Christoph Jocher

Sub 25 fs pulses from solid-core nonlinear compression stage at 250 W of average power

We report on a highpower femtosecond fiber chirped-pulse amplification system with an excellent beam quality (M(2)=1.2) operating at 250 MHz repetition rate. We demonstrate nonlinear compression in a solid-core photonic crystal fiber at unprecedented average power levels. By exploiting self-phase modulation with subsequent chirped-mirror compression we achieve pulse shortening by more than one order of magnitude to 23 fs pulses. The use of circular polarization allows higher than usual peak powers in the broadening fiber resulting in compressed 0.9 μJ pulse energy and a peak power of 34 MW at 250 W of average power (M(2)=1.3). This system is well suited for driving cavity-enhanced high-repetition rate high-harmonic generation.

Megawatt-scale average-power ultrashort pulses in an enhancement cavity

We investigate power scaling of ultrashort-pulse enhancement cavities. We propose a model for the sensitivity of a cavity design to thermal deformations of the mirrors due to the high circulating powers. Using this model and optimized cavity mirrors, we demonstrate 400 kW of average power with 250 fs pulses and 670 kW with 10 ps pulses at a central wavelength of 1040 nm and a repetition rate of 250 MHz. These results represent an average power improvement of one order of magnitude compared to state-of-the-art systems with similar pulse durations and will thus benefit numerous applications such as the further scaling of tabletop sources of hard x rays (via Thomson scattering of relativistic electrons) and of soft x rays (via high harmonic generation).

High-repetition-rate sub-5-fs pulses with 12 GW peak power from fiber-amplifier-pumped optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

An optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system delivering pulses with more than 12 GW peak power is presented. Compression to sub-5 fs, 87 μJ and 5.4 fs, 100 μJ is realized at the 30 kHz repetition rate. A high-energy fiber chirped-pulse amplification system operating at 1 mJ pulse energy and nearly transform-limited pulses is used to achieve ultrabroadband amplification in two 2mm beta-barium borate crystals. Precise pulse shaping is used to compress the pulses to a few percentages of their transform limit. Assuming diffraction limited focusing (d<2 μm), peak intensities as high as 10(18) W/cm(2) can be reached.

Analysis and suppression of parasitic processes in noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers

The influence of parasitic processes on the performance of ultra-broadband noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers (NOPAs) is investigated for walk-off and non-walk-off compensating configurations. Experimental results with a white-light-seeded NOPA agree well with numerical simulations. The same model shows that 10% of the output energy of an amplified signal can be transferred into a parasitic second harmonic of the signal. These findings are supported by quantitative measurements on a few-cycle NOPA, where a few percent of the signal energy is converted to its second harmonic in the walk-off compensating case. This effect is reduced by an order of magnitude in the non-walk-off compensating configuration. A detailed study of the phase-matching conditions of the most common nonlinear crystals provides guidelines for designing NOPA systems.

Fiber based polarization filter for radially and azimuthally polarized light.

We demonstrate a new fiber based concept to filter azimuthally or radially polarized light. This concept is based on the lifting of the modal degeneracy that takes place in high numerical aperture fibers. In such fibers, the radially and azimuthally polarized modes can be spectrally separated using a fiber Bragg grating. As a proof of principle, we filter azimuthally polarized light in a commercially available fiber in which a fiber Bragg grating has been written by a femtosecond pulsed laser.

Balancing of thermal lenses in enhancement cavities with transmissive elements

Thermal lensing poses a serious challenge for the power scaling of enhancement cavities, in particular when these contain transmissive elements. We demonstrate the compensation of the lensing induced by thermal deformations of the cavity mirrors with the thermal lensing in a thin Brewster plate. Using forced convection to fine-tune the lensing in the plate, we achieve average powers of up to 160 kW for 250-MHz-repetition-rate picosecond pulses with a power-independent mode size. Furthermore, we show that the susceptibility of the cavity mode size to thermal lensing allows highly sensitive absorption measurements.

