Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy
Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy

MBI Staff Member – Personal info

Dr. Johannes Tuemmler

johannes.tuemmler(at)mbi-berlin.de
+49 30 6392 1311

B3: Laser Development
Building 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.

Recent highlight(s)

  • 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 Publications

  1. Above-mJ optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier at 3 μm for laser-driven coherent soft x-ray generation beyond the water window

    P. Dey, L. Ehrentraut, J. Tümmler, M. Schnürer, S. Eisebitt

     APL Photonics 10 (2025) 040807/1-8
  2. Few-cycle OPCPA at 3 µm wavelength for coherent soft X-ray generation

    P. Dey, L. Ehrentraut, J. Tümmler, S. Eisebitt, M. Schnürer

     IEEE Photonics Conference IPC (2024) P9/1-2
  3. Laboratory based sources, optics and detectors for ultrafast soft x-ray spectroscopy in the water window and at transition metal L-edges

    H. Stiel, J. Braenzel, M. Schnürer, J. Tuemmler, L. Ehrentraut, T. Sidiropoulos, R. Gnewkow, I. Mantouvalou, M. Dummin, C. Seifert, T. Krist, J. Probst, K. Schadow, A. Erko

     X-Ray Lasers 2023 Springer (2024) 41-50
  4. Versatile tabletop setup for picosecond time-resolved resonant soft-x-ray scattering and spectroscopy

    M. Borchert, J. Brenzel, R. Gnewkow, L. Lunin, T. Sidiropoulos, J. Tümmler, I. Will, T. Noll, O. Reichel, D. Rohloff, A. Erko, T. Krist, C. v. Korff Schmising, B. Pfau, S. Eisebitt, H. Stiel, D. Schick

     Review of Scientific Instruments 94 (2023) 063102/1-12
  5. Attosecond investigation of extreme-ultraviolet multi-photon multi-electron ionization

    M. Kretschmar, A. Hadjipittas, B. Major, J. Tümmler, I. Will, T. Nagy, M. J. J. Vrakking, A. Emmanouilidou, B. Schütte

     Optica 9 (2022) 639-644
  6. Laser-driven resonant magnetic soft-x-ray scattering for probing ultrafast antiferromagnetic and structural dynamics

    D. Schick, M. Borchert, J. Braenzel, H. Stiel, J. Tümmler, D. E. Bürgler, A. Firsov, C. von Korff Schmising, B. Pfau, S. Eisebitt

     Optica 8 (2021) 1237-1242
  7. Towards understanding excited-state properties of organic molecules using time-resolved soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy

    H. Stiel, J. Braenzel, A. Jonas, R. Gnewkow, L. T. Glöggler, D. Sommer, T. Krist, A. Erko, J. Tümmler, I. Mantouvalou

     International Journal of Molecular Sciences 22 (2021) 13463/1-18
  8. Ultrafast NEXAFS spectroscopy in the lab using laser-based sources and advanced X-ray optics

    H. Stiel, J. Braenzel, J. Tuemmler, A. Jonas, I. Mantouvalou, A. Erko, A. Heilmann, van Moerbeck-Bock, M., M. Schnürer

     SPIE Proceedings Series 11886 (2021) 11886 12/1-9
  9. Propagation-assisted generation of intense few-femtosecond high-harmonic pulses

    B. Major, M. Kretschmar, O. Ghafur, A. Hoffmann, K. Kovács, K. Varjú, B. Senfftleben, J. Tümmler, I. Will, T. Nagy, D. Rupp, M. J. J. Vrakking, V. Tosa, B. Schütte

     Journal of Physics: Photonics 2 (2020) 034002/1-10
  10. Time-resolved near-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy in the water window and beyond using laboratory-based laser plasma sources

    H. Stiel, D. Engel, L. Glöggler, A. Jonas, I. Mantouvalou, J. Tümmler

     X-Ray Lasers 2018 (2020) Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on X-Ray Lasers ICXRL 2018 (2020) 147-154