F - Pirzio Tesi Dott

UNIVERSIT
A DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIA

FACOLT
A DI INGEGNERIA
Dottorato Di Ricerca in Ingegneria Elettronica,
Elettrica ed Informatica - XIX CICLO
Picosecond mode-locked laser sources
for fundamental physics investigations
Supervisor:
Prof. A. Agnesi
Ph. D. Thesis
of Federico Pirzio
Anno Accademico 2006
Contents
Introduction 1
1 Motion Induced Radiation (MIR) experiment 5
1.1 Theoretical situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2 Experimental approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.1 The mechanical motion approach . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2.2 A novel experimental approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.2.3 Experiment feasibility discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 Layout for the detection of Casimir radiation . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.1 The laser system - conceptual scheme . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.2 Preliminary calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 High rep-rate passively mode-locked solid state lasers 21
2.1 Review of the theory of picosecond lasers . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.1 SEmiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirrors . . . . . . 25
2.1.2 Critical energy criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.2 Critical energy reduction by Inverse Saturable Absorption . . 30
2.3 Cavity design of a multi-GHz laser resonator . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3.1 325MHz Nd:YVO
4
laser resonator . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3.2 720MHz Nd:YVO
4
laser resonator . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3.3 1.4GHz Nd:GdVO
4
laser resonator . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.4 2.6GHz rep-rate Nd:GdVO
4
widely tunable laser res-
onator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
i
ii Contents
2.3.5 Tunability of the 2.6GHz Nd:GdVO
4
with SHG-ISA . 41
2.3.6 Nd:YVO
4
based 4.8GHz rep-rate resonator . . . . . . 42
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3 IRENE - A laser source for photoconductivity measure-
ments 53
3.1 State of the art of J level picosecond sources . . . . . . . . . 54
3.1.1 Multi-pass ampliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.1.2 Regenerative ampliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.1.3 Cavity dumping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.1.4 Grazing incidence Nd:YVO
4
slab ampliers . . . . . . 58
3.2 Laser system setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.2.1 Overwiev of system functioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.2 The 1064nm Master Oscillator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2.3 The pulse picking stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.2.4 Amplication stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.2.5 The Second Harmonic Generation stage . . . . . . . . 72
3.2.6 The Optical Parametric Generation (OPG) stage . . . 75
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
A Guidelines for a model of a grazing incidence single-pass
QCW amplier 87
A.1 Grazing incidence single pass amplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
A.2 1st order consideration while designing a single pass amplier 90
B Critical parameters for ecient harmonic and parametric
generation 93
B.1 Second harmonic ecient generation in LBO . . . . . . . . . 93
B.2 Optical parametric generation in KTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Issues and workshops 103
List of Figures
1.1 (a) Mirror eective motion: a composite mirror changes its reec-
tion properties (under intermittent laser light irradiation), and the
microwave reecting surface switches its position between P1 and
P2 accordingly. (b) Arrangement of the composite mirror in a mi-
crowave resonant cavity. The semiconductor is irradiated by an
optical ber piercing the cavity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Detailed experimental setup. There are three main parts: the elec-
tromagnetic cavity already shown in Figure 1.1, the electronic chain
and the laser system. This block diagram displays the interrelations
between laser and radio frequency generator for the control of para-
metric resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Laser system blocks scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 Instantaneous and average laser power versus time for (a) a stable
cw mode-locked laser and for (b) a mode-locked laser exhibiting
large Q-switching instabilities. The average laser power (thick line)
is the same for both lasers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2 Measured data (lled points) and tted (solid) curve according to
Eq. (2.8) for the nonlinear reectivity R(F
P,A
) of a SESAM as a
function of the pulse energy uence F
P,A
= E
P
/A
eff,A
. . . . . . . 26
2.3 Setup of the cavity operating @375MHz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.4 Setup of the cavity operating @720MHz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.5 Autocorrelation trace of the 720MHz f
rep
laser cavity . . . . . . . 33
2.6 RF spectrum analyzer trace for cw-ML (a) and QML (b) . . 34
iii
iv List of Figures
2.7 720MHz cavity setup, a picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.8 Diode pump output power characteristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.9 Layout of the diode-pumped 1.4 and 2.6 GHz Nd:GdVO
4
laser . . 36
2.10 Two mirror plano-concave output power versus incident pump power
characteristic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.11 Fresnel loss from the quasi-Brewster interface as a function of the
angle oset. The inclination of the uncoated face yielding exact
Brewster incidence is = 24.52
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.12 Critical output power calculated for cw mode-locking . . . . . . . 39
2.13 Critical P
out
calculated for cw mode-locking (a) and waist radii (b)
as a function of f
rep
. The waist radii on the SAM (w
a
) as well as
on the gain medium (w
g
) are calculated (both for the tangential (t)
and the sagittal (s) planes), near the 2.6GHz edge of the stability
region. Actually, the tangential waist radius within the laser crystal
has to be multiplied by the refractive index n=2.192 . . . . . . . . 40
2.14 Non-collinear background-free second-harmonic autocorrelation and
spectrum of the passively mode-locked laser (inset) . . . . . . . . 41
2.15 Experimental setup for the oscillator operating around 2.5GHz . . 42
2.16 Cavity setup with LBO placed near SAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.17 Autocorrelation trace of the 2.41GHz cw mode-locking pulses emerg-
ing from the cavity of Figure 2.16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.18 Output power versus input current characteristic of the new pump
diode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.19 Plano-concave Nd:YVO
4
output power performances . . . . . . . 46
2.20 Picture of the 4.8GHz oscillator, white continuous line shows the
cavity path, dash line is the output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
2.21 cw Mode-Locking oscilloscope traces with long (a) and short
(b) time span . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
2.22 sech
2
shaped autocorrelation trace for the 4.74GHz cw mode-locking
laser pulses. The conversion coecient for the FWHM pulse dura-
tion is 29.4ps/ms which gives a duration of about 9.7ps . . . . . . 47
2.23 RF spectrum of the cw mode-locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
List of Figures v
3.1 In a multipass amplier, the beam passes through the gain medium
several times, at a slightly dierent angle each time . . . . . . . . 54
3.2 A typical regenerative amplier setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.3 Nd:YVO
4
passively mode-locked cavity dumped oscillator: pulse
extraction is realized through an Electro-Optical Modulator (EOM)
in combination with a Thin Film Polarizer (TFP) . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4 Amplier module in side-pumped grazing incidence conguration . 59
3.5 Layout of the diode-pumped oscillator-amplier system. L1, L2,
L3: lenses; PD: photodiode generating the 56-MHz reference clock;
AOPP: acousto-optic pulse-picker; BD: beam dump; LD: quasi-cw
laser diode arrays; HWP: half-wave plate; slabs: Nd:YVO
4
graz-
ing incidence high-gain modules; LBO: SHG crystal; HS: harmonic
separator; KTP: OPG crystal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.6 Temporal operations sequence of the laser system: the timing is
set by the high frequency ( 56 MHz) clock signal provided by the
master oscillator; the low frequency repetition rate is set reducing
or increasing the idle time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.7 Output power characteristic of the diode pump . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.8 Master Oscillator cavity setup: R1=R2=250mm, OC=98%, M1
and M2 High Reectivity plane mirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.9 Oscilloscope trace of the cw Mode-Locking pulse train . . . . . . . 63
3.10 Output power versus pump current characteristic of the Master
Oscillator; each output beam carries out 50% of the total output
power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.11 Optical spectrum of the cw mode-locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.12 SHG non collinear sech
2
shaped autocorrelation trace . . . . . . . 65
3.13 Frequency down-scaling stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.14 Single pulse selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.15 Amplication stage setup: a couple of Quasi Continuous-Wave
(QCW) 150W peak power laser diodes pump two slabs of Nd:YVO
4
;
a collimation lens and Half Wave Plate (HWP) provides the right
polarization and pump spot dimension on the amplier crystal face 68
vi List of Figures
3.16 Output energy versus input current caracteristic for the QCW 150W
peak power diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.17 Typical 120s-long pump pulse, a conversion factor of 20A/V gives
a pump current amplitude of 135A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.18 Background free, non collinear SHG autocorrelation trace of the
amplied pulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.19 Comparison between the seed and an amplied pulse train optical
spectrum; slight narrowing and central wavelength shift for the
amplied pulses can be appreciated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.20 Critical phase matching of SHG in LBO. The polarization directions
of fundamental () and second-harmonic generated wave (2) are
perpendicular to the beam direction, and to each other, the crystal
is cut with the angle for phase-matching at 1064nm . . . . . . . 72
3.21 Phase-matching angle for critical phase matching of frequency dou-
bling in LBO at room temperature, conguration Ordinary - Ordi-
nary - Extraordinary in the XY plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
3.22 SHG stage setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.23 A picture of the second harmonic beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.24 Oscilloscope traces of the undepleted fundamental and second har-
monic pulses, normalized so that the ratio of the peaks corresponds
to the observed conversion eciency. In case of 2 pulse, also the
adjacent small pulses are strongly depressed by the non-linear process 76
3.25 Type-II phase matching in the XZ plane for KTP crystal. The
polarization directions of pump (p), signal (s) and idler (i) are also
reported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.26 Signal (blue) and idler (green) wavelength as a function of crystal
