Seed Laser Pulse Research Articles

High-precision high-stability acousto-optic pulse picking driver with a direct digital synthesis technique.

A method for maintaining a fixed phase relationship between the driving signal of acousto-optic modulator (AOM) and the original mode-locked seed laser is proposed and realized, which stabilizes the amplitude of diffracted signal output from the AOM for subsequent amplification. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA), combined with external summing amplifiers, is used to directly synthesize high-timing-precision driving signals that are synchronized with the seed laser pulses, and the accuracy of signal timing control reaches 160 ps. Using this driver, the standard deviation of the diffracted signal output from the AOM is significantly decreased from 0.52% to 0.18%. This pulse-picking solution also includes a control system that can flexibly control the frequency, gating width, etc., of the driving signal, which makes it more convenient for subsequent laser amplification and makes it suitable for a variety of mode-locked lasers.

Evolution of density-modulated electron beams in drift sections

Initiating the amplification process in a short-wavelength free-electron laser (FEL) by external seed laser pulses results in radiation with a high degree of longitudinal and transverse coherence. The basic layout in seeded harmonic generation involves a periodic electron energy modulation by laser-electron interaction in a short undulator (the “modulator”), which is converted into a density modulation in a dispersive section immediately followed by a long FEL undulator (the “radiator”) tuned to a harmonic of the seed laser wavelength. With the advent of more complex seeding schemes, density-modulated beams may need to be transported in drift sections before entering the radiator. Long FEL undulators may also contain several drift spaces to accommodate focusing elements and diagnostics. Therefore, it is of general interest to study the evolution of density-modulated electron beams in drift sections under the influence of repulsive Coulomb forces. At FERMI, a seeded FEL user facility in Trieste, Italy, systematic studies of the impact of varying drift length on coherent harmonic emission were undertaken. In order to make the underlying physics transparent, the emphasis of this paper is on reproducing the experimental findings with analytical estimates and a simple one-dimensional numerical model. Furthermore, the Coulomb forces in a drift section may be employed to enhance the laser-induced energy modulation and yield an improved density modulation before entering the FEL radiator. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Toward a fully coherent tender and hard X-ray free-electron laser via cascaded EEHG in fourth-generation synchrotron light sources.

Free-electron-laser-based beamlines utilize fully coherent laser pulses with extremely narrow bandwidth allowing direct use of X-rays without monochromators. This could be very beneficial for all users of current and future fourth-generation diffraction-limited synchrotron light sources (DL-SLSs) who need narrowband full-coherence high-brightness X-ray pulses. Based on our previous finding, i.e. that separating the two stages of echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) with a few extra bending-magnet sections provides an effective way to increase the momentum compaction of chicane 1, one can simultaneously achieve adequate prebunching at extremely high harmonics as well as keep the energy modulation to the ideal minimum. This could open the door for cascaded EEHG, toward fully coherent tender and hard X-ray wavelengths. Built on our compact design of a twin-pulse seeding electron beam with an adjustable delay and timing jitter at the level of a few femtoseconds, a cascaded EEHG can be implemented, which includes two EEHG beamlines, where the radiation pulse generated by the first beamline with harmonic h1 could be used as the input seed laser pulse to the second beamline with harmonic h2. Hence, the second radiator could potentially reach very high harmonics [h = h1(20)h2(25-100)] from 500 to 2000, corresponding to tender and hard X-ray wavelengths. It is demonstrated that the cascaded EEHG scheme is compatible with almost any current or planned fourth-generation DL-SLS, with significant benefits for space-limited storage rings in particular. The main advantage is that this scheme requires almost no change of the storage-ring lattice and is fully compatible with other beamlines. Current proposals for rings with much longer straight sections would add self-amplified spontaneous emission as another viable option for storage-ring-based free-electron lasers.

