University of Central Florida Research Foundation Inc

Zenghu Chang

Yi Wu

Eric Cunningham

Yanchun Yin

Lam Mach

Qi Zhang

Kun Zhao

Xiaoming Ren

Krishna Murari

Fangjie Zhou

A laser system may include a seed laser formed from a Ti:Sapphire laser providing pulsed light and an optical parametric amplifier to generate pulsed light within a Holmium emission spectrum as seed pulses in response to the pulsed light from the Ti:Sapphire laser. A laser system may further include an amplifier to generate amplified pulses of light in response to the seed pulses from the seed laser, where the amplified pulses include at least some of the seed pulses amplified by the one or more Holmium-doped gain media pumped by the one or more pump lasers. The amplifier may include one or more Holmium-doped gain media and one or more pump lasers providing continuous-wave pump light within an absorption spectrum of the one or more Holmium-doped gain media.

Multi-millijoule holmium laser system

The present invention demonstrates a technique for achieving milli-joule level and higher energy, broad bandwidth laser pulses centered around 2.4 micrometer with a kilohertz and other repetition rate. The key to such technique is to start with a broadband micro-joule level seed laser at around 2.4 micrometer, which could be generated through difference frequency generation, four-wave mixing process and other methods. This micro-joule level seed laser could then be amplified to above one milli-joule through chirped pulse amplification in a Cr2+:ZnSe or Cr2+:ZnS crystal pumped by a commercially available Ho:YAG or other appropriate suitable lasers. Due to the high seed energy, fewer gain passes are needed to achieve a milli-joule level output thus significantly simplifies laser architectures. Furthermore, gain narrowing effect in a typical chirped pulse amplifier is also mitigated and thus enable a broadband output.

High energy broadband laser system, methods, and applications

Apparatus and methods that enable the suppression of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and prevention against parasitic lasing in cryogenically-cooled laser amplifier systems, thus allowing sustainable extraction efficiency when increasing the pump power and suitable for large-scale, high average-power laser systems employing large-aperture gain media. A gain medium having a known index of refraction for operation in an evacuated, cryogenic environment includes an ASE-absorbing epoxy composition on the perimetrical edge of the gain medium, wherein the epoxy composition has an index of refraction that substantially matches the index of refraction of the gain medium.

Apparatus and method for suppressing parasitic lasing and applications thereof

The carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of a laser pulse has been shown to influence many physical processes such as pulse propagation through polar molecules, cross-phase modulation, ponderomotive surface-plasmon electron acceleration, photoemission from metallic surfaces, terahertz emission from the laser breakdown of air, above-threshold ionization, high harmonic generation, and attosecond pulse generation. Current technology does not allow for the CEP stabilization of chirped pulse amplification (CPA) systems operating at a repetition rate much lower than a kHz. The inventors disclose apparatus and methods that enable CEP control in CPA systems operating at arbitrarily-low repetition rates.

Apparatus and methods for controlling carrier envelope phase of low repetition rate pulses

An optical filtering method that utilizes a Microchannel Plate (MCP) and an optical system that utilizes the optical filtering method. As an example, a XUV/SXR generation system that includes a MCP as a dispersionless, broadband IR pump filter.

Growing community of inventors

Oviedo, FL, United States of America

Zenghu Chang