Divided Pulse Amplifcation of Ultrashort Optical Pulses
- Detailed Technology Description
- A new technique was devised for avoiding harmful effects in the amplification of ultrashort optical pulses that enables the laser intensity to be at a maximum when the pulse is propagating linearly.
- Others
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- Patent: 8,456,736
- Shian Zhou, Frank W. Wise, and Dimitre G. Ouzounov, "Divided-pulse amplification of ultrashort pulses," Opt. Lett. 32, 871-873 (2007)
- *Abstract
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Researchers in Cornell's Department of Applied Physics have devised a new technique for avoiding harmful effects in the amplification of ultrashort optical pulses that enables the laser intensity to be at a maximum when the pulse is propagating linearly. With existing methods, when intense short pulses are amplified, dispersion and nonlinearity give rise to phase modulations. If a nonlinear phase shift accumulates, then the pulses spectral, temporal and/or spatial profiles become distorted and results in a greatly reduced intensity. Chirped-pulse amplification is a method through which a pulse is stretched temporally, amplified, and finally compressed to its initial duration. This technique has been enormously successful; however there are limits in a number of areas. Many existing chirped-pulse amplification systems are limited by the pulse stretching ratio: in practice it is difficult to stretch and compress a pulse by more than 104 with high accuracy.
Divided-pulse amplification offers a new approach to reducing or avoiding nonlinear effects in short-pulse amplification. The original pulse is divided into a set number of copies, each with a fraction of the initial energy. The pulses are amplified then recombined to produce a final intense pulse.
Experiments using the novel technique with 2.6 picosecond pulses have shown that, with divided-pulse amplification, the spectrum and pulse autocorrelation after division and recombination are nearly identical to those of the initial pulse; whereas substantial distortion occurred without divided-pulse amplification. Experiments with 300 femtosecond pulses also demonstrate no changes in the spectrum or autocorrelation.
Potential Applications
· Industrial precision cutting
· Nano surgery
· Dentistry
· Cancer treatment
· Colorizing metals
Advantages
· Increased laser intensity
· Accurate recombination of the amplified pulse
- *Licensing
- Patrick Govangpjg26@cornell.edu(607) 254-2330
- Country/Region
- USA
