Evgeni Sorokin

Ultrabroadband infrared solid-state lasers

Ultrabroadband infrared transition metal ion-doped solid-state lasers have come of age and are increasingly being used in trace gas monitoring, remote sensing, telecommunications, ophthalmology, and neurosurgery. Operating at room temperature, they are stable, versatile, and easy to handle successors to the color center lasers. They are becoming the critical components in optical frequency standards, space-based remote sensing systems, and may soon find application in femtochemistry and attosecond science. The article reviews the principles and basic physics of these types of lasers, which are distinguished by their ability to support the shortest pulses down to single optical cycle durations and the ultimately broad tuning ranges. The paper further reviews the state of the art in the existing diode-pumped sources of broadly tunable continuous wave, and ultrashort pulsed radiation in the infrared, and provides examples of their successful application to supercontinuum generation, trace gas measurements, and ultrasensitive intracavity spectroscopy. Developments in such lasers as Cr:YAG, Cr:ZnSe, Cr:ZnS, as well as the recently proposed mixed Cr:ZnS/sub x/Se/sub 1-x/ laser, are discussed in more detail. These lasers nearly continuously cover the infrared spectral region between 1.3 and 3.1 /spl mu/m. The gain spectra of these lasers perfectly match and extend toward the infrared spectra of such established ultrabroadband lasers, operating at shorter wavelengths between /spl sim/0.7-1.3 /spl mu/m, as Ti:sapphire, Cr:LiSAF/Cr:LiSGaF and Cr:forsterite. This opens up new opportunities for synthesis of single-cycle optical pulses and frequency combs in the infrared.

Broadly tunable compact continuous-wave Cr 2+ :ZnS laser

We report the development of a continuous-wave, room-temperature Cr(2+) ZnS laser that is compact and tunable over 700 nm. The laser is pumped by a diode-pumped Er-fiber laser and generates 0.7 W of linearly polarized radiation at 2.35microm , at up to 40% slope efficiency. Cr(2+) ZnS directly diode-pumped at 1.6microm yields polarized radiation that is tunable over 400 nm at up to 25 mW of output power. A comparison of Cr(2+) ZnS with Cr ZnSe (70 mW, 350 nm) in a similar setup is given. As opposed to Cr ZnSe, the Cr ZnS laser is intrinsically polarized. Finally, we observe sensitization of the output radiation by a few milliwatts of the visible (470-500-nm) and near-infrared (740-770-nm) radiation.

Mid-IR frequency comb source spanning 4.4–5.4 μm based on subharmonic GaAs optical parametric oscillator

Broadband mid-IR output suitable for producing 1000-nm-wide frequency combs centered at 4.9 μm was achieved in a degenerate subharmonic optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on 500-μm-long Brewster-angled orientation-patterned GaAs crystal. The OPO was synchronously pumped at 182 MHz repetition rate by 100 fs pulses from a Cr²⁺:ZnSe laser with the central wavelength of 2.45 μm and the average power of 100 mW.

Sensitive multiplex spectroscopy in the molecular fingerprint 2.4 mum region with a Cr(2+):ZnSe femtosecond laser.

An ultrashort-pulse Cr(2+):ZnSe laser is a novel broadband source for sensitive high resolution molecular spectroscopy. A 130-fs pulse allows covering of up to 380 cm(-1) spectral domain around 2.4 mum which is analyzed simultaneously with a 0.12 cm(-1) (3.6 GHz) resolution by a Fouriertransform spectrometer. Recorded in 13 s, from 70-cm length absorption around 4150 cm(-1), acetylene and ammonia spectra exhibit a 3800 signal-tonoise ratio and a 2.4.10(-7) cm(-1).Hz(-1/2) noise equivalent absorption coefficient at one second averaging per spectral element, suggesting a 0.2 ppbv detection level for HF molecule. With the widely practiced classical tungsten lamp source instead of the laser, identical spectra would have taken more than one hour.