Fiber based generation of azimuthally polarized light

We report on a novel approach for the generation of radially and azimuthally polarized light employing a fiber mode filter. The mode filter consists of a Fiber Bragg Grating written in a strongly guiding fiber with lifted modal degeneracy. These kinds of fibers guide radially and azimuthally polarized modes with non-degenerated, i.e. distinct, effective refractive indexes. The Fiber Bragg Grating reflects light only if the Bragg condition is fulfilled. In case of strongly guiding fibers the radially and azimuthally polarized modes are guided with different effective refractive indices and, consequently, the Bragg condition is fulfilled at different wavelengths. If the reflection bandwidth of the Fiber Bragg Grating is narrow enough, the radially and azimuthally polarized modes are spectrally separated. Thus, with such a mode filter it is possible to filter the radially or azimuthally polarized mode. This filter is suitable for its integration in a resonator for stable, compact and high polarization purity azimuthally and radially polarized all-fiber oscillators. In a first experiment an azimuthally polarized mode filter consisting of a commercially available step index fiber and a femtosecond written Fiber Bragg Grating was fabricated. The experimental results are presented and discussed.

23 fs pulses at 250 W of average power from a FCPA with solid core nonlinear compression

We report on a linear polarized high power femtosecond fiber chirped-pulse amplification (FCPA) system operating at 360 W of average power with an excellent beam quality (M2=1.2). A mode locked fiber oscillator with a repetition rate of 250 MHz seeds the FCPA system. The 265 fs pulses are shortened in time employing the nonlinear compression technique. An unprecedented combination of average power, pulse duration and repetition rate is reached with an excellent beam quality by using a solid-core photonic-crystal fiber nonlinear compression stage. Thereby, the peak power of the fiber chirped pulsed amplification system is close to the self-focusing threshold of fused silica (case of linear polarization). In order to avoid self-focusing the threshold is increased by changing the polarization from linear to circular. Finally, the second order dispersion is compensated with a chirped-mirror compressor reaching shorter pulse durations. We achieve pulse shortening by more than one order of magnitude down to 23 fs pulses, compressed pulse energy of 0.9 μJ and a peak power of 34 MW at an average power level of 250 W. At this power level we measure an excellent beam quality (M2=1.3). This system is an ideal laser source for studying high field physics, e. g. driving enhanced cavities for high-repetition-rate high-harmonic generation.

Fiber Based Modal Filter for Radially and Azimuthally Polarized Beams

We report on a fiber based mode filter for radially and azimuthally polarized modes. The proof of principle is shown for the azimuthally polarized mode filtered with a step-index fiber and an fs-written Fiber-Bragg-Grating.

All-fiber Raman oscillator for the generation of radially and azimuthally polarized beams

In this paper we demonstrate a Raman fiber oscillator for the generation of radially and azimuthally polarized beams. The Raman fiber oscillator comprises a high NA fiber and two Fiber-Bragg Gratings (FBGs). Due to the high NA of the fiber, radially and azimuthally polarized modes are guided with their own effective refractive indexes, i.e. they are not degenerated. Therefore, the FBGs reflect these modes at different wavelengths. The mode that oscillates in the resonator can be selected by controlling the coupling lens and the polarization of the pump beam. Unfortunately, at the output of the fiber oscillator the output beams exhibit a non-circularly symmetric intensity profile as a result of a slightly elliptical fiber core. Consequently, the impact of elliptical cores on the polarization degeneracy has been analyzed in detail. In order to compensate for the elliptical core we applied a transverse force on the last few cm of the fiber. With this force the waveguide characteristic of the fiber is changed in such a way that a radially or azimuthally polarized doughnutshaped beam profile is observed. Thereby an output power of 480mW (400mW) was reached for the azimuthal (radial) polarization. The presented concept is wavelength agile and suitable for all-fiber microscopic setups, especially for STED-microscopy.