Vladimir L. Kalashnikov

High-power 200 fs Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator.

We demonstrate a power-scalable Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator. It delivers 200 fs pulses at an average power of 17 W and a repetition rate of 40 MHz. At an increased (180 W) pump power level, the laser produces 270 fs 1.1 μJ pulses at an average power of 45 W (optical-to-optical efficiency of 25%). Semiconductor-saturable-absorber-mirror-assisted Kerr-lens mode locking (KLM) and pure KLM with a hard aperture show similar performance. To our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses achieved from a mode-locked Yb:YAG disk oscillator and this is the first demonstration of a Kerr-lens mode-locked thin-disk laser.

Approaching the microjoule frontier with femtosecond laser oscillators: theory and comparison with experiment

A detailed numerical analysis of heavily chirped pulses in the positive-dispersion regime (PDR) is presented on the basis of the distributed cubic–quintic generalized complex nonlinear Ginzburg–Landau equation. It is demonstrated that there are three main types of pulse spectra: truncated parabolic-top, Π- and M-shaped profiles. The strong chirp broadens the pulse spectrum up to 100 nm for a Ti:Sa oscillator, which provides compressibility of the picosecond pulse down to sub-30 fs. Since the picosecond pulse has a peak power lower than the self-focusing power inside a Ti:Sa crystal, the microjoule energies become directly available from a femtosecond oscillator. The influence of the third- and fourth-order dispersions on the pulse spectrum and stability is analysed. It is demonstrated that the dynamic gain saturation plays an important role in pulse stabilization. The common action of dynamic gain saturation, self-amplified modulation (SAM) and saturation of the SAM provides pulse stabilization inside the limited range of the positive group-delay dispersions (GDDs). Since the stabilizing action of the SAM cannot be essentially enhanced for a pure Kerr-lens mode-locking regime, a semiconductor saturable absorber is required for pulse energies of >0.7 μJ inside an oscillator. The basic results of the numerical analysis are in an excellent agreement with experimental data obtained from oscillators with repetition rates ranging from 50 to 2 MHz.

Energy scaling of Kerr-lens mode-locked thin-disk oscillators

Geometric scaling of a Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator yields femtosecond pulses with an average output power of 270 W. The scaled system delivers femtosecond (210-330 fs) pulses with a peak power of 38 MW. These values of average and peak power surpass the performance of any previously reported femtosecond laser oscillator operated in atmospheric air.

Chirped-pulse oscillators: A unified standpoint

A completely analytical and unified approach to the theory of chirped-pulse oscillators is presented. The approach developed is based on the approximate integration of the generalized nonlinear complex Ginzburg-Landau equation and demonstrates that a chirped-pulse oscillator is controlled by only two parameters. It makes it easy to trace spread of the real-world characteristics of both solid-state and fiber oscillators operating in the positive-dispersion regime.

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.

Heavily-chirped solitary pulses in the normal dispersion region: New solutions of the cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation

A new type of the heavily-chirped solitary pulse solutions of the nonlinear cubic-quintic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation has been found. The methodology developed provides for a systematic way to find the approximate but highly accurate analytical solutions of this equation with the generalized nonlinearities within the normal dispersion region. It is demonstrated that these solitary pulses have the extra-broadened parabolic-top or fingerlike spectra and allow compressing with more than a hundredfold growth of the pulse peak power. The obtained solutions explain the energy scalable regimes in the fiber and solid-state oscillators operating within the normal dispersion region and promise to achieve microjoules femtosecond pulses at MHz repetition rates.

Multicolour nonlinearly bound chirped dissipative solitons

The dissipative soliton regime is one of the most advanced ways to generate high-energy femtosecond pulses in mode-locked lasers. On the other hand, the stimulated Raman scattering in a fibre laser may convert the excess energy out of the coherent dissipative soliton to a noisy Raman pulse, thus limiting its energy. Here we demonstrate that intracavity feedback provided by re-injection of a Raman pulse into the laser cavity leads to formation of a coherent Raman dissipative soliton. Together, a dissipative soliton and a Raman dissipative soliton (of the first and second orders) form a two (three)-colour stable complex with higher total energy and broader spectrum than those of the dissipative soliton alone. Numerous applications can benefit from this approach, including frequency comb spectroscopy, transmission lines, seeding femtosecond parametric amplifiers, enhancement cavities and multiphoton fluorescence microscopy.

Evolution of dissipative solitons in a fiber laser oscillator in the presence of strong Raman scattering

As recently revealed, chirped dissipative solitons (DSs) generated in a long cavity fiber laser are subject to action of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). Here we present theoretical and experimental study of the DS formation and evolution in the presence of strong SRS. The results demonstrate that the rising noisy Raman pulse (RP) acts not only as an additional channel of the energy dissipation destroying DS, but on the contrary can support it that results in formation of a complex of the bound DS and RP of comparable energy and duration. In the complex, the DS affords amplification of the RP, whereas the RP stabilizes the DS via temporal-spectral filtering. Stable 25 nJ SRS-driven chirped DS pulses are generated in all-fiber ring laser cavities with lengths of up to 120 m. The DS with duration up to 70 ps can be externally dechirped to <300 fs thus demonstrating the record compression factor.

Soliton absorption spectroscopy

We analyze optical soliton propagation in the presence of weak absorption lines with much narrower linewidths as compared to the soliton spectrum width using the novel perturbation analysis technique based on an integral representation in the spectral domain. The stable soliton acquires spectral modulation that follows the associated index of refraction of the absorber. The model can be applied to ordinary soliton propagation and to an absorber inside a passively modelocked laser. In the latter case, a comparison with water vapor absorption in a femtosecond Cr:ZnSe laser yields a very good agreement with experiment. Compared to the conventional absorption measurement in a cell of the same length, the signal is increased by an order of magnitude. The obtained analytical expressions allow further improving of the sensitivity and spectroscopic accuracy making the soliton absorption spectroscopy a promising novel measurement technique.

Z-scan measurements of nonlinear refraction and Kerr-lens mode-locking with Yb3+:KY(WO4)2

The nonlinear refractive index n2 of Yb3+:KY(WO4)2 crystal has been measured using picosecond Z-scan technique. The magnitude of n2 was found to be 8.7 × 10−16 cm2/W at wavelength of 1.08 μm. The numerical modeling based on fluctuation model showed a great potential of this crystal as active medium for Kerr-lens mode-locking.