1 High Energy Pulses From Ultrafast Regenerative Amplifiers
Separating the output from the input takes a special optic. . .
Titanium-doped Sapphire (Ti:Sapphire) crystals are widely used for the shortest pulsed ultrafast laser systems, generating pulses down to several femtosecond (fs). The very broad wavelength range (bandwidth) of Ti:Sapphire extends from about 650 – 1100 nm, although most systems operate at a wavelength near ~ 800, where the maximum laser gain and efficiency are obtained. Additional characteristics including excellent thermal conductivity and the ability to use relatively easily accessible pump wavelengths make Ti:Sapphire gain media useful in both oscillators and amplifiers, allowing access to a wide range of possible pulse energies. On the low energy end, ultrafast oscillators provide the highest repetition rates (typically megahertz and above), but are limited to the nanojoule (nJ) level. By adding single-pass amplifiers to an ultrafast oscillator seed source, for example using a Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) design, pulse energies of microjoules (μJ) can be obtained at 10’s to 100’s of kilohertz. However, there are many scientific and some industrial applications that require millijoules (mJ). To boost the energy of ultrafast lasers systems, multi-pass amplifiers are used.
One specific type of multi-pass amplifier, a regenerative amplifier (see Figure 1), involves multiple passes through an amplifier gain medium that is placed within an optical resonator that includes an optical switch, governing the number of round trips and allowing very high overall gain. A key to the workings of a regenerative amplifier is the ability to select out pulses after they have been amplified to the target level.
Figure 1. Typical Regenerative Amplifier Design, showing the use of a Faraday Rotator (denoted FR) and its location in the system.
To achieve that goal of selecting out pulses, it is necessary to use an optic that is non-reciprocal for polarization rotation in the forward and reverse directions. An optical Faraday Rotator can accomplish the task.
Fortunately, EOT has the Faraday Rotator that you need for your Ti:Sapphire Regenerative Amplifier.
2 Polarization Selection Using a Faraday Rotator
A Faraday rotator is a passive optical device made of a magneto-optic material that has special properties - the way a Faraday rotator operates is to rotate the plane of polarized light 45° in the forward direction and an additional 45° of non-reciprocal rotation in the reverse direction while maintaining the light’s linear polarization. When used in conjunction with polarized optics, a Faraday rotator can be used to pass light into a resonator and then send it to the output path when the polarization state has been switched. Containing low absorption, high damage threshold optics, EOT’s Faraday rotators and Isolators are ideally suited for use with average power levels of up to 50W of average power for ultrafast laser systems.
When selecting a Faraday rotator, there are several criteria to keep in mind: the incident beam size, the incident optical power and energy on the rotator, and the required transmitted power for the next stage. Click here to find the EOT product best for your requirements.
Installing a Faraday rotator in the optical path of a regenerative amplifier system is relatively straight forward. Each EOT Faraday rotator comes with a User’s Manual [i], which describes how to align the device in the beam path. Consideration of the optical beam size, optical power and center wavelength and bandwidth must be taken into account when selecting the appropriate rotator. EOT Faraday rotators are built based on the Model Number specified in a Purchase Order.
Dispersion is a significant issue for ultrafast lasers, one that can affect the pulse duration and therefore, the peak power, of ultrashort pulses. Dispersion occurs when light pulses travel in a medium where the phase velocity depends on its frequency (or wavelength). The material used to make a Faraday rotator is dispersive, and therefore pulses traversing through this device can broaden in length, although the magnitude and relevance of that effect depends on both the initial pulse and the application.
Solving analytically for the 2nd derivative of the refractive index, it is possible to calculate GVD and then the actual second order dispersion for a specific device (here denoted as β2, the second-order group delay dispersion), related to GVD by multiplying GVD by the length of the material – in this case, the TGG used in the Faraday rotator. This information can in turn be used to calculate the output pulse duration for given input pulse duration, after traveling through the length of TGG rotator material. For the case where the input pulse length squared, t0 2 , is much less than β2, an equation to express the pulse broadening proportional to β2 can be used.[v]
Figure 2. Broadening of a femtosecond pulse at ~800 nm after propagation through 8 mm of TGG (blue curve); the red curve shows the output for undistorted pulses.
When designing ultrafast laser systems with regenerative amplifiers, the use of a Faraday rotator is key to its operation. The use of an EOT Faraday rotator in the system, as described in this Application Note, will allow for designers to achieve target performance using a low loss and reliable component to select output pulses from the system.
Contact EOT for more information on how to use Faraday rotators in laser systems.
[v]See the section on Dispersive Pulse Broadening and Chirping at: http://www.rp-photonics.com/chromatic_dispersion.html