Few-femtosecond X-ray pulse generation and pulse duration control in a seeded free-electron laser

With the development of ultrafast science, free-electron lasers (FELs) with ultrashort pulses have become a state-of-the-art tool in ultrafast phenomena studies. In an externally seeded FEL, the output pulse duration is usually determined both by the seed laser pulse duration and FEL amplification process, which can hardly reach the timescale of a few femtoseconds. In this study, through a simple method of changing the relative time delay and correspondingly the pulse energy of the two seed lasers employed in a seeded FEL, we demonstrated the possibility of generating few-femtosecond soft X-ray pulses and controlling the final FEL pulse durations. Based on theoretical calculations and practical experiments, we conducted a detailed study on the capabilities and limitations to this method with the parameters of the Shanghai Soft X-ray FEL Facility. Start-to-end simulations indicate that we can achieve ultrashort soft X-ray FEL pulses with the pulse duration down to 5.2 fs, and the final pulse durations can also be controlled in terms of relative time delays.

Generation of 2 μm few-cycle laser pulse with dual laser filaments nonlinear processes

For the first time, we propose a new scheme for generating few-cycle 2 μm seed laser pulse in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) front-end. The 2 μm ultrafast seed laser pulse is generated via a difference frequency generation (DFG) process between the visible and near-IR supercontinuum from two different filamentation processes inside the transparent YAG crystals. The generated DFG pulse spectrum has a broad spectrum range of 1200 nm from 1500 nm to 2700 nm. By further scaling up the pulse energy of the seed laser pulse via a non-collinear optical parametric amplification (OPA) stage, the single pulse energy is boosted to 15.6 μJ. After dispersion compensation, the pulse duration is compressed to 14.3 fs with its spectrum covering from 1600 nm to 2600 nm.

Modulation of population inversion in N2+ by a pump-control-seed scheme

We experimentally demonstrate an externally seeded ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}{}^{+}$ lasing action on the transition between the $B{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}}^{2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}_{u}{}^{+}(v=0)$ and $X{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}}^{2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}_{g}{}^{+}({v}^{\ensuremath{'}}=0)$ states at 391.4 nm by irradiating a ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}$ gas with an intense 400-nm pump laser pulse and reveal that the populations in the rotational levels of ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}=7--17$ in the $B{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}}^{2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}_{u}{}^{+}(v=0)$ state are responsible for the lasing based on the rotational revival structure in the lasing intensity recorded by the pump-probe measurements. By introducing additionally an 800-nm control pulse, we find that the lasing intensity is suppressed when the timing of the control pulse is set between the 400-nm pump and 400-nm seed laser pulses while it can be enhanced when the control pulse overlaps temporally the seed pulse. By solving the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation including the continuous ionization of ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}$ and multistate coupling among the ${B}^{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}_{u}{}^{+}$, ${A}^{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Pi}}}_{u}$, and $X{\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}}^{2}{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}}_{g}{}^{+}$ states in ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}{}^{+}$ induced by the control pulse, we show that the population inversion in ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}{}^{+}$ can be achieved by the 400-nm pump laser pulse and can be further modulated by the control pulse. We show also that the ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}{}^{+}$ lasing intensity can be suppressed or enhanced depending on the timing and intensity of the control pulse originating from the competition between the two dynamical processes, that is, the ionization of ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}$ and the population transfer among the three electronic states of ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}{}^{+}$.

Ultra-intense vortex laser generation from a seed laser illuminated axial line-focused spiral zone plate.

Relativistic vortex laser has drawn increasing attention in the laser-plasma community owing to its potential applications in various domains, e.g., generation of energetic charged particles with orbital angular momentum (OAM), high OAM X/γ-ray emission, high harmonics generation, and strong axial magnetic-field production. However, the generation of such relativistic vortex laser is still a challenge to the current laser technology. Using micro-structure targets named axial line-focused spiral zone plate (ALFSZP), we propose a novel scheme for ultra-intense vortex laser generation. In the scheme, a relativistic Gaussian laser pulse irradiates an ALFSZP, and diffracts as it passes through the ALFSZP. Due to the focusing and radial Hilbert transform capabilities of the ALFSZP, the seed laser is converted efficiently to a vortex one which is then well focused in a tunable focal volume. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations indicate that using a seed laser pulse with intensity of 1.3 × 1020 W/cm2, the vortex laser intensity achieved is as high as 1.3 × 1021 W/cm2 with the averaged angular momentum per photon up to 0.73ℏ, promising diverse applications in various fields aforementioned.

