New compressed Ti:sapphire femtosecond amplifier layout

Andrew J. Carson; Charles C. Barnes; Sergey Tenyakov

doi:10.1117/12.645458

28 February 2006 New compressed Ti:sapphire femtosecond amplifier layout

Andrew J. Carson, Charles C. Barnes, Sergey Tenyakov

Proceedings Volume 6108, Commercial and Biomedical Applications of Ultrafast Lasers VI; 61080Z (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.645458
Event: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2006, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

A novel new design for an 8-pass multipass Titanium doped sapphire femtosecond amplifier (MPA) is studied. Ultrafast amplifiers based on the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique have been widely used to amplify the output pulses of Kerr lens mode locked (KLM) Ti:sapphire lasers from the nanojoule to the microjoule level. The system presented here also takes advantage of CPA to reduce the peak power and thus the potential damage to optical components from self-focusing. The amplifier scheme is based on a single curved mirror and a Brewster cut Ti:sapphire laser rod. Optical excitation of the Ti:sapphire gain medium is achieved by pumping with a Q-switched and frequency doubled Nd:YLF laser at 527 nm. The rear face of the gain crystal is coated to form a high reflector for both the pumping wavelength (490-550 nm) and the amplified seed pulse (740-860 nm). In this configuration the gain crystal itself acts as a second mirror, reducing the size of the amplifier and allowing for the most effective use of the pumping energy. By employing a Brewster cut lasing crystal the amount of active gain material can be adjusted for maximum gain. The advantages of this approach, compared to traditional two curved mirror MPA designs, are the reduced foot print and the ability to easily adjust the amount of gain material. At the same time the system retains the low amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and temporally clean output pulse characteristic of MPA systems.

Citation Download Citation

Andrew J. Carson, Charles C. Barnes, and Sergey Tenyakov "New compressed Ti:sapphire femtosecond amplifier layout", Proc. SPIE 6108, Commercial and Biomedical Applications of Ultrafast Lasers VI, 61080Z (28 February 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.645458

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KEYWORDS

Crystals

Mirrors

Optical amplifiers

Amplifiers

Femtosecond phenomena

Laser crystals

Oscillators

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