Fiber laser front end for high energy petawatt laser systems

We are developing a fiber laser front end suitable for high energy petawatt laser systems on large glass lasers such as NIF. The front end includes generation of the pulses in a fiber mode-locked oscillator, amplification and pulse cleaning, stretching of the pulses to >3ns, dispersion trimming, timing, fiber transport of the pulses to the main laser bay and amplification of the pulses to an injection energy of 150 {micro}J. We will discuss current status of our work including data from packaged components. Design detail such as how the system addresses pulse contrast, dispersion trimming and pulse width adjustment and impact of B-integral on the pulse amplification will be discussed. A schematic of the fiber laser system we are constructing is shown in figure 1 below. A 40MHz packaged mode-locked fiber oscillator produces {approx}1nJ pulses which are phase locked to a 10MHz reference clock. These pulses are down selected to 100kHz and then amplified while still compressed. The amplified compressed pulses are sent through a non-linear polarization rotation based pulse cleaner to remove background amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The pulses are then stretched by a chirped fiber Bragg grating (CFBG) and then sent through a splitter. The splitter splits the signal into two beams. (From this point we follow only one beam as the other follows an identical path.) The pulses are sent through a pulse tweaker that trims dispersion imbalances between the final large optics compressor and the CFBG. The pulse tweaker also permits the dispersion of the system to be adjusted for the purpose of controlling the final pulse width. Fine scale timing between the two beam lines can also be adjusted in the tweaker. A large mode area photonic crystal single polarization fiber is used to transport the pulses from the master oscillator room to the main laser bay. The pulses are then amplified a two stage fiber amplifier to 150mJ. These pulses are then launched into the main amplifier chain. We are currently constructing a packaged prototype of this system, which will ultimately be deployed on the National Ignition Facility (NIF). In our talk we will discuss the packaged components as well as the numerous technical challenges that needed to be overcome in order to make this system possible. Of particular interest was the quality of recompressed pulses that could be achieved with a CFBG. We will show background free auto-correlation data from pulses with a dynamic range noise limited to six orders of magnitude that were stretched with a CFBG and then recompressed in a standard compressor (figure 2). We will also discuss in detail the impact of B-integral accumulation on the recompressed pulses. Our current system is projected to run at an accumulated B-integral of 7. However, because our injected system bandwidth is much wider than the NIF system bandwidth our system can tolerate this high B-integral

Multi-watt 589nm fiber laser source

We have demonstrated 3.5W of 589nm light from a fiber laser using periodically poled stoichiometric Lithium Tantalate (PPSLT) as the frequency conversion crystal. The system employs 938nm and 1583nm fiber lasers, which were sum-frequency mixed in PPSLT to generate 589nm light. The 938nm fiber laser consists of a single frequency diode laser master oscillator (200mW), which was amplified in two stages to >15W using cladding pumped Nd{sup 3+} fiber amplifiers. The fiber amplifiers operate at 938nm and minimize amplified spontaneous emission at 1088nm by employing a specialty fiber design, which maximizes the core size relative to the cladding diameter. This design allows the 3-level laser system to operate at high inversion, thus making it competitive with the competing 1088nm 4-level laser transition. At 15W, the 938nm laser has an M{sup 2} of 1.1 and good polarization (correctable with a quarter and half wave plate to >15:1). The 1583nm fiber laser consists of a Koheras 1583nm fiber DFB laser that is pre-amplified to 100mW, phase modulated and then amplified to 14W in a commercial IPG fiber amplifier. As a part of our research efforts we are also investigating pulsed laser formats and power scaling of the 589nm system. We will discuss the fiber laser design and operation as well as our results in power scaling at 589nm

Ce-doped single crystal and ceramic garnets for �y ray detection

Ceramic and single crystal Lutetium Aluminum Garnet scintillators exhibit energy resolution with bialkali photomultiplier tube detection as good as 8.6% at 662 keV. Ceramic fabrication allows production of garnets that cannot easily be grown as single crystals, such as Gadolinium Aluminum Garnet and Terbium Aluminum Garnet. Measured scintillation light yields of Cerium-doped ceramic garnets indicate prospects for high energy resolution

New red phosphor ceramic K2SiF6:Mn4+

A new transparent ceramic phosphor for use in LED lighting has been fabricated. The previously reported and optimized narrow-emitting red phosphor, K2SiF6:Mn4+ (KSF), has been consolidated into a transparent ceramic phosphor for the first time, accomplished via hot-pressing the feedstock phosphor powder in a die under vacuum. KSF ceramics were fabricated with varying doping concentrations of Mn4+ and their properties studied. The absorption and emission spectra of the ceramics were identical to the feedstock phosphor powders and are ideal for LED lighting with strong absorption at 450 nm and narrow emission around 630 nm. The absorbance of the ceramics was directly proportional to the doping concentration. The ceramics were excited at various blue light fluxes and their emission intensities measured to study the effect of Mn4+ concentration on intensity-driven “droop” in the emission output. The ceramics with a lower Mn4+ doping were more efficient under higher light fluxes due to a decrease in Auger upconversion losses. KSF ceramics can allow a much longer path length of the diode light through the phosphor, as compared to phosphor-in-silicone, enabling the use of low optical absorption and the associated reduced activator concentration. The ceramics are measured to have a thermal conductivity of ~1.0 W/m-K, higher than that of phosphor-in-silicone or phosphor-in-glass. Several of these properties make KSF ceramics potentially desirable for use in white light LEDs. Greater thermal conductivity helps with heat dissipation, the lower surface area of the ceramic compared to the powder minimizes the environmental vulnerability of KSF, and the ability to lower the Mn4+ concentration reduces Auger recombination losses and mitigates the temperature rise, particularly at higher light flux

New red phosphor ceramic K2SiF6:Mn4+

A new transparent ceramic phosphor for use in LED lighting has been fabricated. The previously reported and optimized narrow-emitting red phosphor, K2SiF6:Mn4+ (KSF), has been consolidated into a transparent ceramic phosphor for the first time, accomplished via hot-pressing the feedstock phosphor powder in a die under vacuum. KSF ceramics were fabricated with varying doping concentrations of Mn4+ and their properties studied. The absorption and emission spectra of the ceramics were identical to the feedstock phosphor powders and are ideal for LED lighting with strong absorption at 450 nm and narrow emission around 630 nm. The absorbance of the ceramics was directly proportional to the doping concentration. The ceramics were excited at various blue light fluxes and their emission intensities measured to study the effect of Mn4+ concentration on intensity-driven “droop” in the emission output. The ceramics with a lower Mn4+ doping were more efficient under higher light fluxes due to a decrease in Auger upconversion losses. KSF ceramics can allow a much longer path length of the diode light through the phosphor, as compared to phosphor-in-silicone, enabling the use of low optical absorption and the associated reduced activator concentration. The ceramics are measured to have a thermal conductivity of ~1.0 W/m-K, higher than that of phosphor-in-silicone or phosphor-in-glass. Several of these properties make KSF ceramics potentially desirable for use in white light LEDs. Greater thermal conductivity helps with heat dissipation, the lower surface area of the ceramic compared to the powder minimizes the environmental vulnerability of KSF, and the ability to lower the Mn4+ concentration reduces Auger recombination losses and mitigates the temperature rise, particularly at higher light flux.</p