Sonstige Publikationen

In this work we experimentally and theoretically investigate the impact of seed intensity-noise on the threshold of transverse mode instability (TMI) in Yb-doped, high-power fiber laser systems and compare it to the impact of pump intensity-noise. Former studies have shown that pump intensity-noise significantly decreases the TMI threshold due to the introduction of a phase shift between the modal interference pattern and the thermallyinduced refractive index grating in the fiber. However, it can be expected that fluctuations of the seed power will also induce such phase shifts due to a change of the extracted energy and the heat load in the fiber. Thus, it is important to investigate which one, i.e. the seed-or the pump intensity-noise, has a severer impact on the TMI threshold. Our experiments have shown that the TMI threshold of a fiber amplifier was decreased by increasing the seednoise amplitude. However, contrary to conventional belief, the impact of seed intensity-noise was much weaker than the one of pump intensity-noise. The measurements are in good agreement with our simulations and can be well explained with previous studies about the noise transfer function. The reason for the weaker impact of seed intensity-noise on the TMI threshold is the attenuation of its frequency components below 20 kHz in saturated fiber amplifiers, which includes the frequencies relevant for TMI. Thus, the main trigger for TMI in saturated fiber amplifiers can be considered to be pump intensity-noise. A suppression of this noise below 20 kHz represents a promising way to increase the TMI threshold of fiber laser systems.

Numerous molecules important for environmental and life sciences feature strong absorption bands in the molecular fingerprint region from 3 μm-20 μm. While mature drivers at 1 μm wavelength are the workhorse for the generation of radiation up to 5 μm (utilizing down-conversion in nonlinear crystals) they struggle to directly produce radiation beyond this limit, due to impeding nonlinear absorption in non-oxide crystals. Since only non-oxide crystals provide transmission in the whole molecular fingerprint region, a shift to longer driving wavelengths is necessary for a power scalable direct conversion of radiation into the wavelength region beyond 5 μm. In this contribution, we present a high-power single-stage optical parametric amplifier driven by a state of the art 2 μm wavelength, thulium-doped fiber chirped pulse amplifier. In this experiment, the laser system provided 23 W at 417 kHz repetition rate with 270 fs pulse duration to the parametric amplifier. The seed signal is produced by supercontinuum generation in 3 mm of sapphire and pre-chirped with 3 mm of germanium. Combining this signal with the pump radiation and focusing it into a 2 mm thick GaSe crystal with a pump intensity of 160 GW/cm2 lead to an average idler power of 700 mW with a spectrum spanning from 9 μm-12 μm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power reported from a parametric amplifier directly driven by a 2 μm ultrafast laser in the wavelength region beyond 5 μm. Employing common multi-stage designs, this approach might in the future enable multi-watt high-power parametric amplification in the long wavelength mid infrared.

Here we will present a reliable (experimentally and numerically proved) technique for multi-spot pattern formation in the focus of a lens (i.e. in the artificial far field). This was done using large square-shaped and/or hexagonal optical vortex (OV) lattices generated by spatial light modulators. Experimental and numerical results showing a controllable far-field beam reshaping when such lattices are generated in the Fourier plane will be discussed. Even more interesting bright structures can be obtained by combining OV lattices (of any type) with different node spacings. We show that the small-scale structure of the observed patterns results from the OV lattice with the larger array node spacing, whereas the large-scale structure stems from the OV lattice with the smaller array node spacing. The orientation of the mixed far-field structures is proven to rotate by 180 degrees when all TCs are inverted.

We present the absorption spectroscopy and continuous -wave laser operation of Tm:YLF at cryogenic temperatures. At 100 K, a maximum output power of 2.55 W corresponding to a maximum slope efficiency of 22.8% is obtained using 15% output coupling transmission. The output laser wavelength is centered at 1877 nm for Ellc.

We present a novel approach to combine diode-pumped, moderately low-gain media with the advantages of an unstable cavity. To this end, we propose to utilize a spatially tailored gain profile in the active medium instead of using a graded reflectivity mirror to provide an effective shaping mechanism for the intra-cavity intensity distribution. The required gain profile can be easily generated with a state-of-the-art homogenized laser diode pump beam in an end-pumped configuration.

