Dr. Martin Moerbeck-Bock
martin.bock(at)mbi-berlin.de
+49 30 6392 1442
C2: Solid State Light Sources
Haus C, 2.5
Position
Project Member: 1.2 "Ultrafast Laser Physics and Nonlinear Optics"
Research
Mid-infrared laser becoming increasingly important for high-harmonic generation (attosecond pulse), development of novel x-ray sources, and strong-field physics. Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) seems to be the most promosing approach to generate high power midinfrared pulses, i.e. few-cyle pulses with pulse energies in the mJ range at kHz repetition rates. However, powerful pump lasers are required.
To exploite the relatively high nonlinear coefficient of non-oxide crystals, such as ZnGeP2, the emitted wavelength of the pump sources have to be above 2 µm. This ensures that the absorption in the nonlinear crystals is significantly reduced. Here we concentrate our research on regenerative amplifiers using Ho:YLF as a gain medium with a central wavelenght of around 2050 nm. Pulse energies in the millijoule regime (~10 mJ) have been achieved directly from our regenerative amplifier which was conceptually designed as a ring cavity. With the entire setup shown in Fig. 1 we are able to generate pulse energies of up to 55 mJ at 1 kHz with very low pulse-to-pulse fluctuations (rms < 0.5 %).
Fig. 1. High power 2 µm laser delivering pulse energies of up to 55 mJ. The seed-source is a three-stage system consiting of a fs Er:fiber laser, a super-continuum highly nonlinear fiber and a Tm:fiber pre amplifier. After 24 round trips a state of operation is reached where the regenerative amplifier emits stable pulses (rms < 0.3 %) of around 10 mJ at 1 kHz. A booster (two Ho:YLF crystals) stage raises the pulse energy to > 50 mJ.
Curriculum vitae
2013-present Postdoc at the Max Born Institute: High-power mid-infrared lasers
2013 Dissertation “Programmable ultrashort pulsed highly localized wave packets” at the Max Born Institute
2008-2013 Ph. D. student at the Max Born Institute
2008 Master thesis “Spatio-spectral shaping of few-cycle laser pulses with liquid crystal displays” at the Max Born Institute
2006-2008 Study of -Photonics- at the University of Applied Science Wildau (Graduation: Master of Engineering)
2005 Diploma thesis “Spatio-spectrally resolved characterization of ultrashort laser pulses” at the Max Born Institute (MBI) for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy
2001-2005 Study of -Physical Engineering- of the department Engineering / Industrial Engineering with Business Studies at the University of Applied Science Wildau (Graduation: Diploma-Engineer)
MBI Publikationen
- Needle beams: A review Advances in Physics X 5 (2020) 1736950/1-25
- Controlling the spectral rotation of ultrashort vortex pulses SPIE Proceedings Series 11297 (2020) 12970W/1-7
- Millijoule few-cycle 5 μm source at 1 kHz repetition rate for generating broadband pulses from the mid- to far-infrared Ultrafast Phenomena XXI 205 EPJ Web of Conferences (2019) 01014/1-3
- Spectral meta-moments reveal hidden signatures of vortex pulses Ultrafast Phenomena XXI 205 EPJ Web of Conferences (2019) 01005/1-3
- Self-imaging of tailored vortex pulse arrays and spectral Gouy rotation echoes Optics Letters 44 (2019) 1047-1050
- Spectral self-imaging and Gouy rotation echos of propagating vortex pulse arrays SPIE Proceedings Series 10935 (2019) 109350T/1-7
- Generation of millijoule few-cycle pulses at 5 μm by indirect spectral shaping of the idler in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier Journal of the Optical Society of America B-Optical Physics 35 (2018) C18-C24
- Bifurcation analysis in high repetition rate regenerative amplifiers IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 24 (2018) 3000213
- Generation of few-cycle millijoule pulses at 5 μm employing a ZnGeP2-based OPCPA pumped with GW peak power pulses at 2 μm SPIE Proceedings Series 10713 (2018) 107130W/1-4
- Spectral anomaly of ultrashort vortex pulses with axially oscillating twist SPIE Proceedings Series 10549 (2018) 105490F/1-7