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We investigate in the experiments the ionization-induced adiabatic soliton compression process in a short length of He-filled single-ring photonic crystal fiber. We observe that the plasma-driven blueshifting solitons show little residual light near the pump wavelength in a certain pulse energy region, leading to a high-efficiency frequency upconversion process. In contrast, at high pulse energy levels, we observe that the quality of the frequency upshifting process is impaired due to the existence of a dynamical loss channel induced by the coupling of the soliton to linear modes near the pump wavelength. In addition, through adjusting the input pulse energy, the central wavelength of blueshifting solitons can be continuously tuned over 300 nm. These experimental results, confirmed by numerical simulations, not only offer a deep insight into ionization-induced soliton-plasma dynamics in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers, but also develop highly tunable ultrafast light sources at visible wavelengths, which may have many applications in ultrafast spectroscopy.

We employ the modified 6×6 matrix formalism to describe a pulsed Gaussian beam diffracted by a grating with arbitrary orientation. The matrix treatment is used to analyze the evolution of a pulsed beam propagating in a duplex grating compressor (DGC). For chirped pulse incidence, the inclination angle required in DGC setups will introduce several kinds of first-order spatio-temporal couplings (STCs). We found that temporal stretching due to spatial chirp is suppressed with enlarged beam diameter. Pulse-front tilt and residual frequency chirp in the compressed pulse will be eliminated simultaneously. Pulse with the transform-limited duration can be expected in ultra-intense and ultra-short pulse laser systems employing DGC.

Perovskites have emerged as a class of cutting-edge light-emitting materials; however, their poor stability, due to the high sensitivity to moisture in the ambient environment, severely hinders their further application. Here, to obtain stable perovskite-based laser with excellent optical performance, all-inorganic perovskite CsPbBr3 quantum dots (QDs) evenly distributed into sub-micro silica sphere (CsPbBr3-SiO2) have been used as laser gain medium. The single silica sphere embedded by plentiful CsPbBr3 QDs demonstrates frequency up-converted lasing with compounded mode of random and whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) at room temperature. Furthermore, by incorporating the CsPbBr3-SiO2 spheres into a microtubule, the frequency up-converted WGM lasing has been successfully achieved under two-photon excitation. Notably, the CsPbBr3-SiO2 microtubule resonator exhibits a low lasing threshold of 430 μJ/cm2, mostly due to the enhanced gain for CsPbBr3 QDs inside the silica sphere. Moreover, stable WGM lasing is observed under continuous optical pump for 140 min, benefited from the protection of silica shells, which isolate the QDs from the environmental conditions. The enhanced lasing performance provides an effective way for further exploration and application of perovskite-based micro/nano photonic devices.

We have theoretically and experimentally investigated the evolution of the temporal contrast in a 10-PW-level Ti:sapphire laser in the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The effects induced by the grism pair, spectral shaping filter, and increase in gain on the temporal contrast were investigated. First, it was found that the energy loss of clean seed pulses in the grism pair is a major factor in contrast degradation. Because of the low transmission efficiency of the grism pair (~10%), the temporal contrast is degraded by one order of magnitude. Second, the spectral shaping filter in the regenerative amplifier degrades the temporal contrast by increasing the intracavity loss. Finally, as the amplified spontaneous emission pedestal experiences gain more than the main pulse in Ti:sapphire amplifiers, particularly during saturated amplification, the temporal contrast will further deteriorate as the gain increases in multi-stage Ti:sapphire amplifiers. In addition, the effect on the temporal contrast induced by the extraction during pumping technique in large-aperture Ti:sapphire amplifiers has been considered. According to the investigations described above, the design of the SULF can be further improved. It is predicted that a temporal contrast of over 10−11 can be achieved at a peak power of 10 PW following the improvements. The investigations conducted in this study can provide guidelines for improving the temporal contrast in ultrahigh-peak-power Ti:sapphire lasers.

We numerically investigate the generation of wavelength-tunable few-cycle pulses in the visible spectral region through soliton-plasma interactions. We found that in a He-filled single-ring photonic crystal fiber (SR-PCF), soliton-plasma interactions could shift the optical spectra of pulses propagating in the fiber to shorter wavelengths. Through adjusting the single pulse energy launched into the fiber, the central wavelength of these blueshifting pulses could be continuously tuned over hundreds of nanometers, while maintaining a high energy conversion efficiency of >57%. Moreover, we observed that during the nonlinear pulse propagation in the SR-PCF, soliton self-compression effects enhanced the plasma density in the fiber at high pulse energies, which could modulate the phase-matching condition of ultraviolet (UV) dispersive wave (DW) generation. Furthermore, we employed the recently-developed model to study numerically the loss and dispersion of the SR-PCF in its resonant and anti-resonant spectral regions, and demonstrated the remarkable influence of the core-cladding resonance on the process of soliton-plasma interactions. The numerical results demonstrated here pave the way to develop wavelength-tunable, few-cycle light sources in the visible region, which may have considerable application potential in pump-probe spectroscopy and strong-field physics.

