• Volume 75, Issue 5

November 2010,   pages  757-1308a

• Preface

• Ignition studies in support of the European High Power Laser Energy Research Facility project

The European High Power Laser Energy Research Facility (HiPER) project is one of a number of large-scale scientific infrastructure projects supported by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Part of this project involves the development of a target area for the exploration of inertial fusion energy. This paper describes some of the research that is being carried out by the author in support of this aspect of the program. The effects of different regions of the fusion target mixing prior to thermonuclear ignition have been investigated using the 1D Lagrangian radiation hydrodynamics simulation code HYADES. Results suggest that even low (few parts per million) levels of contamination of fuel by high-𝑍 ion species may inhibit ignition due to radiative cooling of the ignition spot.

• High average power supercontinuum sources

The physical mechanisms and basic experimental techniques for the creation of high average spectral power supercontinuum sources is briefly reviewed. We focus on the use of high-power ytterbium-doped fibre lasers as pump sources, and the use of highly nonlinear photonic crystal fibres as the nonlinear medium. The most common experimental arrangements are described, including both continuous wave fibre laser systems with over 100 W pump power, and picosecond mode-locked, master oscillator power fibre amplifier systems, with over 10 kW peak pump power. These systems can produce broadband supercontinua with over 50 and 1 mW/nm average spectral power, respectively. Techniques for numerical modelling of the supercontinuum sources are presented and used to illustrate some supercontinuum dynamics. Some recent experimental results are presented.

• Femtosecond pulse generation and amplification in Yb-doped fibre oscillator–amplifier system

In recent times ytterbium (Yb) doped fibre-based mode-locked master oscillator and power amplifier have attracted a great deal of interest because of their inherent advantages like flexibility, reliability, compactness, high power handling capability and diffraction limited output beam quality as compared to the solid-state counterpart. But, to successfully develope of high-power femtosecond oscillator–amplifier system based on Yb- doped fibre, an appropriate choice of the mode-locking regime and the amplifier geometry are required. Development of an all-fibre integrated high-power Yb-doped fibre oscillator–amplifier system in which the advantages of a fibre-based system can be fully exploited remained a challenge as it requires the careful optimization of dispersion, nonlinearity, gain and ASE contribution.

In this article, femto-second pulse generation in Yb-doped fibre oscillator in different mode-locking regimes are reviewed and the details of development and characterization of an all-fibre, high-power, low-noise amplifier system seeded by an all-normal-dispersion mode-locked Yb-doped fibre laser oscillator is described. More than 10 W of average power is obtained from the fibre oscillator–amplifier system at a repetition rate of 43 MHz with diffraction-limited beam quality. Amplified pulses are de-chirped to sub-160 fs duration in a grating compressor. This is the first 10 W-level source of femtosecond pulses with completely fibre-integrated amplification comprised of commercially available components.

• Physics and technology of tunable pulsed single longitudinal mode dye laser

Design and technology demonstration of compact, narrow bandwidth, high repetition rate, tunable SLM dye lasers in two different configurations, namely Littrow and grazing incidence grating (GIG), were carried out in our lab at BARC, India. The single longitudinal mode (SLM) dye laser generates single-mode laser beams of $\sim 400$ MHz (GIG configuration) and $\sim 600$ MHz (Littrow configuration) bandwidth. Detailed performance studies of the Littrow and GIG dye laser resonators showed that GIG dye laser results in narrower linewidth and broad mode hop free wavelength scanning over 70 GHz. In this paper we present experimental studies carried out on the high repetition rate SLM dye laser system.

• Fabrication of periodically poled lithium niobate chips for optical parametric oscillators

An electric-field poling process was established that yielded uniform periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) in 0.5 mm thick lithium niobate substrate. We have fabricated 50 mm long fanned as well as multigrating PPLNs having period variations from 25 𝜇m to 32 𝜇m. These PPLNs are required for quasi-phase-matched (QPM) optical parametric oscillator (OPO) applications. We have also configured a bench-top OPO set-up based on these PPLNs.

• Narrow linewidth pulsed optical parametric oscillator

Tunable narrow linewidth radiation by optical parametric oscillation has many applications, particularly in spectroscopic investigation. In this paper, different techniques such as injection seeding, use of spectral selecting element like grating, grating and etalon in combination, grazing angle of incidence, entangled cavity configuration and type-II phase matching have been discussed for generating tunable narrow linewidth radiation by singly resonant optical parametric oscillation process.

