Femtosecond tunable light source.

摘要

A practical source of continuously tunable coherent visible and infrared light would have an enormous impact on science, medicine and technology. While microwave and radio transmitters offer wide tunability at the “turn of a knob,” the best known source of coherent optical radiation, the laser, does not possess the same versatility. Dye lasers provide some degree of tunability, but many dyes are needed to cover even the visible region. Ti:sapphire lasers are tunable only over the red to near infra-red portion of the spectrum (about 65 0 nm to about 1.1μm).; This presentation documents the development of a unique pulsed light source tunable across the visible and near infrared portion of the spectrum, a femtosecond optical parametric amplifier (OPA). Much work was expended in developing the system itself. But a great deal of work was also done in developing the support equipment (hardware and software) necessary to build as well as maintain and operate an OPA. Once completed, the system characteristics were measured and documented. Initially it possessed “personality” which had to be understood and removed as much as possible.; In addition, the pump source for this OPA, a regenerative amplifier, is unique in that it uses Cr3+:LiSGaF as the gain medium. This regen was also characterized and compared to other more standard regenerative amplifiers.; System verification was done by performing a standard experiment (Z-scan) on well known samples, several of which are well characterized at specific wavelengths (1.06 μm, 0.523 μm) in the nanosecond and picosecond regimes. The results were compared against previously published results. The OPA was also compared against another very similar system which became commercially available during the time of this research. The results were helpful in analyzing the light source(s) and data acquisition systems for areas that could be improved.