CPA Laser Research Articles

Ultimate efficiency of the quasi-perfect CPA laser constructed of a one-dimensional finite periodic parity-time-symmetric optical waveguide network

In this paper, the ultimate efficiency of the coherent perfect absorber and laser (CPA laser) generated by a one-dimensional (1D) two-connect two-material finite periodic parity-time (PT) symmetric optical waveguide network is studied. It is found that producing a perfect CPA laser four conditions need to be satisfied, but unfortunately they cannot be filled simultaneously, and consequently, a perfect CPA laser is impossible to be achieved. Nevertheless, for a optical waveguide network with given material and unit cell structure, the quasi-perfect CPA laser that generates ultimate efficiency can be designed by means of high-order infinitesimal constraint conditions. The maximal transmissivity and minimal overall output coefficient produced by our designed quasi-perfect CPA laser reach 3.81×1015 and 1.19×10−14, respectively, which are, respectively, 9 orders of magnitude larger and 7 orders of magnitude smaller than the corresponding best reported results. It may possess potential applications in integrated optics, high power lasers, optical signal pulse recovery, highly sensitive optical coherent filters and linear optical switches, etc.

SIMULTANEOUS COMPENSATION OF SECOND AND THIRD ORDER DISPERSION IN CPA LASER SYSTEMS

This paper presents a theoretical study aimed at solving the problem of compensation for second and third order dispersion in CPA laser systems. We study the propagation of light pulses generated by a Ti-Sapphire master oscillator along the path of a stretcher-amplifiers-compressor. The wave equation and dispersion balance equations are used to analyze various Ti-Sapphire amplifier configurations. The research results include the values of the deviation of the compressor length and the angle of incidence of the light pulse on the input diffraction grating of the compressor. Different versions of amplifiers differ in the number of passes of a light pulse through Ti-Sapphire crystals and in the geometric profile of the crystals. The results obtained are presented in the Table. This research is essential for the development of more efficient CPA laser systems.

A review: Rise of PT-symmetry for laser applications

In quantum mechanics, with the groundbreaking discovery of parity-time symmetry (PT-symmetry), Bender and Boettcher unfold the nature of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian to exhibit real eigenvalues. This opened a new doorway to efficiently explore all the previously ignored quantum non-Hermitian systems. The analogy between the Schrödinger equation in quantum mechanics and the paraxial wave equation in optics spurred researchers to apply the concept of PT-symmetry to optical systems. On exploring the PT-symmetric optics experimentally, by engineering loss and gain in the system, a lot of applications have been reported. It includes single-mode lasers, coherent perfect absorber lasers (CPA lasers), exceptional point sensors (EPS), spectral and spatial filters, etc. In addition to linear theoretical models on PT-symmetry, nonlinear theoretical models and the corresponding experimental results have also been reported in the last few decades. This review article begins with the fundamental idea of PT-symmetry for beginners. Subsequently, we elucidate its advancements in the field of optics. Besides, we present the recent developments of various laser systems using PT-symmetry. Thus, this review intends to focus on novel theoretical and experimental works on PT-symmetry.

Extraordinary Characteristics of One-Dimensional PT-Symmetric Ring Optical Waveguide Networks Composed of Adjustable Length Ratio Waveguides.

A novel one-dimensional parity-time-symmetric periodic ring optical waveguide network (1D PTSPROWN) is constructed using magnesium fluoride (MgF2), by adjusting the length ratio of gain and loss materials in PT-symmetric waveguide and ordinary dielectric material, and by optimizing the program to search for the extremum spontaneous PT-symmetric breaking points. The ultra-strong transmission, reflection, and photonic location are noticed in the proposed 1DPTSPROWN as compared with the other PT-symmetric optical waveguide networks. The maximum and minimum reached 1018 and 10−15, respectively, which is more than 6 orders of magnitude greater and 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the best results reported so far. The ultra-strong transmission and reflection peaks, ultra-weak transmission, and reflection valleys generated by electromagnetic waves in this network were found to have interesting resonance and anti-resonance effects. Furthermore, frequency of periodic cycles and violet or redshift laws were discovered in the 1D PTSPROWN of fixed length ratio of gain and loss material in the PT-symmetric waveguide by adjusting the ratio of the upper and lower arm lengths of waveguides. The proposed optical waveguide network might have potential application in the design of CPA lasers, high-efficiency optical accumulators, and several other devices.