• Absorption and dispersion in metamaterials: Feasibility of device applications

We present a quantitative study of the effects of losses in layered media with a metamaterial layer as the constituent. The metamaterial is modelled by a causal isotropic effective medium (Lorentz-type) response. The parameters for the model are picked from a recent experiment. Two specific examples, namely, that of resonant tunnelling (RT) and imaging are chosen to demonstrate the devastating effects of losses in the present day metamaterials. It is then shown how large delays in RT, as well as near perfect imaging can be restored in gain-doped metamaterials. We also point out yet another use of metamaterials for achieving near perfect absorption, and its use for probing strong atom–field interaction.

• Super-resolution by pupil plane phase filtering

Resolution capability of any optical imaging system is limited by residual aberrations as well as diffraction effects. Overcoming this fundamental limit is called super-resolution. Several new paradigms for super-resolution in optical systems use ‘a posteriori’ digital image processing. In these ventures the three-dimensional point spread function (PSF) of the lens plays a key role in image acquisition. A straightforward tailoring of the PSF can be performed by appropriate pupil plane filtering. With a brief review of the state-of-art in this research area, this paper dwells upon the inverse problem of global optimization of the pupil function by phase filtering in accordance with the desired PSF.

• Generation of synchronized signal and pump pulses for an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based multi-terawatt Nd:glass laser system

Synchronized signal (650 ps) and pump (1.3 ns) pulses were generated using 4-pass geometry in a grating pair based pulse stretcher unit. The pump pulse has been further amplified in a high gain regenerative amplifier. This amplified pulse was used as the pump in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based Nd:glass laser system. As the chirped signal pulse and the pump pulse originated from the same oscillator, the time jitter between the pump pulse and the signal pulse can be &lt;50 ps.

• A 10-Hz terawatt class Ti:sapphire laser system: Development and applications

We developed a two-stage Ti:sapphire laser system to generate 16 mJ/80 fs laser pulses at a pulse repetition rate of 10 Hz. The key deriver for the present design is implementing a highly efficient symmetric confocal pre-amplifier and employing a simple, inexpensive synchronization scheme relying only on a commercial digital delay generator. We characterized the amplified pulses in spatial, spectral and temporal domains. The laser system was used to investigate various nonlinear optical processes, and to modify the optical properties of metal and semiconductor surfaces. We are currently building a third amplifier to boost the laser power to the multi-terawatt range.

• Development of Raman-shifted probe laser beam for plasma diagnosis using polaro-interferometer

Optical diagnostics of laser-produced plasma requires a coherent, polarized probe beam synchronized with the pump beam. The probe beam should have energy above the background emission of plasma. Though the second harmonic probe beam satisfies most of the requirements, the plasma emission is larger at the harmonic frequencies of the pump. Hence, at high intensities we need a probe beam at non-harmonic frequencies. We have set up a Raman frequency shifted probe beam using a pressurized hydrogen cell that is pumped by the second harmonic of the Nd glass laser that operates at only one Stokes line of 673.75 nm.

• On the repetitive operation of a self-switched transversely excited atmosphere CO2 laser

The repetition rate capability of self-switched transversely excited atmosphere (TEA) CO2 laser was studied for different gas flow configurations. For an optimized gas flow configuration, repetitive operation was achieved at a much smaller gas replenishment factor between two successive pulses when compared with repetitive systems energized by conventional pulsers.

• Generation of 13.9 𝜇m radiation from CO2 by cascade lasing or externally applied CO2 laser

13.9 𝜇m radiation from the $10^{0}0–01^{1}0$ transition can be obtained from a CO2 laser by saturating the 00$^{0}1–10^{0}0$, 10.6 𝜇m transition with an internally generated q-switched pulse or by the application of an external 10.6 𝜇m pulse. Because of Fermi resonance between the symmetric stretch and the bending modes, decay of population from the $10^{0}0$ level is fast, and such lasers operate at low power and energies. A theoretical model was developed to study such lasers. The results of the calculations indicate that a large-aperture E-beam-sustained discharge is effective for excitation of the cryogenically cooled gain medium, which uses He rich mixture at low pressure. The system is scalable and capable of generating large powers and energies.