tilting angle in the vertical plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
3.27 Side view of the Optical Paramatric Generation setup . . . . . . . 78
3.28 Spectra of the OPG pulses, obtained at several tuning angles . . . 79
3.29 System setup, see Table 3.2 for legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A.1 Geometry denitions for the side-pumped grazing incidence slab
amplier medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
List of Figures vii
A.2 Fluence of ASE Fin normalized with respect to the saturation u-
ence Fsat as a function of the single pass small signal gain g0 for
an emission solid angle = 4 10
4
sterad. Dashed curve is ob-
tained with the approximation Fin Fsat, dotted line refers to
the approximation of Fin Fsat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
B.1 Walk-o angle as a function of wavelength in LBO . . . . . . . . . 94
B.2 Group Velocity Dispersion in LBO as a function of pump wavelength 95
B.3 Angular acceptance in LBO around 1.064m . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
B.4 Temperature acceptance in LBO around 1.064m . . . . . . . . . 96
B.5 Walk-o angle for signal in KTP as a function of wavelength . . . 98
B.6 GVD in KTP for signal with respect to pump (blue curve) and to
idler (green curve) for a signal wavelength ranging from 0.6 to 1m 99
B.7 Angular acceptance in KTP with respect to signal wavelength in
the range 0.6-1m . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
B.8 Signal (blue curve) and idler (green curve) spectral bandwidth ver-
sus wavelength in KTP. The signal bandwidth in the range 0.6-
1m is lower than the 1nm maximum resolution of the Ocean Op-
tics USB2000 spectrometer employed the OPG characterization re-
ported in Figure 3.28, as expected by the measurements results . . 100
viii List of Figures
List of Tables
2.1 Tunability range of 1.4GHz V-folded cavity . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.2 Results obtained employing LBO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1 Constructor specication for the Acousto-Optical Modulator 66
3.2 Legend of Figure 3.29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A.1 Physical parameters in our working condition (active medium
Nd:YVO
4
) for a 1st order estimation of g
0
. . . . . . . . . . . 92
B.1 Working Conditions: Crystal length l = 1.5cm,
= 1.064m 97
ix
x List of Tables
Introduction
Since the discovery of the rst laser in 1960, this device knew an enor-
mous growth, becoming very important in many industrial applications,
like telecommunication systems, material processing or remote sensing, as
well as in scientic elds like medicine, chemistry and physics.
Laser that employees a crystal, a ceramic or a doped glass as active
medium are named solid state lasers. Thanks to the relative simplicity
of their complete structure and to their limited cost, these lasers cover a
relevant part of the laser source market and play an active role in the devel-
opment of many elds where they found application.
During the 1990s, the impressive increase of telecommunications market
gave incentive to the spread of optical devices and to the improvements
in semiconductor growth technology, allowing a decisive step forward to
semiconductor diode laser performances.
The availability of new compact, reliable and ecient diode pump mod-
ules made easier the rapid growth of DPSSL (Diode Pumped Solid State
Laser) systems, which became more and more competitive with respect to
ash lamp pumped system not only in laboratory research eld, but also in
commercial applications.
In parallel with the development in the eld of pump sources, also new
semiconductor based devices such as SEmiconductor Saturable Absorber
Mirrors (SESAMs) became available on the market. Since their introduc-
tion, the pulse durations, average powers, pulse energies and pulse repetition
rates of compact ultrafast solid-state lasers have improved by several orders
of magnitude.
2 Introduction
Picosecond and femtosecond mode-locked solid state lasers progressed
from complicated and specialized laboratory systems, to compact and reli-
able instruments. In particular picosecond solid state sources, which are in-
trinsicly simpler devices with respect to ultra-fast femtosecond lasers, broke
into the market and rapidly found application in many scientic and indus-
trial reality.
For example, lasers with multi-gigahertz repetition rates based on pas-
sively mode-locked solid state sources are now state of the art solutions
available for high-capacity telecommunication systems, photonic switching
devices, optical interconnections and clock distribution. And applications of
the future, such as clocks for very large scale integrated (VLSI) micropro-
cessors, polarized electron beams for electron accelerators and high-speed
electro-optic sampling techniques, will rely on multi-gigahertz pulse trains
with short pulses, low timing jitter and low amplitude noise.
These approaches benet from the availability of simple and compact
transform-limited optical pulse generators. For example, they eliminate the
need for a modulator to create the pulses and thereby simplify system ar-
chitecture, increase eciency and reduce costs. Additionally, pulse quality
is typically very good, much better than with modulated CW (continuous
wave) sources. This improves system signal-to-noise ratios and allows scal-
ing to higher repetition rates through optical time-division multiplexing.
Transmission of data at 160 Gbits per second through standard single-mode
bres has been demonstrated using such laser sources.
Moreover, the high peak intensity of the pulse in lower repetition fre-
quency devices can be used to alter materials by cold ablation (when
a material is changed to gas directly from a solid) or to generate other
colours/wavelengths through ecient nonlinear frequency conversion. Diode-
pumped solid-state lasers with high average power have produced femtosec-
ond pulses with a pulse energy larger than 1 J with a 30 MHz pulse repe-
tition rate. This is an unprecedented combination of short pulse, high pulse
energy and high average power.
Such high peak intensity sources make non-thermal ablation (without
an increase in temperature) possible without any further amplication. The
Introduction 3
ability of intense ultrashort-pulse lasers to fabricate microstructures in solid
targets is very promising, and the quality of ablated holes and patterns is
much better using femtosecond or picosecond pulses instead of nanosecond
pulses.
The Laser Source Laboratory of the University of Pavia is a well ex-
perienced group in the development of innovative solutions in the eld of
DPSSL. In the last decade our group has accumulated experience in side-
pumping as well as in end-pumping with diode lasers; various aspects of
pumping schemes, resonator modeling, thermal problems, active and pas-
sive Q-switching and mode-locking techniques have been intensively inves-
tigated.
During these three years of my Ph.D. fellowship (2003-2006) I had the
opportunity to be involved in an exciting project in collaboration with the
INFN, MIR (Motion Induced Radiation) experimental team. The object
of the collaboration, that will be explained better in the rst Chapter of
this thesis, is the realization of innovative and highly customized picosecond
mode-locked laser sources for both the MIR experiment itself and spectro-
scopic characterization of semiconductor materials.
Along the way to the goal I had the opportunity to explore the limits of
the state of the art regarding this kind of laser systems and to manage with
a lot of dierent topics such as passively mode-locked resonators modeling
and design, picosecond pulse continuous and quasi-continuous-wave ampli-
cation and non-linear conversion processes, just to mention the mains. There
are many other fundamental aspects of this job, I learnt in these years; they
can not be easily enumerated, and are related to being daily a part of a
research group. As well as the matter itself, surely I found that an exciting
experience.
The content of this thesis work is organized as follows:
in Chapter 1 the Motion Induced Radiation (MIR) experiment is de-
scribed. It concerns the detection of the dynamical Casimir eect, a
4 Introduction
fundamental physics phenomenon related to point zero energy uctu-
ations. The experimental setup is currently under development at the
INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Labs located in Legnaro
(PD). A particular attention is dedicated to the role and the specica-
tion of the laser system that will be inserted in the experimental setup
and is currently under construction at the Laser Source Laboratory of
the Electronics Department of the University of Pavia. The study and
realization of such a device occupied a relevant part of my research
activity and it is currently not yet concluded;
in Chapter 2, after an introduction to the critical design parameters for
passively cw mode-locked high repetition frequency laser sources, the
experimental work and the nal cavity design of the master oscillator
for the Casimir experiment laser system is shown. All the experimental
work we carried out in order to achieve the required performances and
the scientic relevant results we obtained are here reported;
in Chapter 3 is described realization, functioning and performances of
IRENE (InfraRed ENergy Emitter), the laser source we realized for the
INFN group of Legnaro in order to investigate the photoconductivity
properties of the semiconductor materials candidate to be inserted in
the Casimir experiment cavity. Since in literature are not present
data about semiconductor mobility and recombination time under
vacuum at cryogenic temperature, the selection of the proper material
to employ in the experiment undergoes to a direct measurements of
such intrinsic properties actually carried out at the INFN national
Labs in Legnaro (PD);
in Appendix A and B an analytical model for the grazing incidence
Quasi-cw single pass amplier employed in the IRENEs setup and a
brief description of the critical parameters for an ecient non-linear
conversion stage design, are respectively shown.
Chapter 1
Motion Induced Radiation
(MIR) experiment
For any quantum eld, the vacuum is dened as its ground state. Dierently
than in the classic case, this ground state, due to the uncertainty principle, is
not empty, but lled with eld uctuations around a zero mean value. More-
over this vacuum state depends on the eld boundary conditions: if they
change, there will be a correspondingly dierent vacuum (whose uctua-
tions will have a dierent wavelength spectrum). Thus a quantum vacuum
state may be equivalent to real particles of a new vacuum after a change in
boundary conditions. If we consider the electromagnetic eld, the peculiar
nature of the quantum vacuum has experimentally observable consequences
in the realm of microscopic physics, such as natural widths of spectral lines,
Lamb shift, anomalous magnetic moment of the electron and many more.
It is perhaps even more striking that there exist also observable eects at
a macroscopic level. The Casimir force (static Casimir eect[1][2]) is one
of these macroscopic eects which has been observed experimentally. A
dynamic Casimir eect is also predicted to occur when one boundary is
accelerated in a nonuniform way, as, for instance, when a metal surface un-
dergoes harmonic oscillations. In this case a number of virtual photons from
the vacuum are converted into real photons (Casimir radiation), while the
moving metal surface loses energy[3][4].
6 Motion Induced Radiation (MIR) experiment
It is worth notice that, whereas the static Casimir eect has been ob-
served by several experiments[5][6], the Casimir radiation is to date unob-