Double deformable mirrors (DMs) with different actuator densities are cascaded to optimize the wavefront aberrations to improve the focus intensity of the Shanghai super-intense ultrafast laser facility (SULF), which plans to generate 10 PW laser pulse. The beam aberrations near the focal spot are corrected from 0.556 um to 0.112 um in RMS by a 300-mm DM with a large stroke installed after the compressor. After then, it is further optimized to 0.041 um using a 130-mm DM with a high spatial resolution working after the main amplifier. The corrected beam is focused to 2.75 × 2.87 um2 at the full width at half maximum (FWHM) with an f/2.5 off-axis parabolic mirror (OAP), which contains approximately 27.69% energy. A peak intensity of 2 × 1022 W/cm2 is achieved at the output of 5.4 PW, and it could exceed 1023 W/cm2 in the SULF 10 PW laser facility using an f/1.8 OAP.

We report on the design, fabrication and application of dispersive mirrors (DMs) with a SiO2 sculptured layer. The group delay dispersion (GDD) of the DMs are -200 fs2 in the spectral range from 680 to 920 nm. DMs with a multilayer structure consisting of a SiO2 sculptured layer with a low refractive index of ~1.09 fabricated by glancing-angle deposition (GLAD) on top of a conventional chirped film stack fabricated by dual-ion beam sputtering are designed and fabricated. The GDD oscillations of the DMs could be significantly reduced compared to the conventional chirped film stack without the SiO2 sculptured layer while maintaining a large GDD of several hundred femtoseconds squared and a wide dispersion bandwidth. For the first time, a single DM with a SiO2 sculptured layer has been successfully applied in a fiber chirped system without being used in DM-pair, which can realize the compression of laser pulses to 16fs.

The compression of high-energy, radially polarized pulses in a gas-filled hollow-core fiber (HCF) is theoretically studied. The simulation results indicate that a 40-fs input pulse can be compressed to a full-width at half-maximum of less than 9 fs when the pulse energy reaches 7.0 mJ with a transmission efficiency of more than 67% after propagating through a 1-m-long, 500-μm diameter HCF filled with neon. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal intensity distributions of the compressed pulses with different initial input energies are studied, and the numerical results indicate that the spatio-temporal intensity distributions are more uniform for lower input pulse energies.

We present the design of a novel single-cycle infrared source tunable from 2 to 10 μm. We simulate the optical parametric amplification (OPA) in BBO and the difference frequency generation (DFG) in AGS based on coupled second-order three-wave nonlinear propagation equations. We combine this with the unidirectional pulse propagation equation, which models the generation of the initial supercontinuum seed in sapphire and the final self-compression in YAG, ZnS, and GaAs, respectively. The obtained results indicate that single-cycle pulses can be produced in a tunable range of 2 to 10 μm.

We report on an experimental and theoretical study of a large-aperture Ti:Sapphire (Ti:S) amplifier pumped with a novel temporal dual-pulse scheme to suppress the parasitic lasing (PL) and transverse amplified spontaneous emission (TASE) for high-energy chirped-pulse amplification (CPA). The pump energy distribution was optimized and the time delay between each pump pulse was controlled precisely. Both the numerical and experimental results confirm that the temporal dual-pulse pump technique can effectively suppress PL and TASE. The maximum output energy of 202.8 J was obtained from the final 150-mm-diameter Ti:S booster amplifier with a pump energy of 320.0 J, corresponding to a conversion efficiency of 49.3%. The compressed pulse duration of 24.0 fs was measured with a throughput efficiency of 64%, leading to a peak power of 5.4 PW. This novel temporal dual-pulse pump technique has potential applications in a 10 PW CPA laser system.

We theoretically investigate the smoothing effects on the signal temporal phase and intensity in the optical parametric amplification (OPA) process. The theoretical model was set up based on the coupled second-order three-wave nonlinear propagation equations in the plane-wave limit, using the phase and intensity modulation to mimic the input noise to the signal. The analytical and numerical results indicate that the walk-off between the signal and the idler plays a dominant role in the temporal smoothing process of OPA, and the smoothing process by a walk-off and broad-bandwidth parametric amplification can be achieved simultaneously. Compared with the walk-off smoothing mechanism, the gain saturation can only smooth the temporal intensity fluctuation. We provide equations for estimating the smoothable modulation cycle.

