Research

Development of advanced ultrashort pulse lasers, amplifiers, and parametric devices operating in the near- and mid-IR wavelength ranges including components and complete systems for direct implementation within other projects at MBI.

An example is the development of novel CPA laser sources emitting around 2 µm wavelength. This laser system operating at kilohertz repetition rate will serve as driver for OPCPA in the mid-IR. Figure (a) shows the simulated bifurcation diagram of a Ho:YLF regenerative amplifier (RA) at a 1 kHz repetition rate and 24 round trips indicating the most interesting operation regimes, i.e., stable double-pulsing (yellow coded bar) and the single-energy regime (green coded bar) beyond the final bifurcation point (BP _final). Based on our model the RA is designed for operation in the single-energy regime beyond BP_final. The measured complete RA bifurcation diagram of the re-designed RA at 1 kHz and 24 round trips is presented in Fig. (b). It agrees well with our numerical simulations [Fig. (a)]. Only the predicted multi-pulsing between 20 and 30 W pump power is less pronounced in the experiment. The highest pulse energy of 12 mJ can be extracted in the stable double-pulsing regime in the upper bifurcation branch (yellow coded bar), however at 0.5 kHz, the half of the repetition rate. BP_final appears at a pump power of 47 W and denotes the transition to the single-energy regime where any multi-stabilities and chaotic behavior have been overcome. The extracted RA pulse energy of 9.7 mJ is the by far highest reported for 2-µm RAs operating in the single-energy regime. Taking into account the applied pump power of 50 W, the extraction efficiency is as high as 19.5%. Performing the transition from the stable double-pulsing to the single-energy regime, the RA’s pulse-to-pulse stability is further improved with a rms value <0.5%. Figure (c) shows the corresponding pulse stability measurement in the vicinity of BP_final and beyond in the single-energy regime (green coded bar).