Short mid-infrared watt-level all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor above 100-MHz pulse repetition rate

We firstly report a 2-μm all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor based on two pieces of normal dispersion fiber(NDF),which enables a high-power scaling ability of watt-level and a high pulse compression ratio of 13.7.With the NDFbased all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor,the 450-fs laser pulses with a repetition rate of 101.4 MHz are compressed to 35.1 fs,corresponding to a 5.2 optical oscillation cycle at the 2-μm wavelength region.The output average power reaches 1.28 W,which is believed to be the highest value never achieved from the previous 2-μm all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressors with a high pulse repetition rate above 100 MHz.The dynamic evolution of the ultrafast pulse inside the all-fiber nonlinear pulse compressor is numerically analyzed,matching well with the experimental results.

The adaptive value of increasing pulse repetition rate during hunting by echolocating bats

During hunting, bats of suborder Microchiropetra emit intense ultrasonic pulses and analyze the weak returning echoes with their highly developed auditory system to extract the information about insects or obstacles. These bats progressively shorten the duration, lower the frequency, decrease the intensity and increase the repetition rate of emitted pulses as they search, approach, and finally intercept insects or negotiate obstacles. This dynamic variation in multiple parameters of emitted pulses predicts that analysis of an echo parameter by the bat would be inevitably affected by other co-varying echo parameters. The progressive increase in the pulse repetition rate throughout the entire course of hunting would presumably enable the bat to extract maximal information from the increasing number of echoes about the rapid changes in the target or obstacle position for successful hunting. However, the increase in pulse repetition rate may make it difficult to produce intense short pulse at high repetition rate at the end of long-held breath. The increase in pulse repetition rate may also make it difficult to produce high frequency pulse due to the inability of the bat laryngeal muscles to reach its full extent of each contraction and relaxation cycle at a high repetition rate. In addition, the increase in pulse repetition rate increases the minimum threshold （i.e. decrease auditory sensitivity） and the response latency of auditory neurons. In spite of these seemingly physiological disadvantages in pulse emission and auditory sensitivity, these bats do progressively increase pulse repetition rate throughout a target approaching sequence. Then, what is the adaptive value of increasing pulse repetition rate during echolocation？ What are the underlying mechanisms for obtaining maximal information about the target features during increasing pulse repetition rate？ This article reviews the electrophysiological studies of the effect of pulse repetition rate on multiple- parametric selectivity of neurons in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus of the big brown bat, Eptesicusfuscus using single repetitive sound pulses and temporally patterned trains of sound pulses. These studies show that increasing pulse repetition rate improves multiple-parametric selectivity of inferior collicular neurons. Conceivably, this improvement of multiple-parametric selectivity of collicular neurons with increasing pulse repetition rate may serve as the underlying mechanisms for obtaining maximal information about the prey features for successful hunting by bats.

The 266-nm ultraviolet-beam generation of all-fiberized super-large-mode-area narrow-linewidth nanosecond amplifier with tunable pulse width and repetition rate

We report on a compact, stable, all-fiberized narrow-linewidth(0.045 nm) pulsed laser source emitting laser beam with a wavelength of 266 nm, and tunable pulse width and repetition rate. The system is based on all-fiberized nanosecond amplifier architecture, which consists of Yb-doped fiber preamplifiers and a super-large-mode-area Yb-doped fiber power amplifier. The fiber amplifier with a core of 50 μm is used to raise the threshold of the stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS) effect and to obtain high output power and single pulse energy. Using lithium triborate(LBO) crystal and betabarium borate(BBO) crystal for realizing the second-harmonic generation(SHG) and fourth-harmonic generation(FHG),we achieve 17 μJ(1.73 W) and 0.66 μJ(66 mW), respectively, at wavelengths of 532 nm and 266 nm and a repetition rate of 100 kHz with pulse width of 4 ns. This source has great potential applications in fluorescence research and solar-blind ultraviolet optical communication.