The Design of >2000-nm, ∼100-MHz Ultrafast Tm-Doped Fiber Soliton Laser Source

We firstly propose a roadmap for thedesign of high repetition rate (∼100 MHz) Tm-doped ultrafast fiber laser with an emission wavelength above 2000 nm. This roadmap is confirmed by both theoretical simulation and experimental verification. The designed Tm-doped fiber oscillator not only operates in continuous wave regime with a broad tunable wavelength range of ∼100 nm, but also in mode-locking regime with an emission wavelength >2000 nm (up to 2020 nm). A 470-fs laser pulse with a pulse repetition rate of ∼96 MHz and the maximum average power of 50 mW are achieved at the output wavelength of 2007 nm, matching well with the theoretical prediction. In a further step, the seed laser pulse is amplified to 3.3 W, accompanied by a Raman frequency shift of the output wavelength to 2346 nm. The homogeneous intense broadband spectrum with a bandwidth of 240-nm centered at 2200 nm is also observed.

Parametric study of laser wakefield driven generation of intense sub-cycle pulses

Intense sub-cycle electromagnetic pulses allow one to drive nonlinear processes in matter with unprecedented levels of control. However, it remains challenging to scale such sources in the relativistic regime. Recently, a scheme that utilizes laser-driven wakes in plasmas to amplify and compress seed laser pulses to produce tunable, carrier-envelope-phase stable, relativistic sub-cycle pulses has been proposed. Here, we present parametric studies of this process using particle-in-cell simulations, showing its robustness over a wide range of experimentally accessible laser-plasma interaction parameters, spanning more than two orders of magnitude of background plasma density. The method is shown to work with different gas-jet profiles, including structured density profiles and is robust over a relatively wide range of driver laser intensities. Our study shows that sub-cycle pulses of up to 10mJ of energy can be produced.

Narrowband Terahertz Emission With Tunable Orbital Angular Momentum by Vortex Laser-Beam Interaction

Terahertz vortex beams need to be developed for supporting new applications in fundamental sciences. In this paper, a novel and feasible scheme is presented for generation of helically microbunched electron beam for the emission of terahertz (THz) vortex pulses. In the scheme, a seed laser pulse with longitudinal and azimuthal modulation is firstly produced by optical beating of dual-vortex pulses. Through the laser-electron interaction, such a complex profile of laser can be converted to a periodically azimuth-dependence energy modulation in the electron beam, which finally forms a helical microbunching structure in the beam after a dispersion section. Then, this electron beam is applied to emit THz vortex beams and its quantum number can be continuously tuned by changing the topological charges of the optical laser pulses. This approach is suited to conventional accelerator system consisted of a modulator and a chicane. We expect this presentation can access to new researches in THz science.

Hybrid echo-enabled harmonic generation scheme for seeding coherent soft x-ray free-electron lasers

A two-stage echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) scheme is proposed to produce sub-nanometer coherent x-ray radiation. The proposed scheme is not a simple two-stage cascaded EEHG but consists of an EEHG as the first stage and a high-gain harmonic generation as the second stage. By using double seed laser pulses with independently tunable powers in the first stage, the second stage can also work in the EEHG principle. To study various effects on the energy bands when the electron beam is traveling through the first stage radiator, theoretical analysis and 3D simulations have been performed and the results show that the fine structure of EEHG can be well maintained. Simulations also indicate the possibility of generating fully coherent x-ray radiation around 1 nm directly from a conventional UV seed laser.