High-repetition-rate, 50-µJ-level, 1064-nm, CPA laser system based on a single-stage double-pass Yb-doped rod-type fiber amplifier

A 1064-nm femtosecond fiber chirped pulse amplification (FCPA) laser system based on a single-stage double-pass Yb-doped rod-type photonic crystal fiber (PCF) amplifier was demonstrated with a pulse repetition rate of 500 kHz, which was specially designed for expected conversion efficiency enhancement of a 10.8 eV source. With a series of Yb:fiber power amplifiers, the average output power was boosted to approximately 35 W. Further, using a transmission gratings-based pulse compressor, an average output power of 27.5 W was achieved, corresponding to a pulse energy of 55 µJ and a compression efficiency of 78.6%. The shortest pulse duration was optimized to be 204 fs, which was also accompanied by obvious pedestal. A pulse duration of 336 fs was also obtained when the pulse quality was at a top priority. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of high-repetition-rate high-pulse-energy 1064-nm, instead of 1035-nm, femtosecond laser, based on commercially available Yb-doped rod-type PCF amplifier.

Temporal prepulse contrast degradation in high-intensity CPA lasers from anisotropy of amplifier gain media.

We present a study of the temporal prepulse contrast degradation of high focused intensity pulses produced in CPA laser systems due to imperfections in amplifier design, alignment of amplifier components, and crystal inhomogeneity. Using an extended cross-polarized imaging technique, we demonstrate the presence of multiple crystal domains inside Ti:sapphire slabs with ≈10cm diameter. The results of our numerical calculations show that crystalline c-axis orientation inhomogeneity caused by these crystal domains can lead to the generation of prepulses with a relative contrast of >10-10 within several picoseconds before the main pulse. In a multiple-slab amplifier head configuration sometimes used in high-repetition-rate systems, the misalignment of the crystalline c-axes of the amplifier slab with respect to each other can lead to the generation of prepulses with relative contrast as high as 10-6, depending on the magnitude of misalignment.

Compact millijoule Yb3+:CaF2 laser with 162 fs pulses.

We report on a compact diode-pumped, chirped pulse regenerative amplifier system with a pulse duration of 162 fs and an output pulse energy of 1 mJ before as well as 910 µJ after compression optimized for the probing of ultrafast relativistic laser-plasma processes. A chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) acts as a combined pulse stretcher/compressor representing a robust solution for a CPA laser system in the millijoule range. Yb3+:CaF2 is used as gain medium to support a large bandwidth of 16 nm (FWHM) when spectral gain shaping is applied. Chirped mirrors compensate for any additional dispersion introduced to the system.

1 kW, 10 mJ, 120 fs coherently combined fiber CPA laser system.

An ultrafast fiber chirped-pulse amplification laser system based on a coherent combination of 16 ytterbium-doped rod-type amplifiers is presented. It generates 10 mJ pulse energy at 1 kW average power and 120 fs pulse duration. A partially helium-protected, two-staged chirped-pulse amplification grating compressor is implemented to maintain the close to diffraction-limited beam quality by avoiding nonlinear absorption in air.

Elimination of Secondary Neutrons from Laser Proton-Boron Fusion

For low carbon energy generation, a very large exchange of electricity generators is existentially vital within the next number of years by power stations preferably at considerably low cost than the present installations. When considering the million times higher nuclear energy per reaction than chemical, the usual hydrogen fusion with abundant boron fuel is used for environmentally clean electricity generators. Instead of usually needed ignition temperatures of hundreds of million degrees Celsius, it is possible to use nonthermal ignition pressures from now available CPA laser pulses. In this non-LTE scheme, there is no need for high compression, the medium of hydrogen-boron-11 temperatures is low, and therefore the bremsstrahlung losses practically do not exist. The neutron, created by secondary reactions, elimination device includes tin and is arranged such that the neutrons are brought to nuclear reactions with the tin. We suggest adding the tin that has proven to be particularly advantageous because of its high effective cross section, and the neutron reactions with tin transform the tin nuclei into stable nuclei with a higher atomic weight.