All-fiberized very-large-mode-area Yb-doped fiber based high-peak-power narrow-linewidth nanosecond amplifier with tunable pulse width and repetition rate

We demonstrate an all-fiberized narrow-linewidth nanosecond amplifier with high peak power,tunable pulse width,and repetition rate.A fiber-coupled narrow-linewidth laser diode operating at 1064.1 nm is employed as the seed source,which is gain-switched to generate nanosecond pulses with tunable pulse widths of 1-200 ns and tunable repetition rates of10 Hz-100 kHz.By utilizing a very-large-mode-area Yb-doped fiber with a core diameter of 50 μm in the power amplifier,thresholds of the stimulated Brillouin scattering at different pulse widths and repetition rates are increased.The maximum average power reaches 30.8 W at the pulse width of 4 ns and a repetition rate of 100 kHz,corresponding to an optical-tooptical conversion efficiency of ~55.2%.Pulse energy and peak power are calculated to be 0.2 mJ and 50 kW,respectively,which are limited by stimulated Brillouin scattering.The 3-dB spectral linewidth remains around 0.05 nm during the power scaling process.The stimulated Brillouin scattering limited output powers at different pulse widths and repetition rates are investigated.Peak power of 47.5 kW(0.19 mJ) is obtained for the 4 ns pulses at a repetition rate of 50 kHz,which is nearly the same as that of 4 ns pulses at 100 kHz.When the pulse width of the seed source is increased to 8 ns,peak powers/pulse energies are decreased to 19.6 kW/0.11 mJ and 13.3 kW/0.08 mJ at repetition rates of 50 kHz and 100 kHz,respectively.

Characterization of zirconium thin films deposited by pulsed laser deposition

Zirconium （Zr） thin films deposited on Si （100） by pulsed laser deposition （PLD） at different pulse repetition rates are investigated. The deposited Zr films exhibit a polycrystalline structure, and the X-ray diffraction （XRD） patterns of the films show the α Zr phase. Due to the morphology variation of the target and the laser-plasma interaction, the deposition rate significantly decreases from 0.0431 A/pulse at 2 Hz to 0.0189A/pulse at 20 Hz. The presence of droplets on the surface of the deposited film, which is one of the main disadvantages of the PLD, is observed at various pulse repetition rates. Statistical results show that the dimension and the density of the droplets increase with an increasing pulse repetition rate. We find that the source of droplets is the liquid layer formed under the target surface. The dense nanoparticles covered on the film surface are observed through atomic force microscopy （AFM）. The root mean square （RMS） roughness caused by valleys and islands on the film surface initially increases and then decreases with the increasing pulse repetition rate. The results of our investigation will be useful to optimize the synthesis conditions of the Zr films.

Influence of Input Pulse Durations on Properties of Er^(3+)/Yb^(3+) Co-doped DCFA

Based on propagation-rate equations, the influence of different input pulse durations on the properties of Er^3＋/Yb^3＋ co-doped double-clad fiber amplifier at dynamic equilibrium was analyzed. The change characteristic of output power sag with pulse duration and repetition rate was shown. Whether single or multichannel input pulses are amplified, the shorter the input pulse duration is, the smaller the power sags of output pulse will be. At low repetition rate, upper gain values（Gupper） of gain swing are almost the same for different input pulse durations, which tend to the small signal gain, but lower gain value（Glower） of short input pulse is larger than that of long input pulse. At highrepetition rate, lower gain value（Glower） approaches to upper gain value（Glower）.

Supercontinuum generation at 1.55 μm in an all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fiber with high-repetition-rate picosecond pulses

We demonstrate the generation of supercontinuum(SC) spectrum covering S+C+L band of optical communication by injecting 1.4 ps optical pulses with center wavelength of 1552 nm and repetition rate of 10 GHz into an all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fiber(PCF) with length of 80 m. The experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical simulations, which are used to illustrate the SC generation dynamics by self-phase modulation and optical wave breaking(WB).

A compact Tirsapphire femtosecond pulse amplifier without stretcher at high repetition rate

We report a simple approach to amplify Ti:sapphire femtosecond pulses to moderate energy levels by a chirped regenerative amplifier. The seed pulses are broaden naturally because of the material dispersion of system components in regenerative cavity. The off-focusing Ti:sapphire crystal avoids effectively the optical damage. It sustains amplification over a wavelength range from 775 nm to more than 810 nm with a birefringent filter and an oscillation bandwidth of 7.7 nm, and produces 2.1 ps chirped output pulse energy of 100 uJ at 1.1-mJ pumping energy. This system shows good performances in stability and efficiency with the benefits of two thin-film polarizers and TEMoo mode pumping laser.