Characterization of soft x-ray echo-enabled harmonic generation free-electron laser pulses in the presence of incoherent electron beam energy modulations

Echo-enabled harmonic generation free-electron lasers (EEHG FELs) are promising candidates to produce fully coherent soft x-ray pulses by virtue of efficient high harmonic frequency up-conversion from UV lasers. The ultimate spectral limit of EEHG, however, remains unclear, because of the broadening and distortions induced in the output spectrum by residual broadband energy modulations in the electron beam. We present a mathematical description of the impact of incoherent (broadband) energy modulations on the bunching spectrum produced by the microbunching instability through both the accelerator and the EEHG line. The model is in agreement with a systematic experimental characterization of the FERMI EEHG FEL in the photon energy range $130-210$ eV. We find that amplification of electron beam energy distortions primarily in the EEHG dispersive sections explains an observed reduction of the FEL spectral brightness that is proportional to the EEHG harmonic number. Local maxima of the FEL spectral brightness and of the spectral stability are found for a suitable balance of the dispersive sections' strength and the first seed laser pulse energy. Such characterization provides a benchmark for user experiments and future EEHG implementations designed to reach shorter wavelengths.

High-power single-frequency pulsed fiber MOPA via SPM suppression based on a triangular pulse

In this work, we demonstrate a high-power single-frequency nanosecond fiber master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) at 1 μm with near transform-limited narrow spectral linewidth. The seed laser pulses were shaped to triangle for the purpose of suppressing the linewidth broadening induced by self-phase modulation (SPM). A tapered Yb-doped active fiber was used to enhance the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) threshold. A high peak power of 31.4 kW with a narrow linewidth of 63 MHz, which was near the transform limit of the 8-ns triangle-shaped pulse, was achieved at a pulse repetition frequency of 20 kHz. No evident pulse distortion was observed at high-power levels. The results show that the triangle-shaped pulse is a promising technique for high-power single-frequency nanosecond pulsed fiber lasers with narrow spectral linewidth.

Design guidelines for ultrashort pulse generation by a Mamyshev regenerator.

We study numerically the possibility of using various gain-switched seed laser pulse parameters and fibers for a low-cost, all-fiber Mamyshev regenerator scheme. We find that for increasing pulse durations, sufficient spectral broadening will be difficult to achieve in practice and careful design of the system parameters is required for the regenerator to function. Furthermore, an optimal input peak power level can be defined for a given fiber and pulse duration that results from a balance of competing Kerr effect and stimulated Raman scattering. We also demonstrate experimental results of 3 ps pulse generation seeded by an 80 ps gain-switched diode. Our results pave the way for designing pulse-on-demand picosecond scale fiber sources for applications.

Hybrid CO2-Ti:sapphire laser with tunable pulse duration for mid-infrared-pump terahertz-probe spectroscopy.

We describe a mid-infrared pump - terahertz-probe setup based on a CO2 laser seeded with 10.6 μm wavelength pulses from an optical parametric amplifier, itself pumped by a Ti:Al2O3 laser. The output of the seeded CO2 laser produces high power pulses of nanosecond duration, which are synchronized to the femtosecond laser. These pulses can be tuned in pulse duration by slicing their front and back edges with semiconductor-plasma mirrors irradiated by replicas of the femtosecond seed laser pulses. Variable pulse lengths from 5 ps to 1.3 ns are achieved, and used in mid-infrared pump, terahertz-probe experiments with probe pulses generated and electro-optically sampled by the femtosecond laser.

