power few-cycle laser generation.展开更多
We report on compact and robust supercontinuum generation and post-compression using transmission of light through multiple thin solid plates at the Swiss FEL X-ray free-electron laser facility.A single stage consisti...We report on compact and robust supercontinuum generation and post-compression using transmission of light through multiple thin solid plates at the Swiss FEL X-ray free-electron laser facility.A single stage consisting of three thin plates followed by a chirped mirror compressor achieves compression of initially 30-fs pulses with 800-nm center wavelength to sub-10-fs duration.We also demonstrate a two-stage implementation to compress the pulses further to sub-5-fs duration.With the two-stage setup,the generated supercontinuum includes wavelengths ranging from 500 to 1100 nm.The multiplate setup is compact,robust,and stable,which makes it ideal for applications at free-electron laser facilities such as pump-probe experiments and laser-arrival timing tools.展开更多
The post-compression technique based on self-phase modulation of high-energy pulses leads to an increase in achievable peak power and intensity.Typically,the pulses considered in experiments have been less than 100 fs...The post-compression technique based on self-phase modulation of high-energy pulses leads to an increase in achievable peak power and intensity.Typically,the pulses considered in experiments have been less than 100 fs in duration.Here,the method is applied to the ELFIE laser system at the LULI facility,for a pulse of 7 J energy and an initial measured duration of 350 fs.A 5-mm-thick fused silica window and a 2 mm cyclic-olefin polymer were used as optical nonlinear materials.The 9 cm diameter beam was spectrally broadened to a bandwidth corresponding to 124 fs Fourier-limited pulse duration,and then it was partly post-compressed to 200 fs.After measuring the spatial spectra of the beam fluence,a uniform gain factor of 4 increase in the fluctuations over the studied range of frequencies is observed,due to small-scale self-focusing.展开更多
A cylindrical vector beam is utilized to enhance the energy scale of the pulse post-compressed in a bulk-material Herriott multi-pass cell(MPC).The method proposed here enables,for the first time to the best of our kn...A cylindrical vector beam is utilized to enhance the energy scale of the pulse post-compressed in a bulk-material Herriott multi-pass cell(MPC).The method proposed here enables,for the first time to the best of our knowledge,pulse compression from 14 ps down to 475 fs with throughput energy beyond 1 mJ,corresponding to a compression ratio of 30,which is the highest pulse energy and compression ratio in single-stage bulk-material MPCs.Furthermore,we demonstrate the characteristic of the vector polarization beam is preserved in the MPC.展开更多
The generation of power-and wavelength-scalable few optical cycle pulses remains one of the major challenges in modern laser physics.Over the past decade,the development of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse a...The generation of power-and wavelength-scalable few optical cycle pulses remains one of the major challenges in modern laser physics.Over the past decade,the development of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplificationbased systems was progressing at amazing speed,demonstrating excellent performance characteristics in terms of pulse duration,energy,peak power and repetition rate,which place them at the front line of modern ultrafast laser technology.At present,table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers comprise a unique class of ultrafast light sources,which currently amplify octave-spanning spectra and produce carrier-envelope phase-stable,few optical cycle pulses with multi-gigawatt to multi-terawatt peak powers and multi-watt average powers,with carrier wavelengths spanning a considerable range of the optical spectrum.This article gives an overview on the state of the art of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers,addressing their relevant scientific and technological aspects,and provides a short outlook of practical applications in the growing field of ultrafast science.展开更多
We demonstrate the generation,spectral broadening and post-compression of second harmonic pulses using a thin beta barium borate(BBO)crystal on a fused-silica substrate as the nonlinear interaction medium.By combining...We demonstrate the generation,spectral broadening and post-compression of second harmonic pulses using a thin beta barium borate(BBO)crystal on a fused-silica substrate as the nonlinear interaction medium.By combining second harmonic generation in the BBO crystal with self-phase modulation in the fused-silica substrate,we efficiently generate millijoule-level broadband violet pulses from a single optical component.The second harmonic spectrum covers a range from long wave ultraviolet(down to 310 nm)to visible(up to 550 nm)with a bandwidth of 65 nm.Subsequently,we compress the second harmonic beam to a duration of 4.8 fs with a pulse energy of 0.64 mJ(5 fs with a pulse energy of 1.05 mJ)using chirped mirrors.The all-solid free-space apparatus is compact,robust and pulse energy scalable,making it highly advantageous for generating intense second harmonic pulses from near-infrared femtosecond lasers in the sub-5 fs regime.展开更多