We present a coherently-combined ultrafast fiber laser system consisting of four amplifier channels delivering 3.5 kW average power at 80 MHz repetition rate with a pulse duration of 430 fs FWHM and a close-to-diffraction-limited beam quality with an M-2 < 1.2. The system incorporates a fully automated self-adjustment of the beam combination, allowing for a quasi-turn-key operation of the system. At the date of publication, this system delivers the highest average power reported from an ultrafast laser.

We present a laser amplifier based on coherent combination of 16 channels from a single multicore fiber employing multi-channel components for beam splitting, combination and temporal phasing. Stretched femtosecond pulses (250 fs transform-limit) were combined with an efficiency of 80% at up to 205 W average power.

Imaging of biological specimen is one of the most important tools to investigate structures and functionalities in organic components. Improving the resolution of images into the nanometer range call for short wavelengths light sources and large aperture optics. Subsequently, the use of extreme ultraviolet light in the range of 2 nm to 5 nm provides high contrast and high resolution imaging, if it is combined with lensless imaging techniques. We describe important parameters for high resolution lensless imaging of biological samples and specify the required light source properties. To overcome radiation based damage of biological specimen, we discuss the concept of ghost imaging and describe a possible setup towards biological imaging in the extreme ultraviolet range.

We present the most recent results of ultrafast fiber-laser driven generation of broadband THz radiation based on two-color gas-plasma. The experiment shows how energetic fiber-lasers can improve on an application today mainly dominated by Ti:sapphire lasers and power-scalability of this kind of THz sources is discussed. With a high-power driving laser THz radiation with more than 4 mW of average power is generated. This is the highest average power using this scheme so far.

We evaluated the capabilities of an intense ultrafast high-harmonic seeded soft X-ray laser at 32.8 nm wavelength regarding single-shot lensless imaging and ptychography. Additionally the wave front at the exit of the laser plasma amplifier is monitored in amplitude and phase using high resolution ptychography and backpropagation techniques.Characterizing the laser plasma amplifier performance depending on the arrival time of the seed pulse with respect to pump pulses provides insight into the light plasma interaction in the soft X-ray range.

Frequency combs are an enabling technology for metrology and spectroscopic applications in fundamental and life sciences. While frequency combs in the 1 lam regime, produced from Yb-based systems have already exceeded the 100 W - level, high power coverage of the interesting mid-infrared wavelength range remains yet to be demonstrated. Tm- and Ho-doped laser systems have recently shown operation at high average power levels in the 2 lam wavelength regime. However, frequency combs in this wavelength range have not exceeded the 5 W-average power level. In this work, we present a high power frequency comb, delivered by a Tm-doped chirped-pulse amplifier with subsequent nonlinear pulse compression. With an integrated phase noise of <320 mrad, low relative intensity noise of <0.5% and an average power of 60 W at 100 MHz repetition rate (and <30 fs FWHM pulse duration), this system demonstrates high stability and broad spectral coverage at an unrivalled average power level in this wavelength regime. Therefore, this laser will enable metrology and spectroscopy with unprecedented sensitivity and acquisition time. It is our ongoing effort to extend the spectral coverage of this system through the utilization of parametric frequency conversion into the mid-IR, thus ultimately enabling high power fingerprint spectroscopy in the entire molecular fingerprint region (2 - 20 mu m).

In this contribution, we present the newest results of the recently introduced pulse-energy-scaling technique electrooptically controlled divided-pulse amplification (EDPA) and its implementation in a high-power fiber laser system based on coherent combination. In this experiment, a burst of 8 stretched fs-pulses is amplified in two high-power fiber amplifier channels followed by coherent combination into a single pulse. Afterwards, the signal is compressed to a FWHM pulse duration of 255 fs with a pulse energy of 3 mJ and an average power of 105 W. The additional degrees of freedom provided by EDPA, such as direct access to the amplitudes and phases of all individual pulses in each burst, are exploited to compensate for gain saturation effects. Thus, a great temporal contrast of about 18.5 dB is reached and a very high combining efficiency of nearly 80%, including spatial as well as temporal combining, is reached. Furthermore, the system features three customized multi-pass cells as optical delay lines, minimizing the footprint of the combining stage to 0.5 m2. For the time being, two amplifiers are employed in order to initially optimize the parameters of EDPA and the performance of temporal combining. However, the laser system comprises a total of 16 parallel main amplifier channels, potentially enabling spatio-temporal combination of 128 separately amplified pulses with the currently applied bursts of 8 pulses. This extension is part of upcoming experiments and will allow for significant further scaling of the pulse energy in the near future.