MBI Staff Member – Personal info

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 Publications

  1. Orbital angular momentum encoded beam tracking and wavefront sensing

    R. Grunwald, M. Jurke, M. Liebmann, M. Bock

    Journal of Lightwave Technology 41 (2023) 2017-2024
  2. Structuring light by combining spatial modulation and fast angular shaping

    R. Grunwald, M. Jurke, M. Liebmann, M. Bock, B. P. Bruno, H. Gowda, U. Wallrabe

    SPIE Proceedings Series 12436 (2023) 1243606/1-6
  3. Ultrafast element- and depth-resolved magnetization dynamics probed by transverse magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy in the soft x-ray range

    M. Hennecke, D. Schick, T. Sidiropoulos, F. Willems, A. Heilmann, M. van Moerbeck-Bock, L. Ehrentraut, D. Engel, P. Hessing, B. Pfau, M. Schmidbauer, A. Furchner, M. Schnuerer, C. von Korff Schmising, S. Eisebitt

    Physical Review Research 4 (2022) L022062/1-7
  4. High-flexibility control of structured light with combined adaptive optical systems

    R. Grunwald, M. Jurke, M. Bock, M. Liebmann, B. Poyyathuruthy Bruno, H. Gowda, U. Wallrabe

    Photonics 9 (2022) 9010042/1-13
  5. Cr:ZnS-based soliton self-frequency shifted signal generation for a tunable sub-100 fs MWIR OPCPA

    P. Fuertjes, L. von Grafenstein, C. Mei, M. Bock, U. Griebner, T. Elsaesser

    Optics Express 30 (2022) 5142-5150
  6. 10-µJ few-cycle 12-µm source based on difference-frequency generation driven by a 1-kHz mid-wave infrared OPCPA

    M. Duda, L. von Grafenstein, M. Bock, D. Ueberschaer, P. Fuertjes, L. Roškot, O. Novák, U. Griebner

    Optics Letters 47 (2022) 2891-2894
  7. Few-cycle 65-μJ pulses at 11.4 μm for ultrafast nonlinear longwave-infrared spectroscopy

    P. Fuertjes, M. Bock, L. von Grafenstein, D. Ueberschaer, U. Griebner, T. Elsaesser

    Optica 9 (2022) 1303-1306
  8. Compact high-flux hard X-ray source driven by femtosecond mid-infrared pulses at a 1 kHz repetition rate

    A. Koç, C. Hauf, M. Woerner, L. von Grafenstein, D. Ueberschaer, M. Bock, U. Griebner, T. Elsaesser

    Optics Letters 46 (2021) 210-213
  9. Tailored spectral rotation of vortex pulses by non-uniform spiral phase gratings

    M. Liebmann, A. Treffer, M. Bock, M. Jurke, U. Wallrabe, R. Grunwald

    SPIE Proceedings Series 11701 (2021) 11701V/1-7
  10. High average power OPCPA MIR-systems for coherent soft x-ray generation accessing inner-shell absorption edges of metals

    M. van Moerbeck-Bock, T. Feng, A. Heilmann, L. Ehrentraut, H. Stiel, M. Hennecke, T. Sidiropoulos, C. von Korff Schmising, S. Eisebitt, M. Schnürer

    SPIE Proceedings Series 11777 (2021) online