Hollow core fiber compression scheme for high-average/peak-power ytterbium laser technology and its application to secondary sources of long-wavelength radiation

在过去的几十年里，光子学行业一直在快速增长，这也要归功于激光技术取得的显著进步。如今，对提供宽带、超短（亚皮秒）脉冲的光源的需求很高，以探索下一代光学技术。成熟的镱激光器的出现使这项技术达到了工业水平。然而，几飞秒量级的超短激光脉冲不能直接从镱激光器中获得。因此，需要随后的脉冲压缩步骤。这可以通过在填充有气体的空芯光纤（HCF）中光谱加宽激光脉冲并利用适当的光学器件将它们压缩到几个光学周期脉冲持续时间来实现。我们的工业合作伙伴少周期公司，与该提案的一个PI合作，开发了一种简单的方法，其中HCF在两个光学支架之间拉伸，该方法在全球范围内商业化，并已安装在10多个国外实验室中。few-cycle现在希望提升其扩展HCF系统的性能，以探索尚未达到的镱源脉冲压缩激光技术规格，这代表了当今工业应用激光技术的最新水平。在这个为期三年的项目中，我们将研究：（1）由高重复率镱激光系统（100 kHz至几MHz）提供的极低能量（低至10μJ）飞秒脉冲和（2）在500 Hz重复率下的极高能量（> 50 mJ）皮秒镱脉冲。此外，我们还将利用这些压缩激光系统产生超短中红外和太赫兹脉冲。为了实现这些目标，将招募两名硕士生和一名博士后研究员。这些人员将由项目的两名PI（Luca Razzari博士和F. Légaré），并将与几个周期密切互动。此外，所有法律和安全系统技术小组的三名成员将参与调查。预期的影响将在关于高平均/峰值功率激光器的极端脉冲压缩的先进知识中以及在其实施到用于镱激光技术的可销售系统中发现。

The Photonics industry has been rapidly growing in the last decades also thanks to the remarkable advances achieved by laser technology. Nowadays, light sources delivering broadband, ultra-short (sub-picosecond) pulses are in high demand to explore next-generation optical technologies. The advent of mature ytterbium lasers brought this technology to an industrial level. Yet, extremely-short laser pulses on the order of few femtoseconds are not available directly from ytterbium lasers. Thus, a subsequent pulse compression step is required. This can be achieved by spectrally broadening the laser pulses in a hollow core fiber (HCF) filled with gas and compressing them to few optical cycle pulse duration with adequate optics. Our industrial partner few-cycle Inc., in collaboration with one of the PIs of this proposal, has developed a simple approach where the HCF is stretched between two optical mounts that is commercialized worldwide and has been installed in more than 10 foreign laboratories. few-cycle now wants to push the performance of its stretched HCF system, to explore yet unreached laser specifications for pulse compression of ytterbium sources, which nowadays represent the state-of-the-art in laser technology for industrial applications. In this three year project, we will investigate the compression of: (1) very low energy (down to 10µJ) femtosecond pulses delivered by high repetition rate ytterbium laser systems (100kHz to multi-MHz) and (2) very high energy (>50mJ) picosecond ytterbium pulses at 500Hz repetition rate. Furthermore, we will also exploit these compressed laser systems for generating ultrashort mid-infrared and THz pulses. To achieve these goals, two Master's students and a postdoctoral fellow will be recruited. These personnel will be supervised by the two PIs of the project (Drs. Luca Razzari and F. Légaré) and will closely interact with few-cycle. In addition, three members of the ALLS technical team will be involved in the investigation. The expected impact is to be found in the advanced knowledge regarding extreme pulse compression of high average/peak power lasers as well as in its implementation into marketable systems for ytterbium laser technology.