RIA: High Power Active Optical Pulse Compression

RIA：高功率有源光脉冲压缩

• 批准号: 9110678
• 负责人: Brian Kolner
• 金额: $ 7万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-07-15 至 1993-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9110678&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RIA; Power; Active; Optical; Pulse

The objective of this Research Initiation Award project is to develop an optical pulse compressor that can be used with high power lasers, does not add to amplitude noise or timing jitter, and has very high throughput efficiency while providing pulse compression ratios in the range of 10 to 100. Current optical pulse compression technology is based on chirping pulses in single mode optical fibers by the nonlinear effect of self-phase modulation. Although high pulse compression ratios have been demonstrated, the utility of the technique is limited because of inherent tradeoffs between input power, pulsewidth, and fiber length. In addition, fiber coupling losses, induced polarization wandering, and thermal and acoustical interference all combine to create amplitude noise and long term power drift. We propose to impart the chirp on the pulses actively with high modulation index electro-optic phase modulators. The advantages to this approach are that the chirping mechanism does not depend on the nature of the input optical pulse, only the quality of the electrical drive signal to the modulator, which can be extremely good. We envision the pulse compressor to take the form of dielectric loaded microwave or millimeter wave resonators driven by highly stable synthesizers and clean power amplifiers and followed by grating-pair or prism dispersive delay lines. The efforts of the research will be directed at determination the optimum microwave cavity geometries and electro-optic dielectric materials for the particular input optical pulse characteristics. This device should have a major impact on the research efforts in ultrafast phenomena since it can be universally applied to all modelocked laser sources, independent of their power. Since large frame, high average power lasers are frequently used as pump sources for other lasers or nonlinear frequency converters, their performance will be similarly enhanced.

这个研究启动奖项目的目标是开发一种光脉冲压缩器，它可以与高功率激光器一起使用，不会增加幅度噪声或定时抖动，并且具有非常高的吞吐量效率，同时提供10到100范围内的脉冲压缩比。目前的光脉冲压缩技术是基于单模光纤中的啁啾脉冲，利用自相位调制的非线性效应。虽然高脉冲压缩比已经被证明，但由于输入功率、脉冲宽度和光纤长度之间的固有权衡，该技术的实用性受到限制。此外，光纤耦合损耗、诱导极化漂移、热和声干扰都会产生振幅噪声和长期功率漂移。我们提出用高调制指数的电光相位调制器主动赋予脉冲啁啾。这种方法的优点是啁啾机制不依赖于输入光脉冲的性质，只依赖于给调制器的电驱动信号的质量，这可以非常好。我们设想脉冲压缩器采用介质加载的微波或毫米波谐振器的形式，由高度稳定的合成器和清洁功率放大器驱动，然后是光栅对或棱镜色散延迟线。研究工作将集中在确定最佳的微波腔几何形状和特定输入光脉冲特性的电光介质材料。由于该装置可以普遍应用于所有锁模激光源，而不受其功率的影响，因此它将对超快现象的研究工作产生重大影响。由于大框架、高平均功率激光器经常被用作其他激光器或非线性变频器的泵浦源，它们的性能将得到类似的提高。