Dorine Keusters

Ultrafast pulse shaping: amplification and characterization

We demonstrate high-resolution amplified pulse shaping using an acousto-optic modulator (AOM) at a center-wavelength of 795nm. The output pulses have energy of 200mJ/pulse and a transform-limited pulsewidth of 150fs. A spectral modulation of over 40 features is achieved in a single pulse. We characterize the pulses using the STRUT (Spectrally and Temporally Resolved Upconversion Technique). Using predistortion techniques, we demonstrate that the pulses can be shaped in amplitude and phase. We create a complex pulse shape with hyperbolic secant amplitude and hyperbolic tangent frequency sweep, which is useful for applications in adiabatic rapid passage experiments.

Relative-phase ambiguities in measurements of ultrashort pulses with well-separated multiple frequency components

Ultrashort-pulse characterization techniques, such as the numerous variants of frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) and spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction, fail to fully determine the relative phases of well-separated frequency components. If well-separated frequency components are also well separated in time, the cross-correlation variants (e.g., XFROG) succeed, but only if short, well-characterized gate pulses are used.

Rapid ultrafine-tunable optical delay line at the 1.55-µm wavelength

A fast, ultrafine-tunable delay line at 1550 nm is demonstrated by use of acousto-optic pulse shaping. Delays of up to 30 ps can be achieved without any optical readjustment. The delay is linear to the rf center frequency applied to the acousto-optic modulator and is fully electronic. It takes only 3micros to switch between different time slots, irrespective of the time separation in the tuning range of 30 ps; for a smaller tuning range the tuning speed can be faster. The tuning resolution and range depend on the choice of system parameters. The pulse energy can be regulated by rf power.

Effect of pulse propagation on the two-dimensional photon echo spectrum of multilevel systems

The effect of pulse propagation on the two-dimensional photon echo (2DPE) spectrum of multilevel systems is investigated using a perturbative method. At high optical densities (OD) peak profiles are broadened asymmetrically, in most cases more strongly along the ω2 direction than along the ω1 direction. The amount of broadening is determined both by the OD and by the dynamics of the system. In addition, especially if the different transitions in the system are of unequal strength, the relative intensity of the peaks changes with OD. But even if the transition strengths are the same, the behavior of the cross peaks is different from the diagonal peaks. Since peak shape and relative intensity are important parameters in the interpretation of 2DPE spectra, such OD effects should be taken into account.

Generation of amplified shaped pulses for highly adiabatic excitation

Complex amplified pulses, including al ps, 100 µJ tanh-swept sech pulse for adiabatic inversion, are generated experimentally. STRUT detection verifies the modulation and follows the dynamics induced by such pulses in Rb vapor. Applications to production of spin-polarized gases for medical imaging are discussed.

The Failure of Nonlinear Pulse Shape Detection

Nonlinear pulse characterization techniques such as FROG and SPIDER1,2 have a large advantage over linear techniques (such as spectral interferometry3) in that they can be self-referenced, i.e. no well-characterized reference pulse is needed to obtain the phase and amplitude of an ultrafast laser pulse.

Femtosecond Polarization Detection Using High-Speed Pulse Shaping

We demonstrate a method for femtosecond, phase sensitive detection of optical polarization, using an acousto-optic pulse shaper to create a sequence of up to several hundred phase coherent pulses. Essential to this method is the ability of the acousto-optic pulse shaper to update the phase relation of the pulses in the sequence on a nanosecond timescale. The method is demonstrated by measuring the optical free induction decay of rubidium vapor, and can be particularly useful for experiments involving very low or very high optical densities. It can easily be extended to multidimensional spectroscopy.

Altering excitation dynamics in optically dense media using shaped ultrafast laser pulses

Summary form only given. We study the interaction between intense (50 MW peak power), shaped ultrafast laser pulses and optically dense samples of Rb vapor. In particular, we concentrate our attention on laser pulses with a the complex hyperbolic secant envelope, or equivalently, a sech electric field envelope with a tanh frequency sweep. In order to produce and characterize the shaped laser pulses used in our experiments, we exploited several new technologies: amplified, shaped laser pulses were generated using an acousto-optic modulator-based system combined with a chirped-pulse regenerative amplifier. The amplitude and phase of these pulses were then characterized by the STRUT (spectrally and temporally resolved upconversion technique). The STRUT was used to measure the laser pulses both before and after propagating through Rb vapor. Examples of such experimental STRUT images are presented. The complex sech pulse was selected because, in optically thin media, only it and rectangular pulses give complete analytical solutions to the Bloch equations. This shape has been found to generate complete population inversion over a well-defined and amplitude-insensitive bandwidth. In optically dense samples the excited state dynamics are not so straightforward. We have found, both in experiments and theoretically, that the extent and character of the population inversion is related to the frequency sweep of the laser pulses as does the amount of residual excited population after the pulse and any subsequent stimulated emission.