Repetition Rate Of Femtosecond Laser Research Articles

Phase-shifting digital holographic microscopy for microstructure measurement by sweeping the repetition rate of femtosecond laser

This paper proposes a phase-shifting digital holographic microscopy (PSDHM) for microstructure measurement by sweeping the repetition rate of femtosecond laser, and a multiple reflection arrangement between two quasi-parallel mirrors is constructed for optical multiplication. High precision phase-shifting can be achieved by sweeping the repetition rate of the femtosecond laser referenced to a Rb atomic clock without any mechanical sweeping. Optical multiplication can shorten the spatial distance of the optical delay line used for pulses alignment, make the PSDHM structure compact and stable, and avoid certain environmental disturbances. In the experiments, a ten-step phase-shifting test was first carried out for evaluating the phase-shifting accuracy, and the phase-shifting error was calculated to be in the range of −1° to 0.25°. Then, a USAF 1951 resolution target and a microstructure standard target were measured using a four-step PSDHM, and the measurement results were compared with those from a stylus profiler and a white light interferometer, respectively. The lateral resolution of PSDHM was tested to be about 2.1 μm, and the maximum error of the longitudinal measurement was within 6 nm. Experiments verify that the PSDHM system has good performance in terms of phase-shifting accuracy, surface topography measurement and coherent noise suppression.

Multiscale Investigation of Femtosecond Laser Pulses Processing Aluminum in Burst Mode

ABSTRACTMegahertz is the highest femtosecond laser repetition rate that the state-of-the art technology can achieve. In this article, a single femtosecond laser pulse is burst into multiple femtosecond laser pulses to process aluminum. The temporal gap between two consecutive burst pulses is 2 picoseconds, which is much shorter than the temporal gap between two consecutive pulses at the repetition rate of megahertz. By taking the thermophysical scenarios of femtosecond laser induced of electron thermalization, electron heat conduction, electron–phonon-coupled heat transfer and atomic motion into account, a multiscale framework integrating ab initio quantum mechanical calculation, molecular dynamics and two-temperature model are constructed. The effect of femtosecond laser pulse number on the incubation phenomenon is studied. Comparing with the single pulse-processing aluminum film, the femtosecond laser in burst mode leads to smaller thermal stress, which is favorable to reduce the thermal mechanical damage of the material beneath the laser-irradiated surface. Appreciable differences among the simulation results by using electron thermophysical parameters from ab initio quantum mechanical calculation and those from experimental measurement, empirical estimation and calculation are found, indicating the essentials to precisely model the electron thermal response subject to femtosecond laser excitation.

Rapid volumetric imaging with Bessel-Beam three-photon microscopy.

Owing to its tissue-penetration ability, multi-photon fluorescence microscopy allows for the high-resolution, non-invasive imaging of deep tissue in vivo; the recently developed three-photon microscopy (3PM) has extended the depth of high-resolution, non-invasive functional imaging of mouse brains to beyond 1.0 mm. However, the low repetition rate of femtosecond lasers that are normally used in 3PM limits the temporal resolution of point-scanning three-photon microscopy. To increase the volumetric imaging speed of 3PM, we propose a combination of an axially elongated needle-like Bessel-beam with three-photon excitation (3PE) to image biological samples with an extended depth of focus. We demonstrate the higher signal-to-background ratio (SBR) of the Bessel-beam 3PM compared to the two-photon version both theoretically and experimentally. Finally, we perform simultaneous calcium imaging of brain regions at different axial locations in live fruit flies and rapid volumetric imaging of neuronal structures in live mouse brains. These results highlight the unique advantage of conducting rapid volumetric imaging with a high SBR in the deep brain in vivo using scanning Bessel-3PM.

Femtosecond laser induced periodic surface structure on poly-L-lactic acid.

Laser-induced periodic surface structure (LIPSS) is one of the most remarkable nanostructures formed only by a simple procedure of laser irradiation that enables to control cell behaviors. To the best of our knowledge, however, LIPSS formation on a scaffold-usable biodegradable polymer had not been succeede d probably due to relatively-low glass transition temperature and melting temperature of such polymers. In this study, we demonstrate LIPSS formation on a poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA), a versatile biodegradable polymer which has been widely used in clinical practice. Experimental results revealed that the repetition rate of femtosecond laser is one of the key parameters for LIPSS formation on PLLA, suggesting that thermal properties and photochemical reactions should be considered. The present study expands the potential of femtosecond laser processing for fabrication of highly-biocompatible scaffold in tissue engineering.

High-resolution spectroscopy with a femtosecond laser frequency comb

The output of a mode-locked femtosecond laser is used for precision single-photon spectroscopy of 133Cs in an atomic beam. By changing the laser's repetition rate, the cesium D1 (6s 2S(1/2)-->6p 2P(1/2)) and D2 (6s 2S(1/2)-->6p 2P(3/2)) transitions are detected and the optical frequencies are measured with accuracy similar to that obtained with a cw laser. Control of the femtosecond laser repetition rate by use of the atomic fluorescence is also implemented, thus realizing a simple cesium optical clock.