Zhi Qiao

Suppression of FM-to-AM modulation by polarizing fiber front end for high-power lasers.

FM-to-AM modulation is an important effect in the front end of high-power lasers that influences the temporal profile. Various methods have been implemented in standard-fiber and polarization-maintaining (PM)-fiber front ends to suppress the FM-to-AM modulation. To analyze the modulation in the front end, a theoretical model is established and detailed simulations carried out that show that the polarizing (PZ) fiber, whose fast axis has a large loss, can successfully suppress the modulation. Moreover, the stability of the FM-to-AM modulation can be improved, which is important for the front end to obtain a stable output. To verify the model, a PZ fiber front end is constructed experimentally. The FM-to-AM modulation, without any compensation, is less than 4%, whereas that of the PM fiber front end with the same structure is nearly 20%. The stability of the FM-to-AM modulation depth is analyzed experimentally and the peak-to-peak and standard deviation (SD) are 2% and 0.38%, respectively, over 3 h. The experimental results agree with the simulation results and both prove that the PZ fiber front end can successfully suppress the FM-to-AM conversion. The PZ fiber front end is a promising alternative for improving the performance of the front end in high-power laser facilities.

Demonstration of a high-energy, narrow-bandwidth, and temporally shaped fiber regenerative amplifier.

We report a high-energy and high-gain fiber regenerative amplifier for narrow-bandwidth nanosecond laser pulses that uses a Yb-doped photonic crystal fiber. The input pulse energy is 270 pJ for a 3.5 ns laser pulse with 0.3 nm (FWHM) bandwidth. At a pump laser power of 8.6 W at 974 nm, pulse energies up to 746 μJ with 1.2% (rms) energy stability are generated. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest energy obtained in a fiber-based regenerative amplifier. A high-energy, nearly diffraction-limited, single-mode beam with a high gain of 64 dB shows promise for future application in the front ends of high-power laser facilities.

Real-time characterization of FM-AM modulation in a high-power laser facility using an RF-photonics system and a denoising algorithm

FM-AM modulation of high-power lasers significantly affects laser performance. Therefore, precise measurement of the FM-AM modulation depth is necessary. The subsequent FM-AM modulation generated by group velocity dispersion when the laser pulse propagates through a fiber affects the measurement accuracy. In order to eliminate this effect, a waveform-acquisition module is proposed that converts a broad-spectrum pulse of 1053 nm to a narrow-spectrum pulse of 1550 nm, without affecting the waveform. In addition, a signal-processing algorithm based on the orthogonal matching pursuit method is implemented to remove the sampling noise from the waveform. In this way, the signal-to-noise ratio of the measurement can be readily improved. Both theoretical and experimental results indicate that the proposed FM-AM modulation detection system is effective and economical. It can measure the FM-AM modulation depth precisely, and therefore shows considerable promise for future applications in high-power lasers.

Single-Shot Full-Field Characterization of Short Pulses by Using Temporal Annealing Modified Gerchberg–Saxton Algorithm

The dispersive Fourier transform is suitable for characterizing short pulses. However, the traditional temporal Gerchberg–Saxton (GS) algorithm suffers from the timing error of measured dispersed waveforms, which limits the measurement performance of the temporal phase. An annealing modified GS algorithm that can simultaneously retrieve the temporal profile and phase is proposed. The inevitable timing error in the measurement can be accurately recovered by the algorithm, which significantly improves the retrieval performance. Based on the annealing modified GS algorithm, an experimental structure is proposed to achieve single-shot full-field measurement. The algorithm is analyzed numerically and the temporal waveform and phase of short pulses can be retrieved successfully in the experiment. The results indicate that this single-shot full-field measurement method is free from timing error, which is important for real applications. The simple single-shot method promises future applications to measure the temporal profile and temporal phase of short pulses with high accuracy simultaneously.

