Zhang Chun-Mei

Parasitic lasing suppression in high gain femtosecond petawatt Ti:sapphire amplifier

New parasitic lasing suppression techniques are developed and high gain amplification is demonstrated in a petawatt level Ti:sapphire amplifier based on the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) scheme. Cladding the large aperture Ti:sapphire with refractive-index matched liquid doped with absorber suppresses the transverse lasing. The acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (AOPDF) is used to realize side-lobe suppression in the temporal profile of the compressed pulse. The 800 nm laser output with peak power of 0.89 PW and pulse width of 29.0 fs is demonstrated.

Pulse Temporal Cleaner Based on Nonlinear Ellipse Rotation by Using BK7 Glass Plate

We report a new pulse cleaning technique to enhance the contrast ratio of intense ultra-short laser pulses. A pulse temporal cleaner based on nonlinear ellipse rotation by using BK7 glass plate is developed, and a contrast ratio improvement of two orders of magnitude for the milli-joule level femtosecond input pulses is demonstrated, the total transmission efficiency of the pulse cleaner is 16.7%.

Silicon Dioxide Coating Deposited by PDPs on PET Films and Influence on Oxygen Transmission Rate

A silicon dioxide film is deposited on the polyethyleneterephtalate (PET) by a penning discharge plasma source at ambient temperature in a high vacuum chamber. Hexamethyldisiloxane and oxygen are adopted as precursor and reactive reagent to grow a nano-scale silicon dioxide layer on polymer surfaces. For the chemical structure analysis x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is performed to demonstrate the content of Si, O and C elements. It is noticed that a higher silicon concentration is contained if Ar plasma is used for pretreatment. X-ray diffraction analysis shows that a micro-crystal silicon dioxide is formed by peak patterns at 25.84° and 21.8°. The barrier properties examined by oxygen transmission rate show that the permeation parameter of the 12-μm-thick PET film drastically decreases from 135cc/m2 per day for the control one to 0.713cc/m2 per day for the as-deposited one after Ar plasma treatment. The surface morphology related to the barrier properties of SiOx-coated polymers os also investigated by scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.

Tunable phase-stabilized infrared parametric laser source

This paper reports that the tunable self-phase-stabilized infrared laser pulses have been generated from a two-stage optical parametric amplifier. With an 800 nm pump source, the output idler pulses are tunable from 1.3μm to 2.3μm, and the maximum output energy of the idler pulses is higher than 1 mJ at 1.6μm by using 6 mJ pump laser. A carrier-envelope phase fluctuation of ~0.15 rad (rms) for the idler pulses is measured for longer than one hour by using a home build f-to-2f interferometer.This paper reports that the tunable self-phase-stabilized infrared laser pulses have been generated from a two-stage optical parametric amplifier. With an 800 nm pump source, the output idler pulses are tunable from 1.3 mu m to 2.3 mu m, and the maximum output energy of the idler pulses is higher than 1 mJ at 1.6 mu m by using 6 mJ pump laser. A carrier-envelope phase fluctuation of similar to 0.15 rad (rms) for the idler pulses is measured for longer than one hour by using a home build f-to-2f interferometer.

High-Conversion-Efficiency and Broadband Tunable Femtosecond Noncollinear Optical Parametric Amplifier

We build a compact high-conversion-efficiency and broadband tunable noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (OPA) in the infra-red (IR) pumped by a femtosecond Ti:sapphire CPA laser. The OPA consists of an internal seed of white-light continuum generator (WLG) and two noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers. The tunable wavelength range is from 1.2 μm to 2.4 μm for both signal and idle pulses. The total OPA efficiency in the last OPA stage reaches about 40% in a wider tunable spectral range (from 1.3 μm to 1.7 μm for signal pulse, from 1.5 μm to 2.0 μm for idle pulse respectively).

An ultra-broadband spatially dispersed regenerative amplifier free from spatial chirp

An ultra-broadband Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier based on spatially dispersed amplification is demonstrated experimentally. Departing from previous reports, a new design of the cavity gets the amplified pulse free from spatial chirp. Utilizing this new regenerative amplifier, chirped pulses with bandwidth (FWHM) of about 80 nm are obtained, and the bandwidth is limited only by that of the incident seed pulses.

Dispersion Analysis and Compensation of Collinear Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification Systems

In an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) laser system, residual phase dispersion should be compensated as much as possible to shorten the amplified pulses and improve the pulse contrast ratio. Expressions of orders of the induced phases in collinear optical parametric amplification (OPA) processes are presented at the central signal wavelength to depict a clear physics picture and to simplify the design of phase compensation. As examples, we simulate two OPCPA systems to compensate for the phases up to the partial fourth-order terms, and obtain flat phase spectra of 200-nm bandwidth at 1064?nm and 90-nm at 800?nm.