Zengguang Qin

Terahertz parametric oscillator based on KTiOPO 4 crystal

KTiOPO₄ (KTP) crystal is used as the nonlinear medium in a surface-emitted terahertz-wave parametric oscillator for the first time. The oscillating Stokes beam propagates along the x axis of the KTP crystal, the pumping beam propagates with a small incident angle θ(ext) to the x axis, and the polarizations of the pumping beam, the Stokes beam, and the THz wave are along the z axis. When θ(ext) is changed from 1.250° to 6.000°, the THz wave is intermittently tuned from 3.17 to 3.44 THz, from 4.19 to 5.19 THz, and from 5.55 to 6.13 THz. The maximum output of the THz wave is 336 nJ, obtained at 5.72 THz with a pumping energy of 80 mJ. The two frequency gaps, from 3.44 to 4.19 THz and from 5.19 to 5.55 THz, are located in the vicinities of the A₁ modes of 134 and 178.7  cm⁻¹, which are strongly infrared absorbing.

THz-wave generation via stimulated polariton scattering in KTiOAsO4 crystal.

A terahertz parametric oscillator based on KTiOAsO(4) crystal is demonstrated for the first time. With the near-forward scattering configuration X(ZZ)X + Δφ, the polarizations of the pump, the Stokes and the generated THz waves are parallel to the z-axis of the crystal KTA. When the incident angle θext of the pump wave is changed from 1.875° to 6.500°, the THz wave is intermittently tuned from 3.59 to 3.96 THz, from 4.21 to 4.50 THz, from 4.90 to 5.16 THz, from 5.62 to 5.66 THz and from 5.92 to 6.43 THz. The obtained maximum THz wave energy is 627 nJ at 4.30 THz with a pump energy of 100 mJ. It is believed that the terahertz wave generation is caused by the stimulated scattering of the polaritons associated with the most intensive transverse A(1) mode of 233.8 cm(-1). Four much weaker transverse A(1) modes of 132.9 cm(-1), 156.3 cm(-1),175.1 cm(-1), and 188.4 cm(-1) cause four frequency gaps, from 3.97 THz to 4.20 THz, from 4.51 to 4.89 THz, from 5.17 to 5.61 THz and from 5.67 to 5.91 THz, respectively.

Multiple-beam output of a surface-emitted terahertz-wave parametric oscillator by using a slab MgO:LiNbO 3 crystal

A MgO:LiNbO₃ slab configuration for the surface-emitted terahertz-wave parametric oscillator (TPO) is presented. The pump and the oscillating Stokes beams were totally reflected at the slab surface and propagated zigzaggedly in the slab MgO:LiNbO₃ crystal. Up to five terahertz beams were emitted perpendicularly to the surface of the crystal. The total output energy of the five THz-wave beams was 3.56 times as large as that obtained from the conventional surface-emitted TPO at the same experimental conditions. The intensity distributions of the THz wave beams were measured, and they were unsymmetrical in the horizontal direction while symmetrical in the vertical direction.

Quartz-Enhanced Photoacoustic Spectroscopy with Right-Angle Prism.

A right-angle prism was used to enhance the acoustic signal of a quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) system. The incident laser beam was parallelly inverted by the right-angle prism and passed through the gap between two tuning fork prongs again to produce another acoustic excitation. Correspondingly, two pairs of rigid metal tubes were used as acoustic resonators with resonance enhancement factors of 16 and 12, respectively. The QEPAS signal was enhanced by a factor of 22.4 compared with the original signal, which was acquired without resonators or a prism. In addition, the system noise was reduced a little with double resonators due to the Q factor decrease. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was greatly improved. Additionally, a normalized noise equivalent absorption coefficient (NNEA) of 5.8 × 10−8 W·cm−1·Hz−1/2 was achieved for water vapor detection in the atmosphere.

Energy scaling of terahertz-wave parametric sources

Terahertz-wave parametric oscillators (TPOs) have advantages of room temperature operation, wide tunable range, narrow line-width, good coherence. They have also disadvantage of small pulse energy. In this paper, several factors preventing TPOs from generating high-energy THz pulses and the corresponding solutions are analyzed. A scheme to generate high-energy THz pulses by using the combination of a TPO and a Stokes-pulse-injected terahertz-wave parametric generator (spi-TPG) is proposed and demonstrated. A TPO is used as a source to generate a seed pulse for the surface-emitted spi-TPG. The time delay between the pump and Stokes pulses is adjusted to guarantee they have good temporal overlap. The pump pulses have a large pulse energy and a large beam size. The Stokes beam is enlarged to make its size be larger than the pump beam size to have a large effective interaction volume. The experimental results show that the generated THz pulse energy from the spi-TPG is 1.8 times as large as that obtained from the TPO for the same pumping pulse energy density of 0.90 J/cm(2) and the same pumping beam size of 3.0 mm. When the pumping beam sizes are 5.0 and 7.0 mm, the enhancement times are 3.7 and 7.5, respectively. The spi-TPG here is similar to a difference frequency generator; it can also be used as a Stokes pulse amplifier.

