Development of a New Mid-Infrared Source Pumped by an Optical Parametric Chirped-Pulse Amplifier
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Development of a new mid-infrared source pumped by an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier. by Etienne Pelletier A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Physics University of Toronto Copyright © 2013 by Etienne Pelletier Abstract Development of a new mid-infrared source pumped by an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier. Etienne Pelletier Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Physics University of Toronto 2013 The mid-infrared (MIR) system presented in the thesis is based on a sub-100-fs erbium- doped fiber laser operating at 1.55 µm. The output of the laser is split in two, each arm seeding an erbium-doped fiber amplifier. The output of the first amplifier is sent to a grating-based stretcher to be stretched to 50 ps before seeding the optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA). The output of the second amplifier is coupled to a highly nonlinear fiber to generate the 1 µm needed to seed the a neodymium-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (Nd:YLF) system. This work represents the first time this synchronization scheme is used, and the timing jitter between the two arms at the OPCPA is reduced to 333 fs. The pump laser for the OPCPA is a regenerative amplifier producing 1.6 W followed by a double-pass amplifier, for a final output power of 2.5 W at 1 kHz. Etalons were inserted into the cavity of the regenerative amplifier to stretch the pulses to 50 ps The OPCPA consists of two potassium titanyl arsenate crystals in a noncollinear configuration. With three passes, the gain is 3.8 106. Using a grating compressor, the · pulse duration is reduced to 140 fs, with a power of 300 mW. Because of the reduction of the timing jitter, the amplitude stability is 1 %, which is a great improvement compare to existing systems. To generate ultrafast light in the MIR, an optical parametric amplifier is used, pumped ii by the output of the OPCPA and seeded with its 3-µm idler. Two crystals were tested, both in a single-pass configuration. For the first crystal, a 4-mm thick silver thiogallate, an efficiency of 7.4 % was reached, with 8.76 mW in the signal and 7.2 mW in the idler. For the second crystal, a 2-mm thick lithium gallium selenide, the efficiency was higher, reaching 10.8 %. The power for the signal was 11.5 mW, and for the idler, 11.11 mW. Using this new scheme, energies on par with current systems are achieved with much higher efficiencies. iii Acknowledgements At first, I thought that the acknowledgement would be the easy part; how hard could it be to express my gratitude to a few people? Well, harder then I was expecting; so many people helped me in one way or another and I hope I will do a good job at giving them the recognition they deserve. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. R.J. Dwayne Miller, for making this opportunity happen. I am not only talking about accepting me as a student in his group and giving me the guidance to achieve my goal, but also for having an extremely contagious enthusiasm, without which none of this would have been possible. When I first met him, before a talk he was giving at Laval University, I was a disenchanted young man; years before the telecom bubble burst and with the job prospective in Optics still gloomy, grad school seemed like the only option. However, this first meeting changed my mind set and I began to see grad school for what is really was; a chance to work on new and exciting science. The following year, three months into what was supposed to be a two-year master, my transformation was completed and I decided to do a Ph.D., which, even during tough times, I have never regretted. The meeting with Prof. Miller would have never happen without the generous help of Prof. Nathalie McCarthy, a faculty member at Laval University. At a moment when I was at a cross-road in my life, she gave appreciated advice and suggestions, without which this thesis might have never happen. And for this, I am extremely grateful to Prof. McCarthy. A major breakthrough in my project occurred because of Prof. Miller’s sabbatical in Italy, in 2008. While in Europe, he found himself visiting the University of Konstanz and met up with a faculty who told him how they could generate almost any color using an erbium-doped fiber laser; this meeting was a turning point in my project. Already by then, we were looking into using nonlinearity in fibers, but it was seen as a bit of a gamble. However, by having a collaborator, this solution became a no-brainer and we went ahead; iv the rest of the story can be found in this thesis. For this, I would like to express my most sincere gratitude to Prof. Alfred Leitenstorfer and his group at the University of Konstanz; without their help, there would be no nonlinear fiber. I would also want to personally thank