• On the operation of switch-less transversely excited atmosphere CO2 lasers in the oscillator and amplifier configurations

The work presented in this paper deals with the triggering aspect of a switch-less laser. Many methods were utilized to affect the operation of two switch-less lasers in the oscillator–amplifier configuration. Most satisfactory performance in terms of the range and reliability of the delay was obtained with the LC inversion-based triggering option.

• Indigenous development of a 2 kW RF-excited fast axial flow CO2 laser

RF-excited fast axial flow CO2 lasers in kilowatt regime are presently being used for various new scientific applications in addition to laser material processing because of its versatility and superior beam quality. We have indigenously developed a compact 2 kW RF-excited fast axial flow CO2 laser with moderate beam quality. In this paper the key design features of the laser and the associated high power capacitively coupled RF excitation technique are discussed in detail. Operational characteristics of this system are described along with the experimental findings.

• Nonlinear resonance phenomena of a doped fibre laser under cavity-loss modulation: Experimental demonstrations

Our experiments with an erbium-doped fibre ring laser (CW, single transverse mode and multiaxial mode) with an intracavity LiNbO3 electro-optic modulator (EOM) display the characteristic features of a nonlinear oscillator (e.g., harmonic and period-2 sub-harmonic resonances) when the EOM driver voltage is modulated periodically. Harmonic resonance leads to period-1 bistability and hysteresis. Inside the period-2 sub-harmonic resonance region, the laser exhibits Feigenbaum sequence and generalized bistability.

• A microring multimode laser using hollow polymer optical fibre

We report the observation of multimode laser operation at wavelengths corresponding to whispering-gallery modes from a freestanding microring cavity based on rhodamine B dye-doped PMMA hollow optical fibre. Cylindrical microcavities with diameters 155, 340 and 615 𝜇m were fabricated from a dye-doped hollow polymer optical fibre preform. An average mode spacing of 0.17 nm was observed for the 340 𝜇m cavity. This shows that the laser mode intensity distribution is concentrated on the outer edge of the cavity.

• Dual wavelength operation in diode-end-pumped hybrid vanadate laser

Dual wavelength operation at 1062.8 nm and 1064.1 nm in a diode-pumped hybrid laser comprising of Nd3+-doped birefringent YVO4 and GdVO4 crystals is demon-strated. A detailed characterization of the laser is performed under CW and pulsed operation. Under Q-switching, 4 W of average power at 5 kHz repetition rate is obtained with 32 ns FWHM pulse duration corresponding to 25 kW of the peak power. The intensity and the polarization of the individual spectral components can be easily controlled by changing the relative gain and the relative orientation of the two crystals. The resulting pulsed dual-wavelength laser has the potential to be used as a source for generating terahertz radiation.

• 101 W of average green beam from diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG/LBO-based system in a relay imaged cavity

Studies on intracavity frequency doubling of acousto-optically Q-switched Nd:YAG rod laser using 18 mm long type-II phase-matched LBO crystal in a relay-imaged cavity is reported. A single pump head comprised of Nd:YAG rod, diffusive reflectors and linear array laser diode bars is used. 101 W of average green power at a total diode pumping power of 700 W is obtained corresponding to 14.4% optical-to-optical conversion efficiency. The pulse repetition rate is 30 kHz with an individual pulse duration of 200 ns.

• Efficient and high-power green beam generation by frequency doubling of acousto-optic Q-switched diode-side pumped Nd:YAG rod laser in a coupled cavity

A 52-W green laser at 532 nm by extra-cavity second-harmonic generation in a coupled-cavity configuration is demonstrated. The fundamental laser is a diode-side-pumped acousto-optic (AO) Q-switched Nd:YAG rod laser producing 84 W of average power at 1064 nm at 8 kHz repetition rate. Type-II phase-matched polished KTP crystal is used as the nonlinear crystal for second-harmonic generation. The individual green pulse width is 50 ns and the fundamental to second harmonic conversion efficiency is 61.8%.