A diode pumped passively mode-locked Nd:CaGdAlO4laser

A diode pumped passively mode-locked Nd:CaGdAlO4 (Nd:CGA) laser was demonstrated. By using a semiconductor saturable-absorber mirror (SESAM) as the modulator, stable mode-locked pulses with a duration of 6.0 ps and a repetition rate of 88.3 MHz have been achieved at a central wavelength of 1078.6 nm. The maximum output power of 452 mW was obtained under a pump power of 10 W.

Tunable Stokes laser generation based on the stimulated polariton scattering in KTiOPO 4 crystal

The tunable Stokes laser characteristics based on the stimulated polariton scattering in KTiOPO4 (KTP) crystal and the intracavity frequency doubling properties for the Stokes laser are investigated for the first time. When the pumping laser wavelength is 1064.2 nm, and the angle between the pumping and Stokes beams outside the KTP crystal changes from 1.875° to 6.750°, the obtained tunable Stokes laser wavelength varies discontinuously from 1076.5 nm to 1091.4 nm with four gaps. When the pumping pulse energy is 120.0 mJ, the maximum Stokes pulse energy is 46.5 mJ obtained at the wavelength of 1086.6 nm. By inserting a LiB3O5 (LBO) crystal into the cavity, the obtained frequency-doubled laser wavelength is inconsecutive tunable from 538.5 nm to 543.8 nm. The maximum frequency-doubled laser pulse energy is 15.9 mJ at the wavelength of 543.5 nm.

Acousto-Optic Q-Switched Fiber Laser-Based Intra-Cavity Photoacoustic Spectroscopy for Trace Gas Detection

We proposed a new method for gas detection in photoacoustic spectroscopy based on acousto-optic Q-switched fiber laser by merging a transmission PAS cell (resonant frequency f0 = 5.3 kHz) inside the fiber laser cavity. The Q-switching was achieved by an acousto-optic modulator, achieving a peak pulse power of ~679 mW in the case of the acousto-optic modulation signal with an optimized duty ratio of 10%. We used a custom-made fiber Bragg grating with a central wavelength of 1530.37 nm (the absorption peak of C2H2) to select the laser wavelength. The system achieved a linear response (R2 = 0.9941) in a concentration range from 400 to 7000 ppmv, and the minimum detection limit compared to that of a conventional intensity modulation system was enhanced by 94.2 times.

Signal-to-Noise Ratio Enhancement Based on Empirical Mode Decomposition in Phase-Sensitive Optical Time Domain Reflectometry Systems.

We propose a novel denoising method based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for vibration sensing in phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry (φ-OTDR) systems. Raw Rayleigh backscattering traces are decomposed into a series of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a residual component using an EMD algorithm. High frequency noise is eliminated by removing several IMFs at the position without vibration selected by the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC). When the pulse width is 50 ns, the SNR of location information for the vibration events of 100 Hz and 1.2 kHz is increased to as high as 42.52 dB and 39.58 dB, respectively, with a 2 km sensing fiber, which demonstrates the excellent performance of this new method.

Water vapor concentration measurements using TDALS with wavelength modulation spectroscopy at varying pressures

Purpose As measurement results of optical gas sensors are constantly affected by the pressure of a target gas, approaches must be taken to modify the results. The purpose of this paper is to compare the traditional measurement method with the new measurement system. At the same time, measurement results of the two systems under different pressures are presented for comparison of the detection performance. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical model of line shape function and its impact on the measured results is presented, which is based on direct absorption and wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS) for gas concentration detection under different pressures. Methods of linear fitting and result modification have been illustrated and compared. A new testing system with the result modification method used for water vapor concentration detection under different pressures between 1 and 7 atm is applied. With an additional pressure sensor placed in the gas cell and calibration performed, relationships between the amplitude of the second harmonic and concentration of the target gas under different pressures can be obtained. Findings Amplitude detection can be used for concentration detection regardless of the change in pressure for the method of direct absorption. Although, WMS with second harmonic detection is not enough. Two methods are presented and compared with WMS under different pressures. Moreover, the result modification method shows better performance as computation is significantly reduced. Originality/value The comparison between linear fitting and the result modification method with WMS under different pressures is firstly presented. At the same time, a new testing system with better performance for water vapor concentration detection under different pressures is presented as well.