We theoretically study the nonlinear compression of the 10-mJ, 62-fs, 3.6-µm laser pulses in an argon gas-filled hollow-core fiber with large diameter of 1000 µm. Using a pressure gradient to restrict undesirable nonlinear effect such as ionization, especially at the entrance, we obtain the intense 18.3-fs (~1.5 cycle) pulses at 3.6 µm only through compression with CaFsub2/subcrystal, which can be used as an ultrafast source for strong field driven experiments. In addition, we calculate and discuss the relation between optimal fiber length and coupling efficiency for a given bandwidth. These results are useful for the design of using hollow-core fiber to compress the high-energy pulses with long wavelength.

We report on the generation of 192.3 J centered at 800 nm wavelength from a chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) Ti:sapphire laser system. The experimental results demonstrate that parasitic lasing can be suppressed successfully in the final amplifier based on a Ti:sapphire crystal of 150 mm in diameter. An over 50% pump-to-signal conversion efficiency was measured for the final amplifier by optimizing the time delay of two pump pulses and enhancing the injected seed energy. With 72% compressor throughput efficiency and 27 fs long compressed pulse duration obtained at a lower energy level, this laser could potentially support a compressed laser pulse of 5.13 PW peak power. The experimental results represent notable progress regarding the CPA laser.

A method for measuring electronic Kerr and rotational parameters of gases is proposed and analyzed. It is based on analyzing spectral characteristics of the optical pulse after propagation through a hollow-core fiber which is filled with the gas whose characteristic parameters are to be measured. The method is further investigated through numerical experiments, and the retrieved data agree well with the coefficients used in the model simulating the propagation dynamics. This method can be used to study the nonlinear polarizability of various materials in gas phase.

In this Letter, we present a study of high-energy and high-conversion-efficiency broadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system with a 100 mm×100 mm×17 mm LBO crystal near 800 nm. The results showed that the back-conversion was sensitively affected by the pump intensity and the injected signal intensity. It occurred when the injected signal was above 0.82 J with a pump energy of 170 J, and this effect also reshaped the amplified spectrum. After optimization, an amplified energy of 45.3 J was achieved with a conversion efficiency of 26.3% by the OPCPA. The peak power of the hybrid CPA-OPCPA laser system reached 1.02 PW with a compressed duration of 32 fs, which is the first reported OPCPA peak power higher than 1 PW, to the best of our knowledge.

We study theoretically a pulse compression method with gas-filled hollow-core fiber based on ultrafast molecular phase modulation. The simulation results show the molecular phase modulation can impart a positive or negative chirp on probe pulse and tune the central wavelength by changing the time delay between the pump and probe pulses. This approach is demonstrated to be suitable for generation of frequency-tunable few-cycle pulses with a smooth spectrum.

Ultrafast carrier dynamics in Al2O3/SiO2 high reflectors has been investigated by UV femtosecond laser. It is identified by laser spectroscopy that, the carrier dynamics contributed from the front few layers of Al2O3 play a dominating role in the initial laser-induced damage of the UV reflector. Time-resolved reflection decrease after the UV excitation is observed, and conduction electrons is found to relaxed to a mid-gap defect state locating about one photon below the conduction band . To interpret the laser induced carrier dynamics further, a theoretical model including electrons relaxation to a mid-gap state is built, and agrees very well with the experimental results.. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on the pre-damage dynamics in UV high reflector induced by femtosecond UV laser.

We propose a set of empirical formulas to describe the signal broadband gain regime and ultra-broadband gain point under a given pump wavelength for a type-I optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system. These formulas are applied in the usual nonlinear crystals (beta barium borate, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, deuterated potassium dihydrogen phosphate, cesium lithium borate, lithium triborate, and yttrium calcium oxoborate), and the corresponding results agree with numerically calculated ones. The empirical formulas provide guidelines for selecting appropriate crystals or pump wavelengths to design OPCPA for broadband or ultra-broadband gain bandwidths with appointed signal wavelength.

The laser-induced damage behaviors of chirped mirrors (CMs) are studied by single 800 nm, 38 fs lasers. The CMs provide group delay dispersion of around -60 fs² and average reflectivity of about 99.4% with bandwidth range of 200-300 nm at a central wavelength of 800 nm. Interestingly, a circular blister feature appears in the CMs at a wide range of laser fluence. An optical microscope, atomic force microscope, scanning electron microscope, and surface profiler are applied to describe the blister characteristics. An adiabatic expansion model of ideal gas is adopted to illustrate the formation dynamics of blisters. The evolution of blisters can be explained by partial evaporation of the film and a subsequent gas expansion, driving the bulging of the film stack up to the stress limit, where the blister fractures. According to this model, the energy absorption ratio of blisters increases monotonously with increasing laser fluence before the occurrence of the focal spot confinement effect.