served, in spite of the abundant theoretical work done in this eld[7][8][9]
(see [8] for a historical review and a bibliography of the relevant studies).
1.1 Theoretical situation
The simplest system that can produce Casimir radiation is a single mirror,
harmonically oscillating in a direction perpendicular to its surface. In this
case the number N of created photons should be[10]:
N =
t
2
_
v
c
_
2
(1.1)
where:
is the angular frequency of the mirror motion;
t is the duration of the motion;
v is the maximum speed reached in the oscillation;
c is the speed of light.
Even if we stretch all parameters to their utmost values ( 10
10
rad/s,
t 1s and v/c 10
8
), the number of produced photons is not detectable.
A great theoretical progress was to realize that when the oscillating mir-
ror is a wall of an electromagnetic resonant cavity, the cavity itself behaves
as a multiplier for the produced radiation if the frequency of the moving
wall is twice one of the proper electromagnetic cavity frequencies (paramet-
ric resonance). It is however disappointing that the formulae developed so
far using dierent approaches (in the case of parametric resonance) are not
the same and even irreconcilable. Apart from minor dierences, the for-
mulae for the produced photons found in literature[8][9][11] can be brought
back to either of two forms:
N =
t
2
_
v
c
_
2
Q (1.2)
1.2 Experimental approaches 7
sinh
2
_
t
v
c
_
(1.3)
where Q is the quality factor of the cavity.
1.2 Experimental approaches
One possible experimental solution for detection of the Dynamical Casimir
Eect is based on the mechanical motion of a resonant cavity wall. We will
now show that this approach is nowadays impracticable.
1.2.1 The mechanical motion approach
The highest frequency attainable for mechanical motion is in the gigahertz
range[12] and following the parametric amplication request this implies
microwave cavities with dimensions ranging from 1cm to 1m. The motion
of a single wall of such a cavity requires a huge amount of power. In fact a
wall of volume V , made of a material with mass density , vibrating at an
angular frequency
0
, with an amplitude x, has a maximum kinetic energy
E =
1
2
V
2
0
x
2
which vanishes in a time of order
2
0
. If we estimate the
required power for = 3 10
3
kg/m
3
, V = 3cm3cm0.1mm = 9 10
8
m
3
,
0
2
= 2GHz, x = 1nm, we obtain about 3 10
8
W.
At present there are two known ways to make a body oscillate at gi-
gahertz frequencies and both of them have some disadvantages precluding
their use in a dynamic Casimir experiment.
The rst way would exploit acoustic waves in solids. Waves at gigahertz
frequencies were produced in the 60s by Bommel and Dransfeld in a quartz
rod placed inside a microwave resonant cavity[13]. What makes this tech-
nique ineective for our purpose is that a large microwave power is needed
and that the rod motion has a maximum displacement x much less than
1nm. A small amplitude x implies a small maximum oscillation speed v (for
a harmonic motion v =
0
x where
0
is the oscillation angular frequency).
Hence the number of photons produced by a mechanical oscillation with
such a speed would be undetectable, as is readily seen from eq.(1.2) and
(1.3).
The second technique is the one applied in acoustic microscopes[12]. A
resonant vibrating mode in a sapphire block is excited at a typical frequency
around 3GHz. The use of a mechanical system with high quality factor Q
reduces power requests in this case. For sapphire at a temperature of 4.3K
the product of the cavity quality factor Q by the oscillation frequency f is
about Qf 10
14
Hz[14]. Therefore if f 10
9
Hz, Q can be as high as 10
5
.
The same oscillation amplitude as in a nonresonant system can be reached
with a power 10
5
times smaller. But again the oscillation amplitude x is
about 10
10
m and the moved area is quite small (about 100m
2
).
1.2.2 A novel experimental approach
Another possible experimental approach is to realize an oscillating mirror
without mechanical methods. The notion of using laser pulses to quickly
change the dielectric properties of a semiconductor can be found in litera-
ture. In 1989 Yablonovitch[15] proposed the use of laser pulses to change the
refraction index of a semiconductor very rapidly. Another work by Lozovik,
Tsvetus and Vinograd[16] studied the parametric excitation of electromag-
netic waves using a dense plasma layer in a cavity; the layer was created by
irradiating a semiconductor lm with femtosecond laser pulses.
In the MIR experimental scheme mirror motion is simulated by changing
the actively reecting surface of a composite mirror. The mirror consists of
a metal plate with a semiconductor wafer xed on one side (see Figure
1.1 (a)). The semiconductor reectivity is driven by irradiation from laser
light, with photon energy corresponding to the semiconductor energy gap,
so that it can switch from completely transparent to completely reective for
microwaves. By sending a train of laser pulses at a given frequency we get
a mirror oscillating from position P1 to position P2. An advantage of this
method is that the distance between P1 and P2 can be made of the order of
a millimeter, compared to about 1nm obtainable by mechanical oscillations.
This leads to a layout as represented in Figure 1.1(b). The composite
mirror becomes a wall of a superconducting cavity. The laser pulses are
guided into the cavity via an optical ber. A small pickup antenna is also
1.2 Experimental approaches 9
Figure 1.1: (a) Mirror eective motion: a composite mirror changes its reec-
tion properties (under intermittent laser light irradiation), and the
microwave reecting surface switches its position between P1 and P2
accordingly. (b) Arrangement of the composite mirror in a microwave
resonant cavity. The semiconductor is irradiated by an optical ber
piercing the cavity
introduced in the cavity and the signal fed to high sensitivity electronics.
1.2.3 Experiment feasibility discussion
A number of points need to be checked in order to state that the method
shown could be eective:
1. Is the mirror created in P2 as good as the one in P1?
2. Is the Q of the cavity inuenced by the presence of the semiconductor?
3. Is the sensitivity of the pickup electronics good enough to detect the
predicted number of created photons?
4. Is it actually feasible to make the mirror appear and disappear in P2
at gigahertz frequencies?
Experiments carried out at the INFN Legnaro (PD) National Labs gave
an answer to the rst three questions.
1. Inserting a semiconductor layer in a waveguide and measuring the
reected and the transmitted power under laser irradiation, it was
shown that the semiconductor can reect microwaves as eectively as
copper. This test yields also another important parameter, that is
the laser power needed to make a good mirror. This question arises
from the fact that one needs to build a plasma of thickness equal to
at least three skin depths (for the given microwave frequency) in order
that it may be fully reective. The energy needed was estimated to
be approximatively 1J/cm
2
per pulse in the microwave range[17].
2. Measurements of the Q value of a niobium cavity brought to 4.6K,
were performed. Determining the decay time of the loaded cavity, a
value of Q 2 10
6
was obtained. Once the semiconductor wafer was
inserted in the cavity no dierence in the decay time (hence in Q) was
detected.
3. In order to answer question (3) a complete electronic chain was con-
nected to the pickup antenna inserted in the cryogenic cavity. The
rst amplication stage was placed near the cavity at liquid helium
temperature[19]. The cavity was then loaded with microwave pulses
of decreasing power in order that the minimum detectable signal could
be reached. The minimum signal detected had an energy of 0.1eV, cor-
responding to about 104 microwave (2.5GHz) photons. By taking 100
measurements one arrives at 10
3
photons. Further improvements in
the electronic chain should allow to detect even feebler signals.
4. The answer to question (4) can be found in literature[18]. The mir-
ror appearance at P1 is fast enough for gigahertz frequencies, since the
transition time of the electrons is some femtoseconds, so that the dom-
inant factor is the rise time of the laser pulse, which is in the hands of
the experimenter. However the disappearance of the mirror depends
on the recombination time of the electrons, which is a property of the
1.3 Layout for the detection of Casimir radiation 11
semiconductor only. If one uses semi-intrinsic semiconductors one can
obtain recombination times as low as 510ps[18].
One important expect is the determination of the semiconductor to em-
ploy as vibrating mirror. Since its recombination time is an important
issue for the experiment feasibility, this property has to be measure in order
to determine the best material. These measurements are carried out at the
Legnaro INFN National Labs and in Chapter 3 the laser system we realized
for the experiments is described.
1.3 Layout for the detection of Casimir radiation
On the basis of these results a general layout for the detection of Casimir
radiation is shown in Figure 1.2. A niobium cavity at cryogenic tempera-
ture is placed in a vacuum vessel. A cryogenic amplier is connected by a
transmission line to an inductive pickup loop coupled with the cavity in crit-
ical matching. A directional coupler is inserted between the cavity and the
cryogenic amplier to enable measurements of the resonance cavity reec-
tion coecient and calibration of the electronic chain. The signal output by
the cryogenic amplier is further amplied at room temperature, then pro-
cessed by a superheterodyne receiver and eventually integrated over time.
The laser light carried by the optical ber is tuned in the near infrared and
modulated in amplitude at a frequency exactly double the cavity resonance
frequency. The generator drives a frequency doubler whose output turns to
a low power laser master oscillator. The master oscillator yields a continu-
ous signal from which a pulse picker selects the number of pulses required
in each excitation stage. The total energy stored in the laser is limited, so
must be the number of available pulses. The present estimate is between
10
3
and 10
4
pulses for each run.
This experimental setup leaves open the possibility of changing many
conguration parameters to help distinguishing real from spurious signals.
The master laser frequency can be changed and thus the oscillation mirror
frequency to slightly detune the parametric resonance condition. Also the
cavity temperature can be varied in order to study possible contributions
Figure 1.2: Detailed experimental setup. There are three main parts: the electro-
magnetic cavity already shown in Figure 1.1, the electronic chain and
the laser system. This block diagram displays the interrelations be-
tween laser and radio frequency generator for the control of parametric
resonance
from thermal radiation. Mirrors made with dierent semiconductor samples
and with dierent thickness can be tried.
1.3.1 The laser system - conceptual scheme
In Figure 1.3 is represented the conceptual scheme of the laser system in-
serted in the experimental setup described in Figure 1.2.
Master Oscillator: it should provide a low energy pulsed laser
beam with a repetition frequency slightly tunable around the para-
metric resonance of the microwave cavity ( 5GHz with the actual
cavity geometry) and a pulse duration less than 20ps. The laser source
consists in a cw-ModeLocked oscillator operating at 1064nm.
AMPLIFICATION STAGES
OPTICAL FREQUENCY
DOUBLING STAGE
OUTPUT
10100mJ PULSE BURST @780820nm
MASTER OSCILLATOR
5 GHz
HIHG REPRATE LOW POWER PULSE TRAIN @1064nm
NON LINEAR WAVELENGTH
CONVERSION STAGE
SELECTOR
PULSE BURST
1
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0