Extreme CPA Laser Pulses for Igniting Nuclear Fusion of Hydrogen with Boron-11 by Non-thermal Pressures for Avoiding Ultrahigh Temperatures

Extreme CPA Laser Pulses for Igniting Nuclear Fusion of Hydrogen with Boron-11 by Non-thermal Pressures for Avoiding Ultrahigh Temperatures

Femtosecond CPA hybrid laser system with pulse-on-demand operation.

In this manuscript we present a true pulse-on-demand concept of a hybrid CPA laser system, consisting of a chirped-pulse fiber amplifier and an additional solid-state amplifier, capable of generating femtosecond pulses on demand without an external optical modulator/shutter. Pulse-on-demand operation is achieved by introducing idler pulses with a few nanoseconds duration and selectively switching between the femtosecond and idler pulses. The idler pulses are used to maintain a constant population inversion in the fiber amplifier as well as in the solid-state amplifier. Second harmonic generation (SHG) unit then effectively filters out the idler pulses due to their low peak power, leaving only a stable femtosecond pulse train. This concept is demonstrated on a CPA hybrid system that can generate pulses with up to 200 µJ at 515 nm with a pulse duration under 450 fs. As there is no optical modulator at the laser output, the presented concept also enables further power scaling.

Dark Energy and Extreme CPA Laser Pulses for Non-thermal Igniting Laser Boron Fusion

Dark Energy and Extreme CPA Laser Pulses for Non-thermal Igniting Laser Boron Fusion

The Scattering Problem in PT‐Symmetric Periodic Structures of 1D Two‐Material Waveguide Networks

AbstractA PT‐symmetric periodic structure with two‐material waveguide networks is constructed. In this study, how changing the number of cells affects the transmission properties is investigated. The results show that the PT‐unbroken (broken) region of the system is only determined by the cell structure, regardless of the number of unit cells. This means that any system has the same exceptional points (EPs), regardless of the number of cells and as long as the cell structure is consistent. In addition, it is confirmed that the coherent perfect absorbers and lasers (CPA lasers) occur in our model. The transfer matrix method is used to derive a sufficient condition for achieving the CPA laser point. A simple, effective formula for predicting the CPA laser state in an N unit cell system is derived.

Development of a few TW Ti:Sa laser system at 100 Hz for proton acceleration

We report the development of a table-top high peak power Titanium:Sapphire (Ti:Sa) CPA laser working at 100 Hz capable of delivering 205 mJ, 55 fs pulses. Every amplification stage is pumped by Nd-doped solid-state lasers and fully powered by diodes. Thermal effects in the Ti:Sa amplifiers are compensated passively with optics. This system is intended to be used for proton acceleration experiments at high repetition rates.

Simulating ultra-intense femtosecond lasers in the 3-dimensional space-time domain.

Femtosecond petawatt (fs-PW) lasers, with femtosecond pulses and sub-meter-sized beams, could be easily distorted by spatiotemporal coupling (STC). In 2016, a femtosecond terawatt pulsed beam was experimentally reconstructed in the 3-dimensional (3D) space-time domain for the first time, and showing STC induced distortions. Referring to recently developed laser techniques, traditional first-order STCs can be controlled and then removed. However, the complex STC induced by wavefront errors in a meter-sized grating compressor, where the spatial and spectral coordinates of beams and pulses are coupled, would introduce a non-negligible and complicated distortion. Herein, we theoretically simulated this complex STC in the 3D space-time/spectrum domain and presented its evolution with various factors, which opens a new perspective to analyze CPA lasers in the 3D domain.

Arch-Shaped triboelectric nanogenerator as a facile device for water-wave vibrational energy

We have derived modified Frantz-Nodvik equations that simultaneously account for atomic phase shift (APS) and gain depletion as the chirped laser pulse passes through a gain medium, and have analyzed the effect of temporal pulse distortion in a Ti:sapphire multipass amplifier chain. The combination of APS and gain depletion distorted a temporal pulse and decreased the peak power. The pulse width increased from 21.3 fs to 22.8 fs and the peak power reduced to 89% for the PW class Ti:sapphire CPA laser system in the particular conditions.