Alexander Sell, the Ph.D. student (now Doctor) who was my direct connection within the group in Konstanz, for his priceless help with the nonlinear fiber (i.e. designing/making it) as well as for his numerous advice and tips on erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. For the last 7 years, the Miller group became a kind of adoptive family, bringing with it a mix of friendships and professional relations that is hard to describe. I owe a big thanks to all the previous group members, especially those that were there when I first joined. Their kindness helped ease what could have been an extremely stressful situation; joining a large group of individuals (more than 15 people at the time) is not an easy task. Of all of them, a few deserve to be singled out: Sadia Khan, our former research facilitator, who was a a great help with the administrative business as well as a willing listener; Kresimir Franjic and Renzhong Hua, who were my first mentors in the lab; Darren Kraemer, who was the trailblazer whose footsteps I followed as well as a constant source of advice and discussion. Over the years, the dynamic of the group changed, as well as my role in it; nonetheless, I would like to acknowledge the current members for their help and support, in particular Alexei Halpin, Christina Mueller, and Philip Johnson. As senior Ph.D. students, we had on more than one occasion discussions about our research, frustrations, and general topics regarding our life as graduate students, which helped me stay sane by keeping things in perspective. I cannot write acknowledgments without mentioning my family. My brother and my sister who supported me throughout my Ph.D. and never once said "Shouldn’t you be done by now?", which is extremely nice of them. However, I owe more than special thanks to my parents; I would not have made it this far without their help. As a young boy, they successfully engaged me with science through weekend activities, which could be seen as v the starting point of this long journey. During my undergrad, my parents constantly pushed me to aim for the highest grade that I could possibly achieve. Although it was not always easy (and sometimes annoying), their healthy encouragement taught me to strive for my maximum potential. And finally, I would like to thank all of my friends who have been there for me during all those years. In particular, all of those who had to endure my complaints: Jean- Michel Menard, my fellow Quebecer in the Physics department, who was my partner in crime (mostly telling bad jokes) from the beginning; Cristen Adams, another physicist, with whom I walked so many times from the department to the East side, especially after PGSA pub nights; Adrienne Marcotte, with whom I biked to all corners of Toronto; Martin Parrot, an old friend since my youth, who brought the Canadiens’ fever in Toronto; and finally, Sue Hobson, to whom I owe a special thanks, as she was nice (crazy?) enough to read over my entire thesis, hunting for mistakes and poor grammar, which was not an easy task (i.e. ESL). vi Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 LaserSelectiveChemistry . 1 1.2 Mid-infrared optical parametric amplifier . ....... 3 1.3 Chirped-pulse amplification . 4 1.4 Thiswork-quickoverview. 5 2 Generation of the seed: Nonlinear propagation in fibers 7 2.1 Maxwellequations .............................. 7 2.2 Spatialmode ................................. 11 2.3 Dispersion................................... 18 2.4 Nonlinearpropagation . 23 2.5 Self-phasemodulation . 28 3 Erbium-doped fiber system for signal amplification 35 3.1 Opticalproperties............................... 35 3.2 Dispersioninerbium-dopedfibers . 38 3.3 Fiberlaser................................... 41 3.4 Erbium-dopedfiberamplifier. 42 4 Highly-nonlinear fiber for all-optical synchronization 50 vii 4.1 Precompensatingfiber ............................ 50 4.2 Dispersionoptimizedfiber . 52 4.3 Mechanism for wavelength tuning . 53 4.4 Result ..................................... 53 5 Nd:YLF amplification system 58 5.1 Opticalproperties............................... 58 5.2 Regenerativeamplifier ............................ 63 5.3 Regenerativeamplifierdesign . 71 5.4 Multipassamplifier .............................. 75 6 Optical parametric amplifier system 78 6.1 Optical parametric amplification . 78 6.2 Optical Parametric Chirped Pulsed Amplifier . ..... 91 6.3 Stretching-Compression. 91 7 Optical Parametric Chirped-Pulse Amplifier 100 7.1 OPCPA-Design ............................... 100 7.2 OPCPA-Performance ............................ 106 8 MIR OPA development 116 8.1 Design..................................... 116 8.2 Performance.................................. 120 9 Conclusion 129 9.1 Futurework-improvement . 130 9.2 Closingwords ................................. 131 viii List of Tables 2.1 Coefficients for the Sellmeier equation for the core, i = 1, and for the cladding, i =2 (from[16])..........................