Max-planck-gesellschaft Zur F&#xf6;rderung Der Wissenschaften E. V.

Sandor Szatmari

Fritz P Schaefer

Fritz P Schafer

Zsolt Bor

Gotz Kuhnle

Jethwa, Jaydev

A transversely discharge-pumped gas laser has a discharge vessel, which encloses a laser gas and at least one pair of oppositely disposed elongated discharge electrodes which extend in a predetermined longitudinal direction and are separated by a discharge region, in which laser radiation is generated which propagates along a beam path. The beam path passes once or a plurality of times through the discharge region. The direction of the beam path of the sole pass or some or all of the multiple passes forms an angle different from zero with the longitudinal direction of the elctrodes. The angle or angles are chosen such that the quality, homogeneity of intensity profile, gain and output energy of a resulting output beam are well balanced.

Transversely discharge-pumped gas laser

An optical pulse compressor having a single deflecting dispersive optical element in the form of a diffraction grating (10) or prism for temporal compression of an optical pulse, the frequency of which increases during the pulse duration. An elongated target (T) for receiving the compressed pulse is arranged in parallel with an output surface of the grating or prism. To increase the inclination of the pulse front for effective synchronous travelling wave excitation of the target the output surface of the diffraction grating or prism can be interfaced by an immersion medium or the beam path can be made to converge in the plane containing the target by a cylindrical lens or a reducing imaging optical system can be arranged between the grating or prism and the target.

Optical pulse compressor

An apparatus for measuring the duration of single short optical radiation lses, particularly laser radiation pulses, by means of autocorrelation and two-photon ionization, contains a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (BS1, BS2, M1, M2) as beam splitter means for generating from a single input radiation pulse (10) two coherent component pulses (14, 16) propagating along two component beam paths (18, 20) each of which contains a section (18a20a) passing through a meausring zone (22) where they overlap, further a two-photon ionization detector having a measuring zone (22) and collector electrode means (36) and counter-electrode means (38) at which an electric output signal is available depending on the number of charge carriers generated in the measuring zone when the component beam pulses overlap, and a measuring system connected to the electrode means (36, 38). The collector electrode means (36) contains a number of strip-type collector electrodes which are to each other and electrically separated from each other and are located in a plane essentially parallel to the two component beam paths ( 18a, 20a) in the measuring zone and are oriented in the longitudinal direction essentially in the direction of the component beam path sections (18a, 22a) passing through the measuring zone (22).

Apparatus for measuring the duration of single optical radiation pulses

A laser with distributed feedback utilizes an active laser medium, especiy a dye solution contained in a cell, excited by a pump radiation beam that passes through an optical grating or like device, and an optical imaging system arranged between the optical device and the laser medium; the imaging system, in combination with the optical device, forms a striped pump radiation pattern in the laser medium. The optical imaging system contains a microscope lens in retro position, or another scale reducing or demagnifying lens system, and may optionally, include a variable-focus lens for altering the imaging scale and, therefore, the wavelength of the laser emission.

Distributed feedback laser

A method of producing individual short laser pulses in which a stimulatable laser medium is excited by a pump pulse in order to produce a population inversion above a laser threshold value, the population inversion being kept below the threshold value after emission of the short radiation pulse. The laser medium is common to two resonators and from it energy in the form of the desired individual short laser radiation pulse is first taken from the first resonator by means of a first relaxation process of given threshold value, relatively short time constant and relatively low quality factor, after which the inversion in the laser medium is kept below the preset threshold value of the first resonance process by a second relaxation process of relatively long time constant and relatively high quality factor in the second resonator coupled to the first. The resulting individual short laser radiation pulse can be supplied as pump pulse to a distributed feedback dye (DFB) laser at an intensity relative to the DFB laser medium threshold such that the DFB laser emits at least one ultra-short radiation pulse.

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Goettingen, Germany

Sandor Szatmari