Contrasting eigenvalue and singular-value spectra for lasing and antilasing in aPT-symmetric periodic structure

It has been proposed and demonstrated that lasing and coherent perfect absorption (CPA or ``antilasing'') coexist in parity-time ($\mathcal{PT}$) symmetric photonic systems. In this work we show that the spectral signature of such a CPA laser displayed by the singular value spectrum of the scattering matrix ($S$) can be orders of magnitude wider than that displayed by the eigenvalue spectrum of $S$. Since the former reflects how strongly light can be absorbed or amplified and the latter announces the spontaneous symmetry breaking of $S$, these contrasting spectral signatures indicate that near perfect absorption and extremely strong amplification can be achieved even in the $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric phase of $S$, which is known for and defined by its flux-conserving eigenstates. We also show that these contrasting spectral signatures are accompanied by strikingly different sensitivities to disorder and imperfection, suggesting that the eigenvalue spectrum is potentially suitable for sensing and the singular value spectrum for robust switching. A differential light amplifier may also be devised based on these two spectra.

10 mJ femtosecond Ti: Sapphire regenerative amplifier with large mode size

With advent of chirped-pulse amplification, the peak power of femtosecond laser pulse was reached to petawatt (PW) or hundreds of terawatt (TW). Many progresses of high-field physics and ultrafast dynamics in matter are achieved using TW or PW laser. Pre-amplifier is an exponential growth amplifier which is also a bridge between oscillator and power amplifier. The best choice of pre-amplifier is amplification in regenerative cavity, due to its high stability and beam quality. The quality of pre-amplified laser pulse is significant to efficiency and beam quality of the successive power amplifier. High energy pre-amplifier with high beam quality will reduce the requirement of pump laser in final power amplifier. But typical regenerative amplifier only support low output energy of few millijoule. Higher energy from only one regenerative amplifier is crucial to whole laser system. High energy regenerative amplifier can be achieved by increasing the size of TEM00 in cavity. A new femtosecond Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier with large mode size was demonstrated in this letter. The regenerative cavity is designed as stable linear resonator in which end mirrors are planar, the diameter of beam waist in Ti:sapphire crystal is larger than 2 mm, which can support high energy pulse amplified in cavity. By matching the focal spot of pump laser with the size of mode and optimization of cavity, the output laser energy up to 17.4 mJ was achieved under the pump energy of 60 mJ at repetition rate of 10 Hz, which corresponds to the efficiency of 29%. The amplified laser pulse from regenerative amplifier was compressed in a grating-pair compressor. By carefully alignment of incident angle and distance between the two gratings of compressor, the shortest pulses duration of 40.6 fs and energy of 13.9 mJ are obtained, which is a little bit longer than Fourier-transform limit based on spectrum of laser. The dispersion in the CPA laser system was also analyzed, after optimization of compressor, there are still high order dispersions uncompensated, which results in the duration of compressed pulses longer than Fourier-transform limit. Based on this large mode size regenerative amplifier, peak power of 1.9 TW laser pulses which compressed pulse energy of 81.4 mJ in 43 fs were also further realized by following only one stage of multipass amplifier. The beam quality (M2) was measured to be 1.6 and 1.5 in X and Y directions respectively, and the energy stability is 2.15% (rms). The results show that this large mode size regenerative amplifier is an ideal choice of pre-amplifier in TW laser system.

Back Cover: The generation of amplifi ed spontaneous emission in high‐power CPA laser systems (Laser Photonics Rev. 10(2)/2016)

Back Cover: The generation of amplifi ed spontaneous emission in high‐power CPA laser systems (Laser Photonics Rev. 10(2)/2016)

10-TW high-contrast double CPA laser system for ion acceleration

We demonstrate an insertable pulse cleaning module (IPCM) that is connected to a commercial CPA Ti:sapphire laser system and reduces the background of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), when the output energy and repetition rate of the original laser system is completely preserved. The ASE temporal contrast is suppressed by three orders of magnitude on the benefit of double saturable absorbers involved in the module. Our method can reform old conventional lasers into high-contrast advanced systems.