We demonstrate an efficient ultrafast source with 195 fs pulse duration,54 W average power at 200 kHz repetition rate and near diffraction-limited beam quality.The compact setup incorporates a thin-disk Yb:YAG regener...We demonstrate an efficient ultrafast source with 195 fs pulse duration,54 W average power at 200 kHz repetition rate and near diffraction-limited beam quality.The compact setup incorporates a thin-disk Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier(RA)and a subsequent nonlinear pulse compression stage with periodic-layered Kerr media(PLKM),which is one of the multiple-thin-solid-plate schemes based on nonlinear resonator theory.In virtue of the formation of quasi-stationary spatial soliton in PLKM,the near diffraction-limited beam quality of the RA remained almost undisturbed after post-compression.The nonlinear pulse compression module is simple and efficient with a transmission of 96%.To the best our knowledge,for pulse energy over 200μJ,this is the highest output power reported for the multiple-thin-solid-plate scheme.This source manifests an economical combination to mitigate the bandwidth limitations of Yb-based high-power chirped pulse amplifiers.展开更多
Spectral-broadening of the APOLLON PW-class laser pulses using a thin-film compression technique within the longfocal-area interaction chamber of the APOLLON laser facility is reported,demonstrating the delivery of th...Spectral-broadening of the APOLLON PW-class laser pulses using a thin-film compression technique within the longfocal-area interaction chamber of the APOLLON laser facility is reported,demonstrating the delivery of the full energy pulse to the target interaction area.The laser pulse at 7 J passing through large aperture,thin glass wafers is spectrally broadened to a bandwidth that is compatible with a 15-fs pulse,indicating also the possibility to achieve sub-10-fs pulses using 14 J.Placing the post-compressor near the interaction makes for an economical method to produce the shortest pulses by limiting the need for high damage,broadband optics close to the final target rather than throughout the entire laser transport system.展开更多
The input pulse of the laser PEARL with energy of 18 J and pulse duration of about 60 fs was compressed to 10 fs after passage through a 4-mm-thick KDP crystal and reflection at two chirped mirrors with sum dispersion...The input pulse of the laser PEARL with energy of 18 J and pulse duration of about 60 fs was compressed to 10 fs after passage through a 4-mm-thick KDP crystal and reflection at two chirped mirrors with sum dispersion of-200 fs^(2).The experiments were performed for the B-integral values from 5 to 19 without visible damage to the optical elements,which indicates that small-scale self-focusing is not a significant issue.It was shown that,by virtue of the low dispersion of the group velocity,the KDP crystal has some advantages over silica:a larger pulse compression coefficient,especially at a small value of the B-integral(B=5,...,9),lower absolute values of chirped mirror dispersion,and also a possibility to control the magnitude of nonlinearity and dispersion by changing crystal orientation.展开更多
It was shown experimentally that for a 65-fs 17-J pulse,the effect of filamentation instability,also known as small-scale self-focusing,is much weaker than that predicted by stationary and nonstationary theoretical mo...It was shown experimentally that for a 65-fs 17-J pulse,the effect of filamentation instability,also known as small-scale self-focusing,is much weaker than that predicted by stationary and nonstationary theoretical models for high B-integral values.Although this discrepancy has been left unexplained at the moment,in practice no signs of filamentation may allow a breakthrough in nonlinear pulse post-compression at high laser energy.展开更多
基金supported by the National Key R&D Program of China(2022YFE0204800,2022YFA1604401,2019YFF01014401)Shanghai Sailing Program(21YF1453800)+5 种基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(11127901,61925507)International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences(181231KYSB20200040)Shanghai Science and Technology Committee Program(22560780100,23560750200)Chinese Academy of Sciences President’s International Fellowship Initiative(2023VMB0008)Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation(075-15-2020-906,Center of Excellence‘Center of Photonics’)Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences。