• Rate equation simulation of temporal characteristics of a pulsed dye laser oscillator

A time-dependent, two-dimensional (in space) rate equation model of a transversely-pumped pulsed dye laser oscillator, which incorporates transverse pump intensity variation in the presence of intracavity dye laser radiation, is proposed to under-stand and predict its temporal behaviour. The model yields output pulses which agree well with experimental results using rhodamine 6G and kiton red dyes. The shape, amplitude and temporal position of the simulated pulse within the pump pulse vary dramatically across the tuning range of each dye depending on the relative gain and loss values.

• Development of a 16 kHz repetition rate, 110 W average power copper HyBrID laser

This paper presents the design and performance analysis of an indigenously developed 110 W average output power copper HyBrID laser operating at 16 kHz pulse repetition rate. The laser active medium was confined within a fused silica tube of $\sim 6$ cm diameter and $\sim 200$ cm active length. An in-house developed high-power ($\sim 10$ kW) solid-state pulser was used as the electrical excitation source. A simple estimation of deposited electrical power, at the laser head, was carried out and based on it, the laser tube efficiency was found to be 2.9% at 70 W and 2.2% at 110 W laser power levels.

• Enhanced performance of a wide-aperture copper vapour laser with hydrogen additive in neon buffer gas

A wide-aperture copper vapour laser was demonstrated at $\sim 10$ kHz rep-rate with hydrogen additive in its buffer gas. Maximum power in excess of $\sim 50$ W (at 10 kHz) was achieved by adding 1.96% hydrogen to the neon buffer gas at 20 mbar total gas pressure. This increase in output power was about 70% as compared to $\sim 30$ W achieved with pure neon at 5.5 kHz rep-rate. The 70% enhancement achieved was significantly higher than the maximum reported value of 50% so far in the literature. The enhancement was much higher (about 150%) as compared to its 20 W power at 10 kHz rep-rate using pure neon as the standard CVL operation.

• Development of insulated gate bipolar transistor-based power supply for elemental copper vapour laser

The elemental copper vapour laser is a widely used laser from a family of metal vapour lasers for applications such as dye laser pumping, micromachining etc. In this paper, we report the development and performance of IGBT-based pulsed power supply that replaced conventional thyratron-based power supply for 4.7 cm diameter, 150 cm long copper vapour laser. The laser tube delivered an average power of 51 W, which with conventional power supply was giving 40 W. The IGBT-based power supply offers considerable reduction in the running cost of the laser. It is more user-friendly when compared with the conventional power supply.

• Emission studies on ZnO-inverse photonic crystals derived from self-assembly

Photonic crystals fabricated from the colloidal spheres of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) using the inward-growing self-assembly technique were subse-quently in-filled with zinc oxide (ZnO) prepared by the sol–gel process. The polymer template was removed by heat treatment and chemical method to get ZnO-inverse photonic crystal. The structural quality of the inverse photonic crystal obtained by the chemical method was found to be superior to that obtained by heat treatment. The ZnO-inverse photonic crystal obtained by the chemical method was further treated at an elevated temperature to ensure the crystalline nature of ZnO. Laser-induced emission tudies on ZnO-inverse photonic crystals were carried out at an excitation wavelength of 325 nm. The emission spectra showing UV and visible bands at collection angle of 45° from the direction of excitation helped to establish the role of crystalline ZnO.

• Photophysical and laser characteristics of pyrromethene 567 dye: Experimental and theoretical studies

Narrow-band laser performance of alcohol solutions of pyrromethene 567 (PM567) and rhodamine 6G (RH6G) dye was investigated using a home-made GIG- configured dye laser, excited by the second-harmonic radiation (at 532 nm) of a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Higher laser efficiency was observed with PM567 dye ($\sim 23%$ peak) in comparison to the commonly used RH6G dye (16.5%), in spite of much lower fluorescence quantum efficiency of the PM567 (0.83) vis-à-vis RH6G (0.98) dye solutions in ethanol. First principle-based electronic structure calculations were performed on PM567 dye in the ground ($S_{0}$) and excited states ($S_{1}$) using density functional theory to elucidate the structure and photophysical properties of the dye.

• Kiton red S dye: Photophysical, photostability, photothermal and narrow-band laser performances using different solvents

Many aspects of photophysical, photostability and laser properties of kiton red S dye remain unresolved, particularly for pumping with 578 nm radiation of CVL and 532 nm output of Nd:YAG lasers, and these are studied using different alcohol- and water-based binary solvents. Our results show that methanol is better suited for low and high-repetition-rate KRS dye lasers because of its superior laser efficiency, photostability as well as photothermal properties.

