Position
- Project Coordinator: 4.1 "Implementation of Lasers and Measuring Techniques"
- Project Member 1.2 "Ultrafast Laser Physics and Nonlinear Optics"
Research
My research mainly deals with the development of solid-state lasers and optical-parametric amplifiers.
Diode-pumped laser of high average power, in particular:
- lasers amplifiers utilizing Thin-disks (laser material Yb:YAG)
- fiber lasers and fiber amplifiers based on Photonic Crystal fibers
- Femtosecond Yb:KGW oscillators and amplifiiers
OCPA systems pumped with Thin-disk lasers for generating femtosecond pulses
The second focus of my work consists in the development of photoinjector drive lasers. When focusing these pulses onto a photocathode, electron bunches of high density are generated. After being accelerated in a linac, these bunches are well suited for driving Free Electron Lasers (FELs). The properties of these electron bunches can be optimized by appropriately tuning the shape of the picosecond laser pulses. To accomplish this, we have developed the first Yb:YAG laser in the world, that can generate trains (bursts) of ultraviolet laser pulses with variable shape.
Several of these lasers are used at electron accelerators and FELs, such as:
Lasers for driving the photo injectors:
- Photoinjector drive lasers for the superconducting photo injector at the HZDR (Dresden Rossendorf),
- Laser for development and test of photoinjectors at the HZB Berlin
Burst-mode lasers for driving the photo injectors of superconducting linacs that are operated with bursts of electron bunches:
- Photoinjector drive laser for the European XFEL at DESY Hamburg
- Photocathoce lasers for the FLASH FEL and, previously, the TESLA Test Facility (TTF)) and the at DESY Hamburg
- Photocathode lasers with shaped pulses, e.g. for the Photoinjektor Test Facility Zeuthen (PITZ). This outstanding laser generates trains of flat top pulses with sharp edges (< 2 ps). Since 2008, this laser has been applied for driving the Photo injectors at PITZ. A significant improvement of the emittance of the generated electron beams was achieved by optimizing the shape of the laser pulses.
Pulse trains messured in the XFEL photokathode laser after the oscillator, the fiber amplifiier , the multipass ampliifer and the booster
Curriculum vitae
1994-present: Scientist and Project Manager of several projects at the MBI as well as projects conducted in cooperation with DESY, HZB Berlin and HZDR Dresden (Rossendorf) to develop special solid-state lasers and femtosecond OPCPA systems
1993-1994: Scientist and project manager at the Max-Born-Institute (MBI) Berlin. Field of work:
- Development of CPA Solid-state laser systems,
- Laser plasma interaction,
- Diagnostics of laser-induced plasmas.
1992-1993: Postdoctoral appointee at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, Rochester, (USA). Working areas:
- Highly-stable diode-pumped Nd:YLF amplifiers
- Development of a Large Aperture Ring Amplifier (LARA) for large flashlamp-pumped Nd:glass fusion laser systems.
1991-1992: Scientist at the Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short-pulse spectroscopy Berlin (Germany). Working areas:
- Pulsed solid-state lasers,
- Laser plasma interaction.
1991: PhD from the Technical University Berlin on pulse amplification in high-power solid-state laser systems, with Prof. H. Weber and Prof. W. Brunner
1985-1991: Scientist at the Central Institute for Optics and Spectroscopy Berlin.
MBI Publikationen
- Photoinjector drive laser of the FLASH FEL Optics Express 19 (2011) 23770-23781
- Detailed characterization of electron sources yielding first demonstration of European X-ray Free-Electron Laser beam quality Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 13 (2010) 020704/1-33
- Drive Lasers for photo injectors Proceedings of ERL'07 (2008) 1-5
- Generation of flat-top picosecond pulses by means of a two-stage birefringent filter Nuclear Instruments & Methods In Physics Research Section A-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and associated Equipment 594 (2008) 119-125
- Generation of flat-top picosecond pulses by coherent pulse stacking in a multicrystal birefringent filter Optics Express 16 (2008) 14922-14935
- Electron beam diagnostics for a superconducting radio frequency photoelectron injector Review of Scientific Instruments 79 (2008) 093301/1-9
- A high-brightness SRF photoelectron injector for FEL light sources Nuclear Instruments & Methods In Physics Research Section A-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and associated Equipment 593 (2008) 57-62
- Cryomodule and tuning system of the superconducting RF photo-injector Proceedings of FEL THPPH009 (2006) 575-578
- Design study of an optical cavity for a future photon-collider at ILC Nuclear Instruments & Methods In Physics Research Section A-Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and associated Equipment 564 (2006) 212-224
- Photocathode Laser and its Beamline for the Superconducting Photoinjector at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf Proceedings of FEL (2006) 564-566