P
U
L
S
E
s

B
U
R
S
T

L
O
W

E
N
E
R
G
Y
Figure 1.3: Laser system blocks scheme
Pulse Burst Selector: from the continuous pulse train, burst
made by 10
3
-10
4
single pulses should be picked up. Within the single
burst the pulses maintains the same time spacing given by the mas-
ter oscillator. The selector relies on an Acousto-Optical Modulator
(AOM).
Amplification Stages: the low energy single burst is amplied in a
double stages amplier. The rst is a diode pumped pre-amplication
stage, the second a ash lamp pumped power amplier. An energy
level of about 50-500J per single pulse (hence a total energy of 50-
500mJ for a burst made by 10
3
single pulses) is expected.
Optical Frequency Doubling Stage: the amplied laser beam
at a wavelength of 1064nm is then frequency doubled in order to pump
an optical parametric generation stage.
Nonlinear Wavelength Conversion Stage: an optical paramet-
ric generator provides the output at the desired wavelength of 780-
820nm, selected in function of the semiconductor material deposed on
the vibrating microwave cavity wall. A total energy ranging from 10
to 100mJ per burst is expected.
1.3.2 Preliminary calculations
In order to understand if this scheme leads to observable results it is nec-
essary to insert real numbers in the theoretical formulae and compare the
predicted number of photons with the apparatus sensitivity. Several phys-
ical parameters are essentially already chosen, since a niobium cavity and
an electronic chain have been used satisfactorily in the tests carried on to
answer questions (3) and (4). The niobium cavity has transverse dimensions
of 71mm and 22mm, and length x = 110mm. The cavity mode chosen was
TE
101
with eigenfrequency around 2.5GHz. The semiconductor was GaAs
with thickness 2x = 0.6mm. The excitation time duration for a single run, at
5GHz, according to the number of pulses, can be between 0.2-2s. Typically
a run can be repeated after a few seconds.
The following data can be used to estimate the number of photons pro-
duced by dynamic Casimir eect:
t = 10
6
s;
0
2
= 2.5 10
9
s
1
;
v
c
=
x
x
=
0.3mm
110mm
= 3 10
3
;
Q = 2 10
6
.
With formula (1.2), which is the more pessimistic, a number of 4 10
4
microwave photons, well above apparatus sensitivity, turns out.
A good knowledge of quantum vacuum is of great importance in cosmol-
ogy, both to the recurrent question of Einsteins cosmological constant[20],
with its signicance to the dark matter problem; and to the critical question
of the birth of density inhomogeneities, ancestors of galaxies, from inated
quantum vacuum uctuations[21]. Moreover a sound grasp of quantum vac-
uum dynamics is crucial in understanding some issues on the nature of quan-
tum particles and on the relationships among vacuum noise, the concepts of
information and entropy, and gravitation[21].
Bibliography
[1] H. B. G. Casimir, D. Polder, The Inuence of Retardation on the
London-van der Waals Forces, Phys. Rev. 73, 360 (1948)
[2] M. Bordag, U. Mohideen, V. M. Mostepanenko, New develop-
ments in the Casimir eect, Phys. Rep. 353, 1 (2001)
[3] G. T. Moore, Quantum theory of the electromagnetic eld in a
variable-length one-dimensional cavity, J. Math. Phys. 9, 2679 (1970)
[4] S. A. Fulling, P. C. W. Davies, Radiation from a moving mirror
in two dimensional space-time - Conformal anomaly, Proc. R. Soc.
London A 348, 393 (1976)
[5] S. K. Lamoreaux, Demonstration of the Casimir Force in the 0.6 to
6 m Range, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 5 (1997)
[6] G. Bressi, G. Carugno, R. Onofrio, G. Ruoso, Measurement
of the Casimir Force between Parallel Metallic Surfaces, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 88, 041804 (2002)
[7] A. Lambrecht, M. T. Jaekel, S. Reynaud, Motion Induced Radi-
ation from a Vibrating Cavity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 615 (1996)
[8] V. V. Dodonov, Modern Nonlinear Optics, edited by M.W. Evans,
Adv. Chem. Phys. Ser. Vol. 119, p. 309 (Wiley, New York, 2001)
[9] M. Crocce, D. A. R. Dalvit, F.D. Mazzitelli, Resonant photon
creation in a three-dimensional oscillating cavity, Phys. Rev. A 64,
013808 (2001)
18 Bibliography
[10] M. T. Jaekel, A. Lambrecht, S. Reynaud, Relativity of Motion
in Quantum Vacuum, Proceedings of the Ninth Marcel Gross-
mann Meeting, edited by V.G. Gurzadyan, R.T. Jantzen and
R. Ruffini, p. 1447 (World Scientic, 2002)
[11] G. Schaller, R. Sch utzhold, G. Plunien, G. So, Dynamical
Casimir eect in a leaky cavity at nite temperature, Phys. Rev. A
66, 023812 (2002)
[12] Z. Yu, S. Boseck, Scanning acoustic microscopy and its applications
to material characterization, Rev. Mod. Phys. 67, 863 (1995)
[13] H. E. Bommel, K. Dransfeld, Excitation and Attenuation of Hy-
personic Waves in Quartz, Phys. Rev. 117, 1245 (1960)
[14] V. B. Braginsky, C. M. Caves, K. S. Thorne, Laboratory experi-
ments to test relativistic gravity, Phys. Rev. D 15, 2047 (1977)
[15] E. Yablonovitch, Accelerating reference frame for electromagnetic
waves in a rapidly growing plasma: Unruh-Davies-Fulling-DeWitt radi-
ation and the nonadiabatic Casimir eect, Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, pp.
1742-1745 (1989).
[16] Yu. E. Lozovik, V. G. Tsvetus, E. A. Vinograd, Parametric
excitation of vacuum by use of femtosecond laser pulses, JETP Lett.
61, 723 (1995)
[17] C. Braggio, G. Bressi, G. Carugno, A. Lombardi, A. Palmieri,
G. Ruoso, D. Zanello, Semiconductor microwave mirror for a mea-
surement of the dynamical Casimir eect, Rev. of Sci. Instr. 75,
4967 (2004)
[18] J. Mangeney, N. Stelmakh, F. Aniel, P. Boucaud, J.-M. Lour-
tioz, Temperature dependence of the absorption saturation relaxation
time in light- and heavy-ion-irradiated bulk GaAs, Appl. Phys. Lett.
80, 4711 (2002)
Bibliography 19
[19] R. F. Bradley, Cryogenic, low-noise, balanced ampliers for the
300-1200MHz band using hetreostructure eld-eect transistors, Nucl.
Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.), 72 137 (1999)
[20] M. Fukugita, The Dark Side, Nature 422, 489 (2003)
[21] P. C. W. Davies, Quantum vacuum noise in physics and cosmology,
Chaos 11, 539 (2001)
20 Bibliography
Chapter 2
High rep-rate passively
mode-locked solid state lasers
Diodepumped, iondoped solidstate lasers are well known for their poten-
tial to deliver highpower modelocked pulse trains in diractionlimited
beams[1][2]. They feature ecient, robust, compact and reliable opera-
tion. In highspeed electrooptic sampling[3][4], photonic switching or op-
tical clocking [5][6], highcapacity telecommunication systems or free space
data links[7] and timeresolved ultrafast spectroscopy[8], highrepetition
rate pulse generating lasers are a desirable tool. Even in electron accel-
erators, high repetition rate lasers are used to generate polarized electron
beams[9]. Although the eld of current and potential applications is rather
diversied, laser sources for these applications have to meet common require-
ments: compact, reliable and ecient lasing operation is a key goal. Wave-
length tunability and/or phase locking to an external microwave reference
source is often desired. Low phase and amplitude noise are therefore another
musthave. Depending on the specic type of application, multigigahertz
pulse trains with average output powers between tens of milliwatts to sev-
eral watts, delivered in a diractionlimited beam, are required.
In high repetition rate applications, passive mode-locking is preferred
against active mode-locking, because potentially shorter pulses and thus a
higher extinction ratio between the pulses can be achieved, besides the fact
22 High rep-rate passively mode-locked solid state lasers
that the modulators add costs and complexity to the setup and limit the
maximum achievable cavity compactness.
Short cavities need to be built in order to generate high repetition rate
(f
rep
) pulse trains, since the round-trip time T
R
=
1
f
rep
xes the time spacing
between two consecutive pulses. Besides mechanical and geometrical prob-
lems which can arise from building very small laser cavities, Qswitched
mode locking (QML) becomes the main problem. QML means that the out-
put pulse train consists of pulses of dierent energies instead of pulses that
all have the same energy. An unwanted regime of operation for most applica-
tions of course. Because of their typically low emission crosssections (com-
pared to semiconductor gain media, for example), passively modelocked
iondoped solidstate lasers show an increased tendency for Qswitching
instabilities when the repetition rate is increased.
We will now briey review the theory describing the transition from
Qswitched mode-locking to continuous wave mode-locking, in order to
give some practical design parameters for passively mode-locked picosecond
lasers.
2.1 Review of the theory of picosecond lasers
Figure 2.1 illustrates qualitatively the two laser-operation regimes of inter-
est. The instantaneous laser power is shown versus time. In the cw mode-
locking regime (Figure 2.1(a)) the laser generates a train of mode-locked
pulses with high amplitude stability, while Q-Switching-Mode-Locking (Fig-
ure 2.1(b)) means that the pulse energy is modulated with a strongly peaked
Q-switching envelope. To derive a stability criterion against QML we start
from the rate equations for the intracavity power, gain, and saturable ab-
sorption. We call stable the operating conditions in which the relaxation
oscillations are damped.
The rate equations for the mode-locked laser can be written as[10]:
dP
dt
=
g l q
P
(E
P
)
T
R
P (2.1)
2.1 Review of the theory of picosecond lasers 23
Figure 2.1: Instantaneous and average laser power versus time for (a) a stable
cw mode-locked laser and for (b) a mode-locked laser exhibiting large
Q-switching instabilities. The average laser power (thick line) is the
same for both lasers
dg
dt
=
g g
0
P
E
sat,L
g (2.2)
dq
dt
=
q q
0
P
E
sat,A
q (2.3)
where:
P is the average intracavity laser power;
T
R
= 1/f
rep
is the cavity round-trip time;
E
P
= P T
R
is the mode-locked intracavity pulse energy;
g is the time-dependent round-trip power gain and g
0
the correspon-
dent value for P = 0;
q is the time-dependent round-trip saturable absorption coecient and
q
0
the correspondent value for P = 0;
l is the linear loss per round-trip;
L,A
are the upper-state lifetime of laser medium and absorber recovery
time respectively;
E
sat,L
= F
sat,L
A
eff,L
is the saturation energy of the gain, which
is dened as the product of saturation uence F
sat,L
=
h
m
and the
eective laser mode area inside the active medium A
eff,L
= w
2
L
, with
m the number of passes through the gain element per cavity round trip;
E
sat,A
= F
sat,A
A
eff,A
is the absorber saturation energy and is de-
ned by the product of absorber saturation uence F
sat,A
and eective
laser mode area on the saturable absorber A
eff,A
= w
2
A
. F
sat,A
cor-
responds to the pulse uence that is necessary to bleach the saturable
absorption to 1/e of its maximum amount q
0
.
It is worth notice that while eq. (2.1) and eq. (2.2) describes long time
scale phenomena (many round-trip), eq. (2.3) has to be solved in the laser
pulse time scale.
q
P
(E
P
) in eq. (2.1) represents the round-trip loss in average laser power
(or pulse energy) introduced by the saturable absorber for a given intra-
cavity pulse energy. In our conditions we can make two assumptions to to
determine q
P
. First, we have a slow absorber, i.e., the duration
P
of the
mode-locked pulses is shorter than the absorber recovery time
A
, although
the results remain valid even for
A