文摘A novel method,combining an asymmetric four-grating compressor(AFGC)with pulse post-compression,is numerically demonstrated to improve the spatial uniformity of laser beams and hence to suppress small-scale self-focusing(SSSF)during the beam propagation in nonlinear materials of high peak power lasers.The spatial uniformity of laser beams is an important factor in performing post-compression,due to the spatial intensity modulation,or hot spots will be aggravated during the nonlinear propagation and then seriously damage the subsequent optical components.Three-dimensional numerical simulations of post-compression are implemented based on a femtosecond laser with a standard compressor and an AFGC,respectively.The simulated results indicate that post-compression with the AFGC can efficiently suppress the SSSF and also shorten the laser pulses from 30 fs to sub-10 fs.This work can provide a promising route to overcome the challenge of SSSF and will be meaningful to promote the practical application of the post-compression technique in high peak power lasers.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(No.62005298)the Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader(No.20SR014501)Zhangjiang Laboratory。
文摘We demonstrate efficient and economical all-solid-state post-compression based on dual-stage periodically placed thin fused silica plates driven by a more than 100 W ytterbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet Innoslab amplifier seeded by a fiber frontend.Not only is a more than eight-fold pulse compression with 94%transmission achieved,but also the pulse quality and spatial mode are improved,which can be attributed to the compensation for the residual high-order dispersion and the spatial mode self-cleaning effect during the nonlinear process.It enables a high-power ultrafast laser source with 64 fs pulse duration,96 W average power at 175 k Hz repetition rates and good spatiotemporal quality.These results highlight that this all-solid-state post-compression can overcome the bandwidth limitation of Yb-based lasers with exceptional efficiency and mitigate the spatiotemporal degradation originating from the Innoslab amplifier and fiber frontend,which provides an efficient and economical complement for the Innoslab laser system and facilitates this robust and compact combination as a promising scheme for high-quality higher-power few-cycle laser generation.
文摘We report on compact and robust supercontinuum generation and post-compression using transmission of light through multiple thin solid plates at the Swiss FEL X-ray free-electron laser facility.A single stage consisting of three thin plates followed by a chirped mirror compressor achieves compression of initially 30-fs pulses with 800-nm center wavelength to sub-10-fs duration.We also demonstrate a two-stage implementation to compress the pulses further to sub-5-fs duration.With the two-stage setup,the generated supercontinuum includes wavelengths ranging from 500 to 1100 nm.The multiplate setup is compact,robust,and stable,which makes it ideal for applications at free-electron laser facilities such as pump-probe experiments and laser-arrival timing tools.
基金This work was supported by the Center of Excellence‘Center of Photonics’,Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation(contract No.075-15-2020-906)Project ELI-RO 16/2020 SBUF funded by the Institute for Atomic Physics(IFA)and by the Council for Doctoral Studies(CSUD),University of Bucharest.
文摘The post-compression technique based on self-phase modulation of high-energy pulses leads to an increase in achievable peak power and intensity.Typically,the pulses considered in experiments have been less than 100 fs in duration.Here,the method is applied to the ELFIE laser system at the LULI facility,for a pulse of 7 J energy and an initial measured duration of 350 fs.A 5-mm-thick fused silica window and a 2 mm cyclic-olefin polymer were used as optical nonlinear materials.The 9 cm diameter beam was spectrally broadened to a bandwidth corresponding to 124 fs Fourier-limited pulse duration,and then it was partly post-compressed to 200 fs.After measuring the spatial spectra of the beam fluence,a uniform gain factor of 4 increase in the fluctuations over the studied range of frequencies is observed,due to small-scale self-focusing.
文摘A cylindrical vector beam is utilized to enhance the energy scale of the pulse post-compressed in a bulk-material Herriott multi-pass cell(MPC).The method proposed here enables,for the first time to the best of our knowledge,pulse compression from 14 ps down to 475 fs with throughput energy beyond 1 mJ,corresponding to a compression ratio of 30,which is the highest pulse energy and compression ratio in single-stage bulk-material MPCs.Furthermore,we demonstrate the characteristic of the vector polarization beam is preserved in the MPC.
基金We are grateful to Dr.D.Kaškelytėfor building a comprehensive literature database on OPCPA.We also would like to add the following dedication at the very end of the paper:This article is dedicated to the memory of Professor Algis Petras Piskarskas(1942-2022).