Temporally Modulated Phase Retrieval Method for Weak Temporal Phase Measurement of Laser Pulses

The measurement of weak temporal phase for picosecond and nanosecond laser pulses is important but quite difficult. We propose a simple iterative algorithm, which is based on a temporally movable phase modulation process, to retrieve the weak temporal phase of laser pulses. This unambiguous method can achieve a high accuracy and simultaneously measure the weak temporal phase and temporal profile of pulses, which are almost transform-limited. Detailed analysis shows that this iterative method has valuable potential applications in the characterization of pulses with weak temporal phase.

Characterization of ultrashort pulses by time–frequency conversion and temporal magnification based on four-wave mixing at 1 μm

In order to characterize ultrashort pulses in real time at 1 μm wavelength, a temporal imaging structure based on the four-wave mixing effect in highly nonlinear fibers is implemented and analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. It is found that both time-frequency transfer and the temporal magnification process can be realized approximately in one structure. The pulse widths of the signal laser measured by the time-frequency transfer and the temporal magnification process are 3.2 ps and 3.1 ps, respectively, which are nearly the same and are in agreement with the result of the autocorrelator. The temporal magnification factor is 33, and the temporal resolution is 380 fs. The method based on the temporal magnification process is inherently real time and single shot, which makes it suitable for applications in the measurement of high-power ultrashort pulses. The four-wave mixing time lens promises future applications in the characterization of the single-shot high-power short laser.

Tunable compensation of GVD-induced FM–AM conversion in the front end of high-power lasers

Group velocity dispersion (GVD) is one of the main factors leading to frequency modulation (FM) to amplitude modulation (AM) conversion in the front end of high-power lasers. In order to compensate the FM-AM modulation, the influence of GVD, which is mainly induced by the phase filter effect, is theoretically investigated. Based on the theoretical analysis, a high-precision, high-stability, tunable GVD compensatory using gratings is designed and experimentally demonstrated. The results indicate that the compensator can be implemented in high-power laser facilities to compensate the GVD of fiber with a length between 200-500 m when the bandwidth of a phase-modulated laser is 0.34 nm or 0.58 nm and the central wavelength is in the range of 1052.3217-1053.6008 nm. Due to the linear relationship between the dispersion and the spacing distance of the gratings, the compensator can easily achieve closed-loop feedback controlling. The proposed GVD compensator promises significant applications in large laser facilities, especially in the future polarizing fiber front end of high-power lasers.

High-energy master oscillator power amplifier with near-diffraction-limited output based on ytterbium-doped PCF fiber

With the development of fiber technologies, fiber lasers are able to deliver very high power beams and high energy pulses which can be used not only in scientific researches but industrial fields (laser marking, welding,…). The key of high power fiber laser is fiber amplifier. In this paper, we present a two-level master-oscillator power amplifier system at 1053 nm based on Yb-doped photonic crystal fibers. The system is used in the front-end of high power laser facility for the amplification of nano-second pulses to meet the high-level requirements. Thanks to the high gain of the system which is over 50 dB, the pulse of more than 0.89 mJ energy with the nearly diffraction-limited beam quality has been obtained.

1053-nm all-fiber multi-pulse phase modulator for chirped pulse amplification

An all-fiber multi-pass phase modulator for chirped pulse amplification centered at 1053nm is demonstrated. An optical pulse with a 3-dB bandwidth of 2.23nm centered at 1053 nm is obtained based on the system. And spectrum with negative dispersion is obtain by an all-fiber architecture which can be used for ultrashort laser source in ps.

High precision long-term stable fiber-based optical synchronization system

A fiber-based，high precision long-term stable time synchronization system for multi-channel laser pulses is presented，using fiber pulse stacker combined with high-speed optical-electrical conversion and electronics processing technology. This scheme is used to synchronize two individual lasers including a mode-lock laser and a time shaping pulse laser system. The relative timing jitter between two laser pulses achieved with this system is 970 fs (rms) in five minutes and 3.5 ps (rms) in five hours. The synchronization system is low cost and can work at over several tens of MHz repetition rate.