P
[10]. Second,
A
is much shorter
than the cavity round-trip time T
R
. With these assumptions we can neglect
the relaxation term in Eq. (2.3) during the time necessary for a mode-locked
pulse to pass the saturable absorber and we can assume that the absorber
is always fully recovered before it is hit by the next pulse. Then, for q
P
(E
P
)
we obtain:
q
P
(E
P
) = q
0
F
sat,A
A
eff,A
E
P
_
1 exp
_
E
P
F
sat,A
A
eff,A
__
(2.4)
Therefore we can now describe the mode-locked laser by the following two
coupled rate equations:
T
R
dE
P
dt
= [g l q
P
(E
P
)]E
P
(2.5)
dg
dt
=
g g
0
E
P
E
sat,L
T
R
g (2.6)
By linearizing these equations for small deviations E
P
and g from the
steady-state values E
P
and g we obtain the criterion for stability against
QML:
E
P
dq
P
dE
P
E
P
<
T
r
L
r =
T
R
L
+
E
P
E
sat,L
(2.7)
where we have used r = 1+
P
P
sat,L
. If the absorber is nearly fully saturated,
which is normally the case, r is identical to the usual pump parameter that
describes how many times above threshold the laser operates.
The physical background of relation (2.7) can be understood as follows.
If the pulse energy rises slightly owing to relaxation oscillations, this pulse
energy uctuation rst grows exponentially because of the stronger bleaching
of the absorber. However, the increased pulse energy starts to saturate the
gain. The laser is stable against QML if the gain saturation is suciently
strong to stop the exponential rise.
2.1.1 SEmiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirrors
The non-linear intracavity elements we used to mode-lock our picosecond
laser sources were semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs, or
simply SAMs)[11][12][13]. A typical non-linear reectivity response of such
a device is reported in Figure 2.2. The tting curve has the following
expression:
R(E
P
) = R
ns
ln
_
1 + exp(R)
_
exp
_
E
P
E
sat,A
_
1
__
E
P
/E
sat,A
(2.8)
in which R is the maximum change in nonlinear reectivity, which is also
referred to as the maximum modulation depth of the SESAM device, R
ns
is
the reectivity for high pulse energies and determines the nonsaturable loss
R
ns
= 1 R
ns
.
For absorber with R smaller than approximately 10%, as always in our
Figure 2.2: Measured data (lled points) and tted (solid) curve according to Eq.
(2.8) for the nonlinear reectivity R(F
P,A
) of a SESAM as a function
of the pulse energy uence F
P,A
= E
P
/A
eff,A
.
case, we can simplify eq. (2.8) to:
R(E
P
) = R
ns
_
1 R
F
sat,A
A
eff,A
E
P
_
1 exp
_
E
P
F
sat,A
A
eff,A
___
(2.9)
The nonlinear reectivity R(E
P
) of the SESAM is related to the pulse energy
loss per round trip q
P
(E
P
). Note that we did not include any nonsaturable
losses in q(t) (Eq.(2.3)) or q
P
(E
P
) (Eq.(2.4)). Therefore the maximum mod-
ulation depth is given by R = 1exp(q
0
) q
0
for R 1 as in passively
mode-locked solid-state lasers we can usually assume. In addition, the non-
saturable losses should be as low as possible because they only degrade the
laser performance, which results in the additional condition that R
ns
1,
hence R
ns
1. Under these conditions we have:
R(E
P
) exp (q
P
(E
P
)) 1 q
P
(E
P
) (2.10)
and we can rewrite eq. (2.7) in terms of the SESAM parameters:
E
P
dR(E
P
)
dE
P
E
P
<
T
r
L
r =
T
R
L
+
E
P
E
sat,L
(2.11)
2.1.2 Critical energy criterion
To benet from the full modulation depth of the saturable absorber, in cw
mode-locked lasers the pulse energy must be high enough to bleach the ab-
sorber. To meet that condition, the pulse uence on the SESAM should be
approximately ve times the absorber saturation uence. With this approx-
imation and the assumption that R
ens
1, as well as with relations (2.10)
and (2.4), we obtain for the nonlinear reectivity of the SESAM:
R(F
P,A
) 1 R
F
sat,A
F
P,A
(2.12)
where F
P,A
=
E
P
A
eff,A
is the pulse uence (energy per unity of area) incident
on the saturable absorber. At lower uences the residual saturable absorp-
tion would contribute to the cavity loss and act against self-starting and
ecient mode-locked operation.
If the laser operates far above threshold (r 1), which is the case in
most mode-locked lasers, we can neglect the rst term on the right-hand
side of relation (2.11), and the stability criterion against QML becomes in-
dependent of the upper-state lifetime of the considered laser material. The
saturation energy is then the only relevant parameter of the gain medium. A
laser material with a large stimulated-emission cross section
L
is therefore
desirable for stable cw mode-locking. It also could help to choose, if possi-
ble, a resonator geometry with multiple passes through the gain medium to
decrease the gain saturation uence. Selecting inhomogeneously broadened
gain materials with the same averaged
L
would also reduce the gain satu-
ration uence because the class of laser ions with the highest cross sections
dominates the gain saturation. Reducing the spontaneous lifetime, e.g., by
lifetime quenching eects, does not aect the stability condition against
QML.
With the approximations listed above, stability condition (2.11) can be
written in the following equivalent forms:
E
P
>
_
E
sat,L
E
sat,A
R (2.13)
F
P,A
>
F
sat,L
F
sat,A
R
A
eff,L
A
eff,A
(2.14)
P > f
rep
_
F
sat,L
A
eff,L
F
sat,A
A
eff,A
R (2.15)
With respect to the experimental verication of the theory, it is helpful
to introduce the QML parameter relating E
sat,L
, E
sat,A
, R, because it
contains all the parameters that determine the laser dynamics. We then
dene the critical intracavity pulse energy E
P,c
as the square root of the
QML parameter:
E
P,c
= (E
sat,L
E
sat,A
R)
1/2
This is the minimum intracavity pulse energy which is required for ob-
taining stable cw mode-locking; i.e., for E
P
> E
P,c
we obtain stable cw
mode-locking, and for E
P
< E
P,c
we have to expect QML instability. Note
that, if we neglect the lifetime dependent term in relation (2.11) and set
the bracketed term in eq. (2.9) as 1, both approximations lead to a slightly
stricter stability criterion: a laser fullling the stability condition with these
approximations will always fulll the exact condition.
As can be seen from eq. (2.15), the intracavity power required for sta-
ble cw mode-locking regime increases linearly with the laser repetition fre-
quency. At higher pulse repetition rates the tendency for QML will increase.
In addition, for very short laser cavities we also have to take into account
the tendency for pure Q-switching[11], which is negligible in 100-MHz-type
laser oscillators with a saturable absorber recovery time
A
T
R
. Since
the pulse energy scales inversely with the pulse repetition rate (for funda-
mental mode locking and a given intracavity power), a pulse repetition rate
that is ten times higher requires an intracavity laser power that is ten times
higher, if we leave the QML parameter xed. At the same pump level, the
intracavity power can be increased with reduced output coupling, but only
at the expense of eciency and output power.
We can reduce the absorber modulation depth R by using a thinner
absorber layer. However, this leads to longer pulses and to a weaker self-
starting tendency of the mode-locking process, neglecting the fact that by
now SESAM with R < 0.7% are not commercially available. Tighter
focusing onto the SESAM reduces the absorber saturation energy since,
E
sat,A
= A
eff,A
F
sat,A
. The tradeos are that operation of the laser at pulse
energies far above the absorber saturation energy can lead to pulse breakup
or can damage the device.
Another variable that aects the QML parameter is the gain saturation
energy. E
sat,L
is determined by the gain cross section of the laser material,
the laser mode area inside the gain medium, and the type of laser resonator.
To minimize the gain saturation energy it is desirable to use a laser ma-
terial with a large gain cross section, e.g., Nd:YVO
4
, or Nd:GdVO
4
rather
than Nd:YAG or Nd:YLF. Broadband gain media, suitable for subpicosec-
ond pulse generation, usually have low emission cross sections (with the
exception of Ti:sapphire) and thus have a stronger tendency for QML.
The laser mode area A
p
inside the gain medium should be chosen relying
in the following considerations. In order to assure an ecient pump absorp-
tion, crystal length l
c
should be longer than the pump absorption depth; we
can assume l
c

2
p
, where
p
is the active medium absorption coecient at
the pump wavelength
p
. Ecient pump absorption requires a pump waist
rayleigh range z
Rp

W
2
p
n
p
p
M
2
p
comparable with the crystal length. As can be
seen z
Rp
depends on the pump focusing (W
p
), on the refractive index of the
active medium at the pump wavelength (n
p
) and on the beam quality fac-
tor of the pump beam M
2
p
which roughly increases proportionally to pump
power. Hence we can nally nd that:
A
p
W
2
p

2
p
M
2
p
p
n
p
with the constrain that in order to suppress higher-order transverse modes
oscillation and to achieve maximum eciency, w
L
W
p
.
Therefore QML can be more dicult to suppress in lasers pumped by
high-power laser diodes (with their poor beam quality), while the use of
highly doped gain media can be advantageous because the reduced absorp-
tion length allows for tighter focusing.
When the stability condition given by eq. (2.15) is not achievable in
practice, it is necessary to investigate some method to obtain a reduction
in critical energy. One possible strategy is to introduce inside laser cavity
some element capable to produce Inverse Saturable Absorption (ISA).
2.2 Critical energy reduction by Inverse Saturable
Absorption
As shown in [14], the critical energy required for starting cw mode-locking
can be reduced signicantly in the presence of inverse saturable absorption
such as two-photon absorption, free-carrier absorption, and Second Har-
monic Generation (SHG). Dependending on the working conditions (soliton
or non-soliton mode-locking regime, slow or fast saturable absorber) the
amount of reduction in critical energy is dierent. In the case of our in-
terest (slow absorber in non-soliton regime), eq. (2.13) in presence of ISA
becomes:
E
c
=
_
E
sat,A
R
2
+
1
E
sat,L
(2.16)
where, in case of Second Harmonic Generation induced ISA[15]:
=
4
2
Z
0
(d
eff
L)
2
3n
3
A
SHG
(2.17)
with:
Z
0
= 377 is the vacuum impedance;
d
eff
is the non-linear eective coecient of the SHG crystal;
L is the minimum between the length of the crystal and the Rayleigh
range of the focused laser beam;
A
SHG
is the beam area in the SHG crystal;
is the pulse duration;
n and
have the usual meaning.