文摘The generation of power-and wavelength-scalable few optical cycle pulses remains one of the major challenges in modern laser physics.Over the past decade,the development of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplificationbased systems was progressing at amazing speed,demonstrating excellent performance characteristics in terms of pulse duration,energy,peak power and repetition rate,which place them at the front line of modern ultrafast laser technology.At present,table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers comprise a unique class of ultrafast light sources,which currently amplify octave-spanning spectra and produce carrier-envelope phase-stable,few optical cycle pulses with multi-gigawatt to multi-terawatt peak powers and multi-watt average powers,with carrier wavelengths spanning a considerable range of the optical spectrum.This article gives an overview on the state of the art of table-top optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers,addressing their relevant scientific and technological aspects,and provides a short outlook of practical applications in the growing field of ultrafast science.
文摘We demonstrate the generation,spectral broadening and post-compression of second harmonic pulses using a thin beta barium borate(BBO)crystal on a fused-silica substrate as the nonlinear interaction medium.By combining second harmonic generation in the BBO crystal with self-phase modulation in the fused-silica substrate,we efficiently generate millijoule-level broadband violet pulses from a single optical component.The second harmonic spectrum covers a range from long wave ultraviolet(down to 310 nm)to visible(up to 550 nm)with a bandwidth of 65 nm.Subsequently,we compress the second harmonic beam to a duration of 4.8 fs with a pulse energy of 0.64 mJ(5 fs with a pulse energy of 1.05 mJ)using chirped mirrors.The all-solid free-space apparatus is compact,robust and pulse energy scalable,making it highly advantageous for generating intense second harmonic pulses from near-infrared femtosecond lasers in the sub-5 fs regime.
基金the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2017YFB0405202)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(62005298)the Program of Shanghai Academic/Technology Research Leader(20SR014501).
文摘We demonstrate an efficient ultrafast source with 195 fs pulse duration,54 W average power at 200 kHz repetition rate and near diffraction-limited beam quality.The compact setup incorporates a thin-disk Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier(RA)and a subsequent nonlinear pulse compression stage with periodic-layered Kerr media(PLKM),which is one of the multiple-thin-solid-plate schemes based on nonlinear resonator theory.In virtue of the formation of quasi-stationary spatial soliton in PLKM,the near diffraction-limited beam quality of the RA remained almost undisturbed after post-compression.The nonlinear pulse compression module is simple and efficient with a transmission of 96%.To the best our knowledge,for pulse energy over 200μJ,this is the highest output power reported for the multiple-thin-solid-plate scheme.This source manifests an economical combination to mitigate the bandwidth limitations of Yb-based high-power chirped pulse amplifiers.
基金the support in this work provided through the project SBUF (ELI-RO 16/2020)
文摘Spectral-broadening of the APOLLON PW-class laser pulses using a thin-film compression technique within the longfocal-area interaction chamber of the APOLLON laser facility is reported,demonstrating the delivery of the full energy pulse to the target interaction area.The laser pulse at 7 J passing through large aperture,thin glass wafers is spectrally broadened to a bandwidth that is compatible with a 15-fs pulse,indicating also the possibility to achieve sub-10-fs pulses using 14 J.Placing the post-compressor near the interaction makes for an economical method to produce the shortest pulses by limiting the need for high damage,broadband optics close to the final target rather than throughout the entire laser transport system.
基金supported by the Center of Excellence“Center of Photonics”funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation,agreement No.075-152020-906by the European Commission,grant agreement#871072-CREMLINplus。
文摘The input pulse of the laser PEARL with energy of 18 J and pulse duration of about 60 fs was compressed to 10 fs after passage through a 4-mm-thick KDP crystal and reflection at two chirped mirrors with sum dispersion of-200 fs^(2).The experiments were performed for the B-integral values from 5 to 19 without visible damage to the optical elements,which indicates that small-scale self-focusing is not a significant issue.It was shown that,by virtue of the low dispersion of the group velocity,the KDP crystal has some advantages over silica:a larger pulse compression coefficient,especially at a small value of the B-integral(B=5,...,9),lower absolute values of chirped mirror dispersion,and also a possibility to control the magnitude of nonlinearity and dispersion by changing crystal orientation.
基金This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation No.075-15-2020-906(Center of Excellence‘Center of Photonics’).
文摘It was shown experimentally that for a 65-fs 17-J pulse,the effect of filamentation instability,also known as small-scale self-focusing,is much weaker than that predicted by stationary and nonstationary theoretical models for high B-integral values.Although this discrepancy has been left unexplained at the moment,in practice no signs of filamentation may allow a breakthrough in nonlinear pulse post-compression at high laser energy.