14-fs pulse generation in Kerr-lens mode-locked prismless Cr:LiSGaF and Cr:LiSAF lasers: observation of pulse self-frequency shift

Kerr-lens mode-locked Kr-laser-pumped Cr:LiSGaF and Cr:LiSAF lasers containing only two newly developed low-loss chirped mirrors instead of conventional dielectric resonator mirrors and generating pulses of widths as small as 14-fs with as much as 100 mW of average output power are reported. We report what is to our knowledge the first experimental observation of a pulse self-frequency shift in crystalline active media that are characteristic of such short pulses at megawatt intracavity peak powers. We also believe this phenomenon to be one of the significant limiting factors for pulse duration in femtosecond Cr:LiSAF-type lasers.

Efficient broadly tunable continuous-wave Cr 2+ :ZnSe laser

An efficient continuous-wave Cr2+-doped ZnSe laser pumped by a Co:MgF2 laser is experimentally demonstrated. In a single-pass pump scheme we observed up to 520 mW at ∼2500 nm in 0.4-nm narrow-band operation, with 52% incident-power slope efficiency, and a tuning range between 2180 and 2800 nm. In the multipass pump scheme we also observed and analyzed the effect of dual Q-switching laser action at 1.75 and 2.5 µm in the Co:MgF2–Cr:ZnSe coupled-cavity oscillator. Finally, we report the measurement of the passive losses and of the ground-state absorption at the lasing wavelength.

Graphene mode-locked Cr:ZnS laser with 41 fs pulse duration

We report the ultrashort-pulse Cr:ZnS laser mode-locked by graphene-based saturable absorber mirror. Using the combination of bulk material and a chirped mirror, we demonstrate the shortest reported so far mid-IR pulses of only 5.1 optical cycles (41 fs) centered at 2.4 µm with 190 nm spectral bandwidth. The pulse spectrum almost completely fills the water-free atmospheric window. The output parameters reach 2.3 nJ pulse energy and 250 mW average output power at 108 MHz repetition rate.

Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:ZnS laser.

We report the soft-aperture Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:ZnS laser, generating 550 mW of 69 fs nearly transform-limited pulses at 2.39 μm wavelength. The pulse energy reached 3.8 nJ at 145 MHz repetition rate, limited by the onset of double-pulsing. This corresponds to the shortest-pulse and highest-energy direct femtosecond laser source in the mid-infrared. Dispersion compensation was achieved by a single chirped mirror and a thin sapphire plate, making the laser design simple, compact and very stable, and operating at ambient air and room temperature. The superb thermal and mechanical properties of Cr:ZnS, exceeding those of Cr:ZnSe and many established femtosecond laser crystals, should allow for further scaling of output power.

Multipulse operation and limits of the Kerr-lens mode-locking stability

Numerical analysis in combination with experimental data for Cr/sup 2+/:ZnSe and Ti:sapphire lasers reveal the following main mechanisms of multiple-pulse generation for Kerr-lens mode-locked solid-state lasers: 1) continuum amplification due to a spectral loss growth for ultrashort or chirped pulses and 2) a bounded perturbation rise for high-energy pulses. The role of such laser parameters as gain saturation and relaxation, saturable and unsaturable loss, self-phase modulation, Kerr-lensing, and pump intensity is analyzed. This analysis provides basic directions for single-pulse stability enhancement and for multiple-pulse generation control.

DIRECTLY DIODE-PUMPED TUNABLE CONTINUOUS-WAVE ROOM-TEMPERATURE CR4+:YAG LASER

We report what is to our knowledge the first directly diode-pumped tunable (over 120 nm) continuous-wave Cr(4+): YAG laser, operating near 1.5 microm . At room temperature the laser delivered as much as 200 mW of power at 4 W of absorbed pump power. We also report observation of slow laser output degradation and bleaching in highly concentrated crystals, which we suggest is due to a photorefractive phenomenon.