2.3 Cavity design of a multi-GHz laser resonator 31
If

>
1
E
sat
L
suppression of QML becomes relatively independent of the
properties of the gain medium. Independence of the gain medium will allow
suppression of QML in lasers with very large E
sat,L
, i.e. lasers with large
mode volumes such as diode-pumped high-powered lasers, lasers with a low
gain cross-section that is related to a long upper-state lifetime, as shown in
[15][16].
Both the direct nonlinear loss owing to SHG, as well as the gain reduction
due to self-phase modulation SPM contribute to the eective stabilization
of the cw mode locking while providing the minimum pulse duration allowed
by the passive mode locking alone[15][19][20].
Also, lasers with a limited intracavity pulse energy, which hardly reaches
the critical value E
c
, as is the case for high-repetition-rate lasers, may greatly
benet from ISA induced critical energy limiting.
2.3 Cavity design of a multi-GHz laser resonator
Since our workgroup had no experience before in design GHz repetition rate
passively mode-locked resonators, our strategy was to procede step by step
from hundred MHz regime, up to thousand MHz laser sources. In this path
we tested many dierent laser cavity before determining our way to high
rep-rates. Ill discuss now of the principals steps we made.
2.3.1 325MHz Nd:YVO
4
laser resonator
At rst we set up a laser resonator employing an 1% doped, 3mm long a-
cut Nd:YVO
4
crystal, pumped by a 750mW maximum output power laser
diode emitting around 807nm. The cavity scheme is shown in Figure 2.3.
The length L
1
+ L
2
280mm while L
3
100, hence the cw mode-locking
repetition frequency was 325MHz. The ABCD simulation of the TEM
00
intracavity resonating mode gives the following dimensions for the funda-
mental mode inside the active medium and over the saturable absorber mir-
ror: w
L
180m, w
A
60m. Employing the R = 1% saturable losses
mirror, with the saturation uence given by the constructor, eq. (2.13) gives
OC98,4%
R
1
= 150mm
SAM 1% /4%
LBO
Nd : YVO
4 PUMP
L
1
L
2
L
3
Figure 2.3: Setup of the cavity operating @375MHz
a critical energy E
c
30nJ per pulse.
Without employing SHG-ISA method, we were not able to obtain stable
cw mode-locking. Hence we introduced a 15mm long LBO crystal near the
SAM, as shown in Figure 2.3. Opportunely tilting the LBO crystal out
of phase matching we obtain stable and self-starting cw mode-locking with
an intracavity pulse energy E
ic
10nJ (signicantly lower than the limit
predicted without SHG ISA) and average output power of 120mW (60mW
for each of the two laser cavity outputs).
We also tested the laser resonator with a R = 4% SAM, which further
increases of a factor 2 the critical intracavity energy. In these conditions we
experimented cw mode-locking with E
ic
5nJ (more than a factor 10 below
the critical energy) and an average output power of about 72mW (36mW
for each harm).
2.3.2 720MHz Nd:YVO
4
laser resonator
OC98,4%
R
1
= 80mm
SAM 1%
LBO
Nd : YVO
4 PUMP L
1
L
2
L
3
Figure 2.4: Setup of the cavity operating @720MHz
Subsequently we scaled up the resonator repetition frequency oppor-
tunely reducing the optical cavity length and consequently reducing the
folding mirrors radius of curvature. With the Z-folded cavity shown in Fig-
ure 2.4 we obtained stable cw mode-locking at 720MHz.
The new simulated TEM
00
mode dimensions inside active medium an
SAM were respectively w
L
160m and w
A
50m, also in these condi-
tions we had to employ LBO SHG-ISA in order to avoid QML instabilities.
The average output power was 160mW, 80mW for each output.
Figure 2.5: Autocorrelation trace of the 720MHz f
rep
laser cavity
In Figure 2.5 is shown the autocorrelation trace of the output pulses.
We measured a FWHM duration
p
6.6ps with a time-bandwidth product
0.43, tipical of this kind of resonators in which the active medium
is placed on one end of the cavity.
We report in Figure 2.6(a) and Figure 2.6(b) respectively the radiofre-
quency spectrum analyzer trace in case of cw mode-locking and QML regime.
A picture of the cavity setup is shown in Figure 2.7.
2.3.3 1.4GHz Nd:GdVO
4
laser resonator
The Z-folded cavity scheme employed for our resonators operating at 325 and
720MHz pulse repetition rates was not further scalable for shorter cavities,
(a) Cw-Ml (b) Qs-Ml
Figure 2.6: RF spectrum analyzer trace for cw-ML (a) and QML (b)
Figure 2.7: 720MHz cavity setup, a picture
due to mechanical limitations. Therefore we decided for a V-folded cavity
employing a 1% doped, plane-brewster vanadate laser crystal, coated on one
side AR at 808nm and HR at 1063nm, whereas the second face was cut with
a slight oset from the Brewster angle. The available a-cut Nd:GdVO
4
laser crystal was already investigated as a promising candidate for high
repetition-rate sources[17], owing to its superior thermal conductivity that
allows for power up-scaling, while the absorption peak is broader than that
of Nd:YVO
4
and is especially attractive for diode-pumping.
The pump was a readily available 1W, 100m single emitter diode laser
tuned at 808nm, beam-shaped for end-pumping with aspheric lenses and an
anamorphic prism pair. The pump spot radius was measured to be 36m.
The output power versus current characteristic is shown in Figure 2.8.
400 600 800 1000 1200
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
I
al
(mA)
P
o
u
t

(
m
W
)
Figure 2.8: Diode pump output power characteristic
Laser resonator design criteria
Eq. (2.13) suggests straightforward criteria for achieving cw mode-locking[21]:
1. tightly focus the resonant mode both in the laser crystal and on the
SAM device;
2. use small R;
3. use a lowloss oscillator with high intracavity power (and pulse energy).
The smallest modulation depth R oered with commercial devices is
generally around 1% and cannot be reasonably reduced to a small frac-
tion of such a value without accepting large variations in production runs
and signicantly increased costs. The ultimate low-loss oscillator for such
an application should employ only high reectivity (HR) mirrors and no
anti-reection (AR) optics, since these kind of coatings always brings in a
non-vanishing Fresnel loss of 0.1% - 0.2% per pass, of the order of the out-
put coupling that is generally tolerated, which is also comparable to the
non-saturable losses of the SAM. These considerations led us to propose
the design for the high-frequency passively mode-locked oscillator shown in
Figure 2.9. L
1
and L
2
are aspheric lenses for collimation and focussing,
respectively, and APP is the prism pair for slow-axis expansion.
Figure 2.9: Layout of the diode-pumped 1.4 and 2.6 GHz Nd:GdVO
4
laser
An HR concave mirror, with R = 50mm radius of curvature, folded the
nearly-symmetric resonator. The folding angle was kept as small as possible,
6
, in order to allow maximum overlap of the tangential and sagittal

stability regions. The SAM (supplied by BATOP Gmbh, Weimar, Germany)
was the second end-mirror: the saturable modulation depth was specied
to be R = 0.7% (nonsaturable loss 0.3%), with saturation uence of
30J/cm
2
and recovery time 10ps.
To determine the amount of the loss from the Nd:GdVO
4
quasi-Brewster
face, a simpler two-mirror plano-concave cavity was separately set up with
a 25mm radius of curvature, 2% transmissivity output coupler. The laser
emitted up to 250mW in TEM
00
mode with 700mW of incident pump power,
whereas the external reection from the Brewster face was measured to be
0.2% of the intracavity power. In Figure 2.10 the output power characteristic
versus pump power for the plano-concave cavity is reported.
Since the working tolerance for crystal cutting is often within 0.5
and
the reectivity dependence from the oset angle is parabolic near the
Brewster condition, it is easy to specify some oset angle to introduce an
acceptable amount of output coupling (see Figure 2.11; see the inset for angle
denitions). The shortcoming of this approach is the loss for the internal
reection, and correspondingly reduced laser eciency, but this is of little
concern as long as few tens of milliwatts can be considered a sucient output
power as in our case.
Numerical computation results summarized in Figure 2.12 show the vari-
ation of the resonant mode size and of the critical output power (critical
energy multiplied by the repetition rate frequency), considering the 0.2%
eective coupling through the quasi-Brewster face, as a function of the rep-
etition rate. In agreement with the numerical modeling, cw mode-locking
could be readily achieved only near the edge of the stability region.
Experimental results
In Table 2.1, the results obtained for dierent pulse f
rep
are reported. A
little tunability of the repetition frequency was experimented (f
rep
/f
rep

3MHz 2 ). The output beam was, as expected, linearly polarized.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
P
pump
[mW]
P
o
u
t