• Optical characterization of CdSe/Dy3+-doped silica matrices

Cadmium selenide nanocrystals along with dysprosium ions are doped in silica matrices through sol–gel route. The optical bandgap and size of the CdSe nanocrystals are calculated from the absorption spectrum. The size of the CdSe nanocrystallites is also evaluated from the TEM measurements. The fluorescence intensities are compared for SiO2–Dy3+ and CdSe-doped SiO2–Dy3+. The fluorescence intensity of Dy3+ is considerably increased in the presence of CdSe nanocrystals.

• Local structure of Eu3+ ions in fluorophosphate laser glass

A fluorophosphate laser glass doped with 1.0 mol% of Eu3+ ions has been prepared and studied by site-selective spectroscopy to explore the local structure of Eu3+ ions. Site-selective $^{5}D_{0} \rightarrow ^{7}F_{1,2}$ emission spectra have been measured under resonant excitation to the $^{5}D_{0}$ level at different wavelengths within the $^{7}F_{0} \rightarrow ^{5}D_{0}$ band at 16 K. Using the Stark level positions of the $^{7}F_{1}$ and $^{7}F_{2}$ levels, crystal-field analysis has been carried out. The results suggest the existence of a unique kind of site for all the environments of Eu3+ ions in this glass.

• Intraband effects on ultrafast pulse propagation in semiconductor optical amplifier

High bit-rate (&gt;10 Gb/s) signals are composed of very short pulses and propagation of such pulses through a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) requires consideration of intraband phenomena. Due to the intraband effects, the propagating pulse sees a fast recovering nonlinear gain which introduces less distortion in the pulse shape and spectrum of the output pulse but introduces a positive chirping at the trailing edge of the pulse.

• Picosecond optical nonlinearities in symmetrical and unsymmetrical phthalocyanines studied using the Z-scan technique

We present our experimental results on the picosecond nonlinear optical (NLO) studies of symmetrical and unsymmetrical phthalocyanines, examined using the Z-scan technique. Both the open-aperture and closed-aperture Z-scan curves for three samples were recorded and the nonlinear coefficients were extracted from the theoretical fits. The nonlinear absorption/refraction contribution from the solvent was also identified. The observed open aperture behaviour for these molecules is understood in terms of the absorption coefficients of these molecules near 800 nm and the peak intensities used. It is established that these phthalocyanines exhibit large optical nonlinearities and, hence, are suitable for optical limiting applications.

• Switching dynamics of a two-dimensional nonlinear couplers in a photopolymer – A variational approach

We study the optical switching of the two-dimensional nonlinear coupler in a doped photopolymer. The coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equations (CNLSEs) describing our coupler system are analysed using Lagrangian variational method. From the Lagrangian, a set of coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs) describing the system dynamics is obtained. This set of ODE’s is further reduced to single coupled equation and an analytical solution is obtained using the cnoidal functions and the system dynamics is studied. The key factor for switching mechanism of our coupler system is the metal-induced surface plasmon resonance (SPR). This SPR-induced local nonlinear effects results in self-focussing of the optical beam through the launched core. A description of a particle in a well is also made to study the photon switching through the coupler system.

• X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, high-resolution X-ray diffraction and refractive index analyses of Ti-doped lithium niobate (Ti:LiNbO3) nonlinear optical single crystal

Congruent LiNbO3 single crystals with Ti ion dopants (2 and 5 mol%) were successfully grown by Czochralski technique in the automatic diameter control facility. As-grown crystal boules were oriented into (0 0 1) direction cut and optically polished for all measurements. Influence of Ti-ion incorporation into LiNbO3 was studied by core level XPS analysis. Powder X-ray diffraction studies were carried out on doped lithium niobate for phase identification. High-resolution X-ray diffraction technique was used to study the crystalline quality through full-width at half-maximum values. The refractive index values are more for doped samples than for pure sample as determined by prism coupling technique with different laser sources.

• List of participants

• # Pramana – Journal of Physics

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• # Editorial Note on Continuous Article Publication

Posted on July 25, 2019