Diode-pumped Nd:YLF slab master oscillator power amplifier laser system with 655 m J output at 50 Hz repetition rate

A laser-diode-pumped high-pulse-energy Nd：LiYF4 master oscillator power amplifier 1053 nm laser system is demonstrated. We design a home-made pump module to homogenize the pump intensity through the ray tracing method. To increase the extraction efficiency, the pre-amplifier adopts a double-pass amplification structure. At a repetition rate of 50 Hz, 655 mJ pulse energy and 12.9 ns pulse width of 1053 nm laser is obtained from the master oscillator power amplifier system. The corresponding peak power is 51 MW. The optical-to-optical efficiency of the system is about 9.7%.

Electro-optically Q-switched high-repetition-rate1.73 μm optical parametric oscillator

We demonstrate a potassium titanyl phosphate-based optical parametric oscillator （OPO） emitting at 1729 nm. A maximum output power of 1,56 W at 1729.4 nm is obtained with an original fundamental laser power of 5.48 W. The pulse with a pulse duration of 11.22 ns exceeds 3 mJ at a 500 Hz repetition rate. To our knowledge this is the highest energy output of an OPO laser emitting around 1.73 μm operating at a 100 Hz order of magnitude. This laser is primarily used for bond-selective imaging of deep tissue, a promising way for diagnosing vulnerable plaques in live patients.

Eye-safe,single-frequency pulsed all-fiber laser for Doppler wind lidar

A single-frequency pulsed erbium-doped fiber （EDF） laser with master-oscillator power-amplifier configuration at 1 533 nm is developed. A short-cavity, erbium-doped phosphate glass fiber laser is utilized as a seeder laser with a linewidth of 5 kHz and power of 40 mW. The seeder laser is modulated to be a pulse laser with a repetition rate of 10 kHz and pulse duration of 500 ns. The amplifier consists of two pre-amplifiers and one main amplifier. The detailed characteristics of the spectrum and linewidth of the amplifiers are presented. A pulse energy of 116 μJ and a linewidth of 1.1 MHz are obtained. This laser can be a candidate transmitter for an all-fiber Doppler wind lidar in the boundary layer.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold dependent on temporal characteristics in a kilowatt-peak-power,single-frequency nanosecond pulsed fiber amplifier

The stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） threshold affected by repetition rate and pulse duration in a single- frequency nanosecond pulsed fiber amplifier is studied. The experimental results demonstrate that the SBS threshold can be improved either by reducing the repetition rate or by narrowing the pulse duration; however, the average power may be limited in some cases. Otherwise, two evaluation methods for the SBS threshold in the fiber amplifier are compared and discussed, aiming to obtain a more accurate description for the SBS threshold in our single-frequency amplifier system.

All-fiber cascaded ytterbium-doped nanosecond pulsed amplifier

A cascaded ytterbium-doped all-fiber master oscillator power amplifier（MOPA） with 1064-nm pulsed laser is demonstrated,and it can produce up to 20-W average power and 0.1-mJ pulse energy at tunable repetition rates from 10 to 200 kHz.Two main difficulties of the all-fiber configuration are overcome：all fiber isolator and mode field adapter between single mode fiber（SMF） and double cladding fiber（DCF）. Gain saturation and nonlinear effect are analyzed theoretically,and the possibility of further power-scaling of this cascade scheme is predicted.

Research of photonic-assisted triangular-shaped pulses generation based on quadrupling RF modulation

We propose an approach to generate optical triangular-shaped pulse train with tunable repetition rate using quadrupling radio frequency(RF)modulation and optical grating dispersion-induced power fading.In this work,a piece of chirped fiber Bragg grating(FBG)is employed as the dispersive media to remove the undesired 8th harmonic in optical intensity.Thus,the generated harmonics of optical intensity can be corresponding to the first two Fourier components of typical periodic triangular pulses.This work also analyzes the impacts of the extinction ratio and the bias voltage drift on the harmonic distortion suppression ratio.After that,the value of the extinction ratio and the range of the bias voltage drift can be obtained.The advantage of this proposal is that it can generate high order frequency-multiplexed optical pulses train which can be applied in all optical signal processing and other fields.