[
m
W
]
Measured data
Linear fitting
Slope 38%
Figure 2.10: Two mirror plano-concave output power versus incident pump power
characteristic
Figure 2.11: Fresnel loss from the quasi-Brewster interface as a function of the
angle oset. The inclination of the uncoated face yielding exact Brew-
ster incidence is = 24.52
f
rip
[GHz] P
pump
[mW] P
out
Brewster[mW]
(1) 1.399 465 (cw ML threshold) 25.5
680 (max.) 43
(2) 1.401 420 (cw ML threshold) 31
680 (max.) 55
(3) 1.402 620 (cw ML threshold) 43
660 47
680 (max.) 51
Table 2.1: Tunability range of 1.4GHz V-folded cavity
2.3.4 2.6GHz rep-rate Nd:GdVO
4
widely tunable laser res-
onator
Once the feasibility of the cavity scheme reported in Figure 2.9 was demon-
stred, the realization of the 2.6GHz pulse repetition rate source was straight-
forward. We simply substituted the R = 50mm folding concave mirror with
a R = 25mm mirror and consequently reduce the length of L
1
and L
2
in
order to match the stability condition for the new laser cavity. The results
of our simulations about critical energy condition and fundamental mode
transversal dimension in the active medium and over the saturable absorber
1.39 1.4 1.41 1.42 1.43 1.44 1.45 1.46 1.47
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
f
rep
[GHz]
C
r
i
t
i
c
a
l

o
u
t
p
u
t

p
o
w
e
r

[
m
W
]
Figure 2.12: Critical output power calculated for cw mode-locking
mirror are shown in Figure 2.13.
The output power from the quasi-Brewster face was up to 60mW, the
repetition rate was centered at 2.6GHz with pulse duration of 4.4ps (Figure
2.14). The time-bandwidth product was 0.47, slightly above the sech
2
limit
as often occurs in lasers with the gain element at the end[18]. The output
beam was TEM
00
with horizontal polarization. The repetition rate could
be varied only slightly (few MHz) by translating the SAM longitudinally
without compromising the stability of cw mode-locking. Once the cw mode-
locking was started, the laser could be used several days without any damage
of the SAM.
We used a radio-frequency spectrum analyzer (HP 8562A) to monitor the
quality of mode-locking and to measure carefully the repetition frequency.
Owing to the limited photodetector sensitivity we were limited to a S/N
ratio of 30dB, with no trace of relaxation oscillations in the background
noise (the signal on a 500-MHz oscilloscope did not show any signicant
train modulation at low frequency).
The exibility of this cavity design can be appreciated when a broader
repetition rate tuning range is required. In fact, a signicantly broader
tuning range, of 200 MHz, has been achieved by unbalancing the resonator
arms, varying the length of the SAM arm within 30% - 50% of the total
intracavity path in air, which physically corresponds to right-left shifting
the graph in Figure 2.13(a). Such a tuning range is important, for example,
for matching the pulse frequency to the resonance of a given microwave test
device, and cannot be done with linear plano-concave resonators without
compromising the cw mode-locking stability.
Reducing the pump power we found that the critical output power for
cw mode-locking was 30mW, corresponding to 470mW of pump power
(for comparison, the pump threshold for laser emission with the SAM was
Figure 2.13: Critical P
out
calculated for cw mode-locking (a) and waist radii (b)
as a function of f
rep
. The waist radii on the SAM (w
a
) as well as on
the gain medium (w
g
) are calculated (both for the tangential (t) and
the sagittal (s) planes), near the 2.6GHz edge of the stability region.
Actually, the tangential waist radius within the laser crystal has to
be multiplied by the refractive index n=2.192
Figure 2.14: Non-collinear background-free second-harmonic autocorrelation and
spectrum of the passively mode-locked laser (inset)
80mW). The intracavity critical energy is comparable with that reported in
[17] and is in fair agreement with the prediction of eq. (2.13) [see Figure
2.13(a)]. It is worth noting that the pulse duration of 4.4ps is signicantly
shorter than the 12ps value previously obtained, which may be explained by
the larger modulation depth of the SAM used in the present experiment.
A picture of the experimental setup is shown in Figure 2.15.
2.3.5 Tunability of the 2.6GHz Nd:GdVO
4
with SHG-ISA
In order to test our SHG-ISA stabilization technique in such a high rep-rate
system, we inserted intracavity a 4mm long, type I LiB
3
O
5
(LBO) crystal,
as shown in Figure 2.16. Simply varying the length of the L
2
cavity arm
was possible to obtain stable cw mode-locking regime with the threshold
and maximum output powers listed in Table 2.2.
At f
rep
= 2.41GHz a pulse autocorrelation measurement was carried out.
A pulse duration of 4.2ps was measured with a FWHM spectrum of about
0.38nm with a correspondant product = 0.42. The autocorrelation
trace is shown in Figure 2.17.
Figure 2.15: Experimental setup for the oscillator operating around 2.5GHz
2.3.6 Nd:YVO
4
based 4.8GHz rep-rate resonator
The results obtained with the Nd:GdVO
4
based oscillators were the pre-
liminary condition for further steps. Since the 1063nm centered Nd:GdVO
4
emission wavelength does not match the gain bandwidth of the amplication
stages of the laser system, based on Nd:YVO
4
slabs, further cavity setups
rely on Nd:YVO
4
active medium. A 1% doped, plane-brewster a-cut, 3mm
long crystal was chosen. Due to its higher emission cross section and con-
sequently lower saturation uence, in according with eq. (2.14) Nd:YVO
4
reduces the intracavity critical pulse energy. Also the pump diode was sub-
stituted with the aim to achieve a better absorption peak wavelength match-
ing and higher pump power. The diode output power versus input current
characteristic is reported in Figure 2.18, showing a 20% available pump
power in excess if compared with the characteristic shown in Figure 2.8.
The diode emission is centered at 808nm with a FWHM of about 2nm.
Once again, in order to determine the amount of the loss from the
Nd:YVO
4
quasi-Brewster face, a two-mirror plano-concave cavity was set
L
1
L
g
HR,
R=25mm
SAM 1%
L
2
2
a
a
L
B
O
4
m
m
Figure 2.16: Cavity setup with LBO placed near SAM

Figure 2.17: Autocorrelation trace of the 2.41GHz cw mode-locking pulses emerg-
ing from the cavity of Figure 2.16
up with a 25mm radius of curvature, 2% transmissivity output coupler. The
output power performances as a function of the incident pump power are
reported in Figure 2.19 and show a signicant improvement with respect to
the previously tested Nd:GdVO
4
setup (see Figure 2.10 for a comparison).
A slope eciency of about 50% was achieved, while quasi-brewster face loss
was 1 .
The conceptual scheme of the laser cavity operating at 4.8GHz repeti-
tion frequency is the same we employed for the Nd:GdVO
4
based oscillator
descripted before (see Figure 2.9). The main dierence is obviously relying
f
rip
[GHz] P
pump
[mW] P
out
Brewster[mW]
2.415 610 (cw ML thres.) 53
690 65
2.43 530 (cw ML thres.) 34
690 45
2.45 580 (cw ML thres.) 42
690 52
2.47 560 (cw ML thres.) 48
690 63
2.49 605 (cw ML thres.) 42
690 47
2.51 630 (cw ML thres.) 40
690 43
2.53 690 (cw ML thres.) 53
2.545 690 (cw ML thres.) 50
2.57 690 (cw ML thres.) 45
2.60 690 (cw ML thres.) 48
Table 2.2: Results obtained employing LBO
on the cavity length and hence the curvature radius of the folding mirror. A
mirror coated HR at 1064nm with R=12mm was employed. The cavity opti-
cal length of 31mm ( 24mm in air) related to this f
rep
needs an accurate
mechanical design of the oscillator in order to minimize the folding angle
(and consequently HR mirror losses and induced astigmatism in the cavity
mode) and carefully manage the available space to put every component in
place. It is worth notice that we used only commercially available compo-
nents, without any expensive customization. In Figure 2.20 is reported a
picture of the oscillator.
Obtaining a stable cw mode-locking regime in these conditions was not
so simple. Only with tricky and accurate alignment of the mirrors very close
to the cavity stability edges we reached our goal. Once the laser operates
in cw mode-locking it shows good stability. It works for hours without any
200 400 600 800 1000
0
200
400
600
800
I
al
(mA)
P
o
u
t