Enhanced parametric pulse amplification in a comparable-mass plasma affected by charge state

Enhanced stimulated Brillouin scattering and stimulated Raman scattering are shown in comparable-mass plasma by considering charge state through a simplified theoretical model and particle-in-cell simulations. We present a more general dispersion relation of plasma wave with arbitrary mass ratio and charge state compared to the previous electron–positron plasma study. Further, the ion-bulk mode is responsible for Brillouin amplification from kinetic analysis. Higher intensities of seed laser pulse amplification through stimulated Brillouin scattering are observed in βZ = 1 type plasmas and β = 1 type plasmas as Z increases; the former is caused by kinetic effects, while the latter is due to the higher growth rates of instability. Our results will have potential application in pulse amplification in the comparable-mass plasmas with charge state Z > 1, such as plasma of .

Raman compression of laser pulses without frequency modulation in plasma created in front of the seed pulse

The possibility of suppressing effectively parasitic Raman amplification of plasma noise by creating a plasma in front of the seed pulse is studied. Such plasma can be created by injecting an additional ionizing laser pulse co-directionally with seed one and slightly ahead of it. It is shown that the efficiency of Raman amplification and compression will be high (about 80% of pump energy), if a delay between the ionization front and the seed laser pulse is less than or equal to two inverse increments of the Raman amplification. This conclusion is valid for both high and low plasma densities, when the nonlinear frequency shift due to the nonlinear dispersion of the plasma wave is significant. This result is confirmed by three-dimensional numerical simulations.

Light spring amplification in a multi-frequency Raman amplifier

We propose to amplify and compress an ultrashort Light Spring laser seed with a long Gaussian-shaped laser pump through Raman amplification. This Light Spring, which has a helical spatio-temporal intensity profile, can be built on the superposition of three distinct laser frequency components. In order to get an independent frequency amplification, two criteria are established. Besides these criteria, a non-equal frequency separation is necessary to avoid resonance overlapping when three or more frequencies are involved. The independent set of equations, which describes the wave-wave interaction in a plasma, is solved numerically for two different Light Spring configurations. In both cases, the amplification and transversal compression of the seed laser pulse have been observed, with a final profile similar to that of the usual Gaussian-shaped seed pulses. In addition, two different kinds of helical plasma waves are excited.

High-Energy Single-Frequency Millisecond 1336.630-nm Nd:LGGG Amplifier (April 2017)

We demonstrate a high-energy, single-frequency, and millisecond (ms) 1336.630-nm amplifier with high beam quality and narrow-linewidth simultaneously based on the Nd3+:(LuxGd1-x)3Ga 5O12 (Nd:LGGG) disordered crystal for the first time. The amplifier system consists of a polarized single-frequency 1336.630-nm LD oscillator, two-stage Raman fiber preamplifier, and four-stage Nd:LGGG main amplifier. The seed laser pulse energy is amplified up to a record high pulse energy of 2.05 J at a repetition rate of 5 Hz and a pulse duration of 1 ms with linewidth as narrower as 0.5 pm. The beam quality factor is ${\rm{M}}^{2}\,= \,1.46$ . The wavelength of the single-frequency amplifier can be tuned from 1336.600 to 1336.660 nm. All results indicate that the Nd:LGGG is high performance 1.3-μm laser amplification medium, especially for generating the specific wavelength at 1336.630 nm. Moreover, such laser source with the specific wavelength at 1336.630 nm is promising for the development of a high accuracy 27Al+ ion optical clock.

Optimisation of parameters of Raman laser pulse compression in a plasma for its implementation using the PEARL laser facility (IAP RAS)

We consider Raman compression of laser pulses in a plasma under the conditions of an experiment planned at the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the PEARL laser facility. The analysis is based on the equations describing, among other things, the effect of plasma dispersion and relativistic nonlinearity, as well as the dynamics of the field near the plasma wave breaking threshold. It is shown that the main limiting factors are excessive frequency modulation of the pump pulse and a too low plasma density in which the plasma wave breaking can occur. To reduce the negative influence of these effects, we suggest using an intense and short (on the order of the plasma period) seed laser pulse. Numerical simulation shows the possibility of a hundredfold increase in the intensity of the compressed pulse in comparison with the intensity of the pump pulse at a length of uniform plasma of 2 cm.