Engineering Research Equipment Grant: A Spectra Physics Argon Laser

这项工程研究设备赠款将使伯克利的量子电子学小组(由Whinnery教授、Wang教授、Gustafson教授和Smith领导)能够购买替代的高功率Ar离子激光器。目前的研究用途包括泵浦碰撞脉冲锁模(CPM)飞秒激光系统，泵浦染料激光头以产生用于直接测量半导体激光器中模式的增益耦合的可调谐探测光束，以及在光学神经网络的背景下测量光折变晶体的性能。围绕高功率Ar离子激光器的几个实验利用了飞秒脉冲装置。被动锁模CPM激光器用连续的Ar离子激光器泵浦，获得了迄今为止已证实的最短的光脉冲，然而，与光学和/或电子设备的低抖动定时同步是困难的。伯克利研究小组开发了一种使用脉冲光学锁相环的机制，该机制利用了增益开关半导体激光器，该激光器在前沿与飞秒脉冲序列交叉相关，导致时间抖动仅为50飞秒。这种独特的脉冲光学锁相环(POPLL)是亚皮秒光学采样系统的核心。它目前被用来测量和模拟皮秒光学器件，并在量子井中观察刺激和探测实验，其中刺激由同步微波信号提供。

This Engineering Research Equipment Grant will enable purchase of a replacement high-power argon ion laser for use by the quantum electronics group at Berkeley (headed by professor Whinnery, Wang, Gustafson and Smith). Current research uses include pumping a colliding-pulse-modelocking (CPM) femtosecond laser system, pumping a dye laser head for generation of a tunable probe beam for making direct measurements of gain coupling of modes in a semiconductor laser, and measurement of the performance of photorefractive crystals in a context of an optical neural network. Several experiments centered around the high power argon ion laser utilize the femtosecond pulse facility. Passively modelocked CPM lasers which are pumped with CW argon ion lasers achieve the shortest optical pulses demonstrated to date, however, low jitter timing synchronication with optical and/or electrical devices is difficult. The Berkeley group has developed a mechanism using a pulsed optical phaselock loop that utilizes a gain switched semiconductor laser which is cross correlated with the femtosecond pulse train at its leading edge, resulting in a time jitter of only 50 femtoseconds. This unique pulsed optical phase lock loop (POPLL) is at the heart of a subpicosecond optical sampling system. It is currently being used to measure and model picosecond optical devices, and to look at stimulus and probe experiment in quantum wells where the stimulus is provided by a synchronous microwave signal.