Dr. Johannes Tuemmler
johannes.tuemmler(at)mbi-berlin.de
+49 30 6392 1311
B3: Laser Development
Haus B, 3.3
Position
- Project Member 4.1 "Implementation of Lasers and Measuring Techniques"
- Project Member 4.2 "Application Laboratories and Technology Transfer"
- Instructor for Physics Laboratory Technicians in training
Research
The development of thin-disk laser technology was a very important topic for MBI during 2005 and 2015. These developments are still used on a daily basis for different applications, e.g. as driver laser for a laser-plasma based soft X-ray source, inhouse as well as at BLiX. These systems are very stable and show an outstanding reliability.
OPCPA systems with their broadband amplification spectrum and the resulting very short pulse duration are of increasing importance to study ultra-fast dynamics. We had integrated two of our Yb:YAG regenerative thin-disk lasers as pump lasers in an OPCPA laser system to generate sub-10 fs pulses with 30 mJ pulse energy @800 nm and 100 Hz repetition rate. This OPCPA system has been used for experiments until 2022.
In three successive OPCPA stages pumped by two Yb:YAG thin-disk laser amplifiers the pulse energy of a broadband seed pulse was amplified to more than 30 mJ. Challenging in the setup of OPCPA systems is the temporal overlap of seed and pump pulses. The timing has to be monitored to compensate for thermal drifts and timing jitter due to e.g. vibrations or air turbulences. The compression with low energy loss of the broadband amplified pulse is also of major importance. We use a combination of glass compressor and chirped mirrors to reach a pulse duration well below 10 fs, resulting in a peak power of 4.4 TW.
Due to the high complexity of this OPCPA system and the high demands of the experiments for extremely stable operation as well as the need for a higher repetition rate its operation was not continued.
Since the thin-disk technology has developed to an established technology and laser systems with varying sets of parameters are available commercially we decided to focus on using commercial systems as driver for our OPCPA setups. For our Nanomovie application laboratory we use a Dira500 from Trumpf Scientific as driver for the 2 µm as well as 3 µm OPCPA system. The front-end is also commercial available. It is a system from Fastlite pumped by a small fraction of the Dira500. So pump and seed are generated by the same laser pulse to reduce timing jitter as good as possible.
The 2 µm OPCPA system is operational since several years and working very reliable on a daily basis. In the beginning of 2025 a new OPCPA system from Class5 could be finished. This system will be used for resonant exitation in pump-probe experiments. The emission wavelength can be varied in the UV-VIS-IR range. Implementation for experiments is in preparation.
The 3 µm OPCPA system is still under construction. End of 2024 we could drastically increase the output power by tilting the pulse front of the pump pulse to match the pulse front of the seed. Since the non-collinear angel of pump and seed are on the order of 10° this has a strong effect on the amplification.
Aktuelle Highlights
- Installation of an OPCPA system from Class5 in the Nanomovie application lab. The system will be used for resonant exitation in pump-probe experiments. The emission wavelength can be varied in the UV-VIS-IR range. Implementation for experiments is in preparation.
- Increased output at the 3 µm OPCPA system by applying a pulse front tilt to the pump pulse to match the seed. Next step is the full characterization of the 3 µm output and the generation and characterization of high harmonics in the energy range from 500 eV up to 900 eV.
MBI Publikationen
- Highly nonlinear ionization of atoms induced by intense high-harmonic pulses Journal of Physics: Photonics 2 (2020) 034001/1-12
- Thin-disk laser-pumped OPCPA system delivering 4.4 TW few-cycle pulses Optics Express 28 (2020) 34574-34585
- Novel high-power, high repetition rate laser diode pump modules suitable for high-energy class laser facilities Instruments 3 (2019) 34/1-13
- Coherent diffraction imaging with tabletop XUV sources X-Ray Lasers 2016, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers Springer, Heidelberg (2018) 231-241
- 2D and 3D nanoscale imaging using high repetition rate laboratory-based soft x-ray sources X-Ray Lasers 2016, Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers Springer, Heidelberg (2018) 265-272
- Soft X-ray nanoscale imaging using highly brilliant laboratory sources and new detector concepts SPIE Proceedings Series 10243 (2017) 1024309/1-10
- Transverse coherence limited coherent diffraction imaging using a molybdenum soft X-ray laser pumped at moderate pump energies Scientific Reports 7 (2017) 5314/1-10
- Regenerative thin-disk amplifier for 300 mJ pulse energy Optics Express 24 (2016) 883-887
- Thin-disk ring amplifier for high pulse energy Optics Express 24 (2016) 4375-4381
- Nanoscale imaging using coherent and incoherent laboratory based soft x-ray sources X-Ray Lasers 2014 - X-Ray Lasers 2014, Springer Proceedings in Physics of the 14th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers online (2015) 267-273