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. Needle beams: A review

    R. Grunwald, M. Bock

    Advances in Physics X 5 (2020) 1736950/1-25
  2. Controlling the spectral rotation of ultrashort vortex pulses

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

    SPIE Proceedings Series 11297 (2020) 12970W/1-7
  3. Millijoule few-cycle 5 μm source at 1 kHz repetition rate for generating broadband pulses from the mid- to far-infrared

    G. Folpini, K. Reimann, M. Woerner, L. von Grafenstein, M. Bock, U. Griebner, T. Elsaesser

    Ultrafast Phenomena XXI 205 EPJ Web of Conferences (2019) 01014/1-3
  4. Spectral meta-moments reveal hidden signatures of vortex pulses

    M. Liebmann, A. Treffer, M. Bock, T. Seiler, J. Jahns, T. Elsaesser, R. Grunwald

    Ultrafast Phenomena XXI 205 EPJ Web of Conferences (2019) 01005/1-3
  5. Self-imaging of tailored vortex pulse arrays and spectral Gouy rotation echoes

    M. Liebmann, A. Treffer, M. Bock, T. Seiler, J. Jahns, T. Elsaesser, R. Grunwald

    Optics Letters 44 (2019) 1047-1050
  6. Spectral self-imaging and Gouy rotation echos of propagating vortex pulse arrays

    M. Liebmann, A. Treffer, M. Bock, T. Seiler, J. Jahns, T. Elsaesser, R. Grunwald

    SPIE Proceedings Series 10935 (2019) 109350T/1-7
  7. Generation of millijoule few-cycle pulses at 5  μm by indirect spectral shaping of the idler in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier

    M. Bock, von Grafenstein, L., U. Griebner, T. Elsaesser

    Journal of the Optical Society of America B-Optical Physics 35 (2018) C18-C24
  8. Bifurcation analysis in high repetition rate regenerative amplifiers

    von Grafenstein, L., M. Bock, U. Griebner

    IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics 24 (2018) 3000213
  9. Generation of few-cycle millijoule pulses at 5 μm employing a ZnGeP2-based OPCPA pumped with GW peak power pulses at 2 μm

    U. Griebner, von Grafenstein, L., M. Bock, T. Elsaesser

    SPIE Proceedings Series 10713 (2018) 107130W/1-4
  10. Spectral anomaly of ultrashort vortex pulses with axially oscillating twist

    M. Liebmann, A. Treffer, M. Bock, T. Seiler, T. Elsaesser, R. Grunwald

    SPIE Proceedings Series 10549 (2018) 105490F/1-7