We study theoretically a pulse compression method with gas-filled hollow-core fiber (HCF) based on pulse division. The input pulse is first divided temporally into a sequence of almost identical subpulses by birefringent optical elements that are designed to have nearly zero group delay dispersion. Then, these subpulses are coupled into gas-filled HCF for spectrum broadening independently. Last, the subpulses are recombined into one pulse by the birefringent elements and compressed temporally. This method is demonstrated to be suitable for compressing ultrafast pulses with energies far above the millijoule to few-cycle level. Several key issues on successfully implementing this method are analyzed quantitatively, and the limitations are also discussed.

A three-stage high conversion efficiency optical parametric amplifier (OPA) with passively stabilized carrier-envelope phase (CEP) is presented. After passing through an argon-filled hollow fiber and the dispersion compensator for pulse compression, CEP stabilized 0.7 mJ, 1.5 cycle laser pulses at 1.75 μm center wavelength are obtained. Terahertz (THz) emission spectroscopy is adopted to determine the value of CEP, indicating an excellent long-term CEP stability.

A pulse clean technique in time domain combining noncollinear optical-parametric amplification and second-harmonic generation is demonstrated. The measurement-limited10(10) temporal contrast ratio of the 0.5 mJ/40 fs pulse near 800 nm is obtained over a large temporal range extending from1 ps before the main pulse. The contrast ratio enhancement as fourth power of the initial contrast is demonstrated. The total efficiency is6% for the 8.2 mJ/40 fs initial incident femtosecond pulse.

We experimentally investigate the high harmonic generation (HHG) from CH4 molecules and Xe atoms in a two-color field (using the 800 nm laser and the tunable laser with the longer wavelength from 1500 nm to 1900 nm), and observe that the longer wavelength component can destructively suppress the HHG from CH4 molecules. By controlling the time delay between the two color laser pulses or tuning the laser intensity of the longer wavelength component, the suppressions of the HHG from CH4 molecules and the enhancements of the HHG from Xe atoms at the same laser condition are observed. The results indicate that the longer wavelength component around the molecular infrared absorption can suppress the molecular HHG process.

We experimentally investigate the wavelength effect on high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in CH(4) molecules and Xe atoms driven by a tunable infrared parametric source, and observe that the molecular HHG around the vibrational resonance is more sensitive to the driver wavelength than HHG from an atomic gas with comparable ionization potential. The results can be attributed to the light nuclear motion induced by the driving laser field, and it becomes possible to control the proton vibration in the molecular HHG by tuning the infrared wavelength of the driving laser.

A novel scheme to eliminate the artificial background phase jitter is proposed for measuring the carrier-envelope phase drift of tunable infrared femtosecond pulses from an OPA laser. Different from previous methods, a reference spectral interference measurement is performed, which reveals the artificial phase jitter in the measurement process, in addition to the normal f-to-2f interference measurement between the incident laser pulses and it second harmonic. By analyzing the interference fringes, the accurate CEP fluctuation of the incident pulses is obtained.

The spectral and the temporal behavior of high-intensity negatively chirped femtosecond pulses in normally dispersive media at different input parameters are experimentally studied. The spectrum of the pulse is reshaped due to strong self-actions. The pulse is self-compressed, instead of broadening, accompanied with the spectral FWHM bandwidth shortened. Steepening of the leading edge of the pulse and spectral red-shift are observed in the experiment. The numerical simulation shows that the result is in agreement with the experimental result.

Attosecond-pulse extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) photoionization in a two-color laser field is investigated. Attosecond pulse trains with different numbers of pulses are examined, and their strong dependence on photoelectronic spectra is found. Single-color driving-laser-field-assisted attosecond XUV photoionization cannot determine the number of attosecond pulses from the photoelectronic energy spectrum that are detected orthogonally to the beam direction and the electric field vector of the linearly polarized laser field. A two-color-field-assisted XUV photoionization scheme is proposed for directly determining the number of attosecond pulses from a spectrum detected orthogonally.

The optical breakdown thresholds (OBTs) of typical dielectric and semiconductor materials are measured using double 40-fs laser pulses. By measuring the OBTs with different laser energy and different time delays between the two pulses, we found that the total energy of breakdown decrease for silica and increase for silicon with the increase of the first pulse energy.

A compact multiterawatt laser system based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification is demonstrated. Chirped pulses are amplified from 20 pJ to 900 mJ by two lithium triborate optical parametric preamplifiers and a final KDP optical parametric power amplifier with a pump energy of 5 J at 532 nm from Nd:YAG-Nd: glass hybrid amplifiers, After compression, we obtained a final output of 570-mJ-155-fs pulses with a peak power of 3.67 TW, which is the highest output power from an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification laser, to the best of our knowledge. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.