Conductively cooled 1-kHz single-frequency Nd:YAG laser for remote sensing

A conductively cooled, laser diode （LD） end-pumped, injection-seeded single-frequency Nd：YAG laser is designed and implemented. The laser is capable of producing an 8-mJ Q-switched pulse with a ll-ns pulse width at 1 064 nm and at a pulse repetition rate of 1 000 Hz. At the maximum output energy of 8 m J, the frequency jitter is less than 3.5 MHz （root mean square （RMS）） over two minutes, and the linewidth is around 54.2 MHz. The M2 of the laser beam is approximately 1.30 in both horizontal and vertical direc- tions. The optimized ramp-fire technique is applied to build reliable single longitudinal mode oscillating.

Compact and high-energy diode-side-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG slab laser system for space application

We develop a compact and high-energy Nd：YAG slab laser system consisting of an oscillator and an amplifier for space applications. The oscillator is a diode-side-pumped electro-optically Q-switched slab laser with a cross-Porro resonator. The KD＊P Pockels cell with a low driving voltage of 950 V is used to polarization output coupling. The amplifier is a Nd：YAG zigzag slab pumped at bounces. The maximum output pulse energy of 341 m3 with 13 ns pulse duration is obtained from the system at the repetition rate of 20 Hz and the beam quality factors are M2=3.1 and M2=3.5. The beam pointing stabilities of the laser system are 3.05μrad in the X-direction and 3.99 grad in the Y-direction, respectively.

Diode-side-pumped AO Q-switched Tm,Ho:LuLF laser

A diode-side-pumped Tm,Ho：LuLiF laser at 2μm wavelength obtained in a ring resonator and its amplification experiment are reported. At the maximum pump energy of 4.7 J available for the oscillator, the output energy per pulse for the oscillator decreases from 904 to 483 mJ in free running mode, and decreases from 106 to 68 mJ in Q-switched mode, with an increase of pump pulse repetition rate from 1 to 5 Hz. When considering the amplifier, 99-mJ Q-switched output energy is achieved at 5-Hz repetition rate.

Diode-pumped, narrow-linewidth, linearly polarized,passively Q-switched 1645 nm Er:YAG laser

We demonstrate a narrow-linewidth linearly polarized 1645 nm Er：YAG laser, directly diode-pumped by a fiber- coupled continuous-wave laser diode at 1532 nm. Passive Q-switching is realized by a few-layer graphene satu- rable absorber. A maximum polarized average output power of 3.13 W is achieved at 23.28 W incident pump power. A pulse energy of as much as 58.8 μJ and pulse width of 4.21 μs are yielded at a 53.2 kHz pulse repetition rate. The spectrum and linewidth of the output beams are measured to be 1645.34 and 0.05 nm, respectively. This laser can be useful in the detection of atmosphere pollutants.

Stable, efficient diode-pumped femtosecond Yb:KGW laser through optimization of energy density on SESAM

An efficient high-power diode-pumped femtosecond Yb：KGW laser is repored. Through optimization of energy density by semiconductor saturable absorber mirror, output power achieved 2.4 W with pulse duration of 350 fs and repetition rate of 53 MHz at a pump power of 12.5 W, corresponding to an optical-to-optical efficiency of 19.2%. We believe that it is the highest optical-to-optical efficiency for single-diode-numoed bulk Yb：KGW femtosecond lasers to date.

Photoacoustic Doppler flowmetry of carbon particles flow using an autocorrelation method

In order to measure the axial flowing velocity of carbon particle suspension with particle diameter of tens of micrometers, the photoacoustic Doppler(PAD) frequency shift is calculated based on a series of individual A scans using an autocorrelation method. A 532 nm pulsed laser with repetition rate of 20 Hz is used as a pumping source to generate photoacoustic signal. The photoacoustic signals are detected using a focused piezoelectric(PZT) ultrasound transducer with central frequency of 5 MHz. The suspension of carbon particles is driven by a syringe pump. The complex photoacoustic signal is calculated by the Hilbert transformation from time-domain photoacoustic signal, and then it is autocorrelated to calculate the Doppler frequency shift. The photoacoustic Doppler frequency shift is calculated by averaging the autocorrelation results of some individual A scans. The advantage of the autocorrelation method is that the time delay in autocorrelation can be defined by user, and the requirement of high pulse repetition rate is avoided. The feasibility of the proposed autocorrelation method is preliminarily demonstrated by quantifying the motion of a carbon particle suspension with flow velocity from 5 mm/s to 60 mm/s. The experimental results show that there is an approximately linear relation between the autocorrelation result and the setting velocity.