Energy deposition dynamics of femtosecond pulses in water

We exploit inverse Raman scattering and solvated electron absorption to perform a quantitative characterization of the energy loss and ionization dynamics in water with tightly focused near-infrared femtosecond pulses. A comparison between experimental data and numerical simulations suggests that the ionization energy of water is 8 eV, rather than the commonly used value of 6.5 eV. We also introduce an equation for the Raman gain valid for ultra-short pulses that validates our experimental procedure.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Applied Physics Letter

Light Filaments Without Self Guiding

An examination of the propagation of intense 200 fs pulses in water reveals light filaments not sustained by the balance between Kerr-induced self-focusing and plasma-induced defocusing. Their appearance is interpreted as the consequence of a spontaneous reshaping of the wave packet form a gaussian into a conical wave, driven by the requirement of maximum localization, minimum losses and stationarity in the presence of non-linear absorption.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. on July 7th, 200

Time-resolved refractive index and absorption mapping of light-plasma filaments in water

By means of a quantitative shadowgraphic method, we performed a space-time characterization of the refractive index variation and transient absorption induced by a light-plasma filament generated by a 100 fs laser pulse in water. The formation and evolution of the plasma channel in the proximity of the nonlinear focus were observed with a 23 fs time resolution.Comment: 3 pages, 3 picture

Soliton-effect optical pulse compression in bulk media with χ(3) nonlinearity

Self-compression of visible optical pulse in bulk χ(3) medium has been demonstrated taking the advantage of negative group-velocity dispersion of tilted pulses

Ultrafast four-wave optical parametric amplification in transparent condensed bulk media

We present a short overview of recent advances in ultrashort pulse four-wave optical parametric amplification in transparent condensed bulk media with Kerr nonlinearity. Highly efficient (10% to 15% pump-to-signal energy conversion) four-wave optical parametric amplification in water and fused silica is experimentally demonstrated. The amplification process highly benefits from 1-dimensional spatial soliton propagation regime, which sets in under proper combination of cylindrical beam focusing and noncollinear phase matching geometry with millijoule pumping. Under these operating conditions, strong four-wave coupling quenches catastrophic beam break-up and filamentation, and the setup operates reasonably below the damage threshold of the nonlinear medium. The proposed methodology offers a number of advantages as compared to guided-wave configurations in gaseous media

Active suppression of piezoelectric ringing in pockels cells for laser cavity application

Pockels cells used as electro-optical modulators in high-power high-repetition lasers suffer from piezoelectric ringing phenomenon due to piezoelectric properties of the crystals. A new method for active suppression of the piezoelectric ringing in Pockels cells is proposed in this work. It is based on symmetric control of Pockels cell using burst of short positive and negative voltage pulses with the same amplitude instead of a single long pulse for light polarization modulation. Rising and falling edges of pulses of the burst induce symmetrical acoustic waves of the opposite phase and cancel the piezoelectric ringing of the crystal. A new high voltage driver capable of generating positive and negative pulses of tens of nanoseconds of 3 kV magnitude was developed for this purpose. The amplitude of laser beam intensity pulsations caused by the piezoelectric ringing can be reduced up to five times when active suppression method is used for the deuterated potassium dihydrogen phosphate (DKDP) Pockels cell. Such crystals like DKDP, LiNbO3, and LiTaO3 may benefit from the proposed method and find new use in lasers of high repetition rate where piezoelectric ringing is a major limiting factor

High repetition rate green‑pumped supercontinuum generation in calcium fluoride /

We compare supercontinuum generation in CaF2 crystal under tight and loose focusing of 150 fs, 515 nm second harmonic pulses from an amplified Yb:KGW laser at a repetition rate of 10 kHz. It is demonstrated that supercontinuum generation geometry applying loose focusing ( NA = 0.004 ) of the pump beam into a long (25 mm) CaF 2 sample is advantageous in terms of supercontinuum spectral extent and durability of damage-free operation of the nonlinear material as compared to a commonly used supercontinuum generation setup which employs tight focusing ( NA = 0.012 ) into a short (5 mm) sample and to setup which uses tight focusing into a long (25 mm) sample. More specifically, loose focusing into a long sample showed remarkably longer (20 min) damage-free operation of the nonlinear material, which was not translated with respect of the pump beam, while in tight focusing condition the sample is damaged just within 2 min of operation, leading to a complete extinction of the supercontinuum spectrum. The evolution of optical degradation of the nonlinear material in time and its impact to supercontinuum spectrum is studied in terms of filament-induced luminescence due to self-trapped exciton emission and light scattering at the pump wavelength indicating the onset of optical damage. Our findings are supported by the numerical simulations which compare relevant parameters related to filament propagation in tight and loose focusing conditions

KGW and YVO4: two excellent nonlinear materials for high repetition rate infrared supercontinuum generation

We present an experimental investigation of supercontinuum generation in potassium gadolinium tungstate (KGW) and yttrium vanadate (YVO4) crystals pumped with 210 fs, 1030 nm pulses from an amplified Yb:KGW laser operating at 2 MHz repetition rate. We demonstrate that compared to commonly used sapphire and YAG, these materials possess considerably lower supercontinuum generation thresholds, produce remarkable red-shifted spectral broadenings (up to 1700 nm in YVO4 and up to 1900 nm in KGW) and exhibit less bulk heating due to energy deposition during filamentation process. Moreover, durable damage-free performance was observed without any translation of the sample, suggesting that KGWand YVO4 are excellent nonlinear materials for high repetition rate supercontinuum generation in the near and short-wave infrared spectral range