(
m
W
)
Figure 2.18: Output power versus input current characteristic of the new pump
diode
alignment correction and it is also self starting. Once again it was possible
to tune the cavity mode-locking repetition frequency adjusting the ratio
between the length of the two V-folded cavity arms. We measured repetition
frequencies ranging from 4.72 to 4.88GHz, with a best performance of 25mW
average output power at 4.74GHz.
In Figure 2.21 are reported both the long time scale and the short time
scale oscilloscope cw mode-locking traces. The instrument employed is 6-
GHz oscilloscope (Tektronix TDS 6604B) while the optical sensor is a 5-GHz
InGaAs photodiode (Thorlabs SIR5-FC, 70-ps FWHM pulse response).
In Figure 2.22 is reported the sech
2
prole of the cw mode-locking
pulses autocorrelation trace. Taking into account a conversion constant of
29.4ps/ms for the instrument (Femtochrome FR-103XL Autocorrelator), it
comes out a duration of 9.7ps, more than two times longer that the 4.4ps
obtained whit the 2.6GHz repetition rate, Nd:GdVO
4
based oscillator. This
behaviour can be explained taking into account the narrower gain band-
width for Nd:YVO
4
and a lower saturation for the 1% SAM, in according
with the reduced intracavity energy due to the approximately doubled f
rep
.
Figure 2.19: Plano-concave Nd:YVO
4
output power performances
In Figure 2.23 is reported a typical Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum of
the cw mode-locking. A S/N ratio of 40dB, with no trace of relaxation
oscillations in the background noise was obtained.
Figure 2.20: Picture of the 4.8GHz oscillator, white continuous line shows the
cavity path, dash line is the output
(a) 10s/div (b) 500ps/div
Figure 2.21: cw Mode-Locking oscilloscope traces with long (a) and short
(b) time span
Figure 2.22: sech
2
shaped autocorrelation trace for the 4.74GHz cw mode-locking
laser pulses. The conversion coecient for the FWHM pulse duration
is 29.4ps/ms which gives a duration of about 9.7ps
Figure 2.23: RF spectrum of the cw mode-locking
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[13] L. R. Brovelli, U. Keller, and T. H. Chiu, Design and operation of
antiresonant FabryPerot saturable semiconductor absorbers for mode-
locked solid-state lasers, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12, 311322 (1995)
[14] T. R. Schibli, E. R. Thoen, F. X. Kartner, E. P. Ippen, Sup-
pression of Q-switched mode locking and breakup into multiple pulses
by inverse saturable absorption, Appl. Phys. B 70, pp. 41-49 (2000)
[15] A. Agnesi, A. Guandalini, A. Tomaselli, E. Sani, A. Toncelli,
M. Tonelli, Diode-pumped passively mode-locked and passively stabi-
lized Nd
3+
:BaY
2
F
8
laser, Opt. Lett. 29, pp.1638-1640 (2004)
[16] A. Agnesi, A. Guandalini, A. Lucca, F. Pirzio, A. Tomaselli,
G. Reali, E. Sani, A. Toncelli, M. Tonelli, Passive stabilization
technique applied to continuous-wave picosecond mode-locked Yb:YAG
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2
F
8
lasers, Conference on Lasers and Electro-
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[17] L. Krainer, D. Nodop, G.J. Sp uhler, S. Lecomte, M. Golling,
R. Paschotta, D. Ebling, T. Ohgoh, T. Hayakawa, K. Wein-
garten, U. Keller, Compact 10-GHz Nd:GdVO
4
laser with 0.5-W av-
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(2004)
[18] B. Braun, K. Weingarten, F.X. Kartner, U. Keller, Continuous-
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Part I. Experiments, Appl. Phys. B 61, 429-437 (1995)
[19] A. Agnesi, A. Guandalini, G. Reali, Self-stabilized and dispersion-
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[20] S.L. Schieer, D. Brajkovic, A.I. Cornea, W. Andreas
Schroeder, Low-threshold, dual-passive mode locking of a large mode
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4
laser, Opt. Exp. 14, 6694-6704 (2006)
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4
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52 Bibliography
Chapter 3
IRENE - A laser source for
photoconductivity
measurements
A crucial point regarding the feasibility of the Motion Induced Radiation
(MIR) experiment, as described in Chapter 1, is the possibility to make
appear and disappear at high frequency the end mirror of the Casimir ex-
periment microwave cavity. This possibility relies on physical properties of
the semiconductor layer that, optically switching its conductivity, acts as a
vibrating wall for the electromagnetic eld. The experimental tests of the
photoconductive behavior of dierent semiconductors materials at cryogenic
temperatures are performed at the INFN National Labs of Legnaro (PD),
by using a laser source realized at the Laser Source Lab of the Electronics
Department of the University of Pavia. These measurements require a low
repetition rate source, able to provide short pulses (
p
< 10ps) with en-
ergy of the order of few microjoule at 532nm and tens of nanojoule around
790nm. In this Chapter, I will describe the laser system (IRENE - InfraRed
ENergy Emitter), its realization and its performances.
54 IRENE - A laser source for photoconductivity measurements
3.1 State of the art of J level picosecond sources
Many laser systems consist of an oscillator followed by one or more ampli-
er stages. These optical ampliers can take several very dierent forms,
including that of a single-pass amplier, a multipass amplier or a regen-
erative amplier. A number of interdependent factors determine which of
these congurations is the best suited for a particular application. These
factors include the amplication required, the gain and saturation properties
of the active medium, the input power from the oscillator, the desired beam
quality, system cost, complexity and reliability. Microjoule-level picosecond
pulses are interesting for a variety of applications, including micromachin-
ing and nonlinear optics. Laser systems delivering microjoule pulse energy
have been reported relying either on multi-pass gain elements[1] or, more
often, on regenerative amplication[2][3]. Also less complex soultions that
in principle do not need amplication stages like cavity dumping have been
employed[4]. We will now briey go into each of these techniques in order
to point out their capabilities and drawbacks.
3.1.1 Multi-pass ampliers
A possible scheme for multipass amplication systems is represented in Fig-
ure 3.1.
Figure 3.1: In a multipass amplier, the beam passes through the gain medium
several times, at a slightly dierent angle each time
3.1 State of the art of J level picosecond sources 55
In this setup optics (usually mirrors) are arranged so that input beam
makes several passes through the amplier gain medium before exiting. In
practice, each pass through the gain medium may travel through the same
optically pumped spot in the center of the amplier material, but with
dierent paths. A folded path allows the beam to enter and exit the amplier
after a nite number of passes. The optimum number of passes and hence
the number of folds in the amplier path, depends on the gain per pass,
the amount of overall gain required, the saturated gain coecient for the
material and the amount of optical complexity tolerable. The greater the
number of passes needed the more complex the design must be. The design is
limited also in the diculty of focusing each pass through the gain medium.
Typically four to eight passes are made, with cascading multipass ampliers
used for a greater number of passes. The technique is desirable as it is
relatively inexpensive, but it needs time-consuming adjustments. The gain
medium must also be used close to the damage threshold to have a high gain
per pass ratio.
3.1.2 Regenerative ampliers
Practical issues of optical complexity limit the number of passes feasible
for a multipass amplier, so the net gain of such an amplier cannot be
increased beyond a certain level. For some applications, this gain level is
not sucient. This happens when the input signal from the laser oscillator is
very weak, or when several passes are not enough to reach saturation. Both
instances are often the result of a low cross-section for stimulated emission.
One possible alternative solution is represented by regenerative ampli-
ers. The operation principle can be understood as follows:
rst, the gain medium is pumped for some time, so that it accumulates
energy;
then, the initial pulse is injected into the cavity through a port which
is opened for a short time (shorter than the round-trip time) with an
electro-optic (or sometimes acousto-optic) switch;
after that, the pulse can undergo many (possibly hundreds) of cavity
round trips, being amplied to a high energy level;
nally, the pulse is again released from the cavity. This can either hap-
pen with a second electro-optic switch, or with the same one previously
used for coupling in.
This principle allows to achieve very high gain and thus pulse energies in
the millijoule range with ampliers of moderate size, or even higher ener-
gies with larger devices. Typical pulse repetition rates are of the order of
1kHz (although repetition rates of 100kHz are sometimes possible), while
the highest pulse energies are achieved at lower repetition rates.
The pulse is usually trapped using a Pockels cell and a broadband po-
lariser. Figure 3.2 represent a typical set-up of a regenerative amplier. In
PUMP
ACTIVE MEDIUM
OUT
IN
POLARIZER
POCKELLS CELL
Figure 3.2: A typical regenerative amplier setup
terms of output characteristics, one of the major advantages of a regenera-
tive amplier is that the spatial prole and pointing of the output beam is
dened by the cavity. With a well-designed cavity, the regenerative ampli-
er is capable of delivering transform-limited pulses in a very high-quality
beam. On the other end, fast and synchronized electronic switching in and
out of the pulses add costs and complexity to the setup.
The power eciency of a regenerative amplier can be severely reduced
by the eect of intracavity losses (particularly in the electro-optic switch).
The sensitivity to such losses is particularly high in cases with low gain,
3.1 State of the art of J level picosecond sources 57
because this increases the number of required cavity round trips to achieve
a certain overall amplication factor.
Regenerative ampliers can also have a reduced gain and power eciency
due to a nite lower state lifetime, leading to a signicant population of the
lower laser level during amplication of a pulse, and thus to reabsorption
on the laser transition. This problem occurs primarily in ampliers for very
short pulses.
3.1.3 Cavity dumping
Cavity dumping is an ecient method to generate relatively high pulse en-
ergies, sucient for many applications such as ultrafast spectroscopy, micro-
machining, and nonlinear frequency conversion directly from a laser oscil-
lator and thus avoiding complex amplier schemes[5][6][7]. In the past the
main focus of research was on cavity-dumped TEM
00
-pumped Ti:sapphire
laser systems[8]. However, since these lasers are pumped in the green spec-
tral region, where no laser diodes are available, their application is quite
limited due to the high cost of the green pump lasers. One way to reduce
the complexity is the usage of directly diode-pumped laser media such as
ytterbium- and neodymium-doped materials in combination with highly re-
liable mode-locking techniques using semiconductor saturable absorber mir-
rors (SESAMs). A possible cavity scheme for such a device is represented
in Figure 3.3. The basic idea is to keep the cavity losses small for most of
the time, so that the circulating pulse can become rather intense, and then
to extract this pulse with an optical switch. This switch, usually realized
with an electro-optic or acousto-optic modulator and a polarizer in the laser
cavity, allows to couple out a large fraction of the energy of the circulating
pulse. After pulse extraction, the cavity must be kept in a low-loss state
for many cavity round trips to allow the pulse to accumulate energy again.
One important factor is that the switching time has to be small compared
with a cavity round-trip time, and the trigger for the optical switch must
be synchronized with the circulating pulse.
The achieved pulse energy is typically about an order of magnitude
higher than with an ordinary mode-locked laser, and the pulse repetition
Figure 3.3: Nd:YVO
4
passively mode-locked cavity dumped oscillator: pulse ex-
traction is realized through an Electro-Optical Modulator (EOM) in
combination with a Thin Film Polarizer (TFP)
rate can be several megahertz. The average output power of cavity-dumped
lasers is usually quite low due to the eect of parasitic cavity losses.
3.1.4 Grazing incidence Nd:YVO
4
slab ampliers
The development of very high gain diode-pumped amplication modules
oers new reliable, cheap and simple solutions also for picosecond pulse
amplication. Owing to the eective gain connement near the pump side in
highly absorbing media with large stimulated emission cross section, grazing-
incidence side-pumped slabs oer high gain per pass as well as eective
averaging of gain in the direction of the pump absorption[9][10]. Indeed,
Nd:YVO
4
slab ampliers with single-pass gain ranging from 10
3
to 10
5
have
been reported[11], that are perfectly suitable for the application considered
here.
A typical scheme of such an amplier module is represented in Figure
3.4. A collimated diode array is coupled into an high gain active medium
directly or through a cylindrical fast-axis focusing optics. Owing to the
high pump absorption coecient, population inversion is conned in a thin
foil near to the pumped face. The seed laser beam is injected inside the
amplier in such a way that it experiences a grazing incidence total inter-
nal reection at the pumped crystal face. Thanks to this it passes through
the highest gain region, and the half path reection make possible to op-
3.2 Laser system setup 59
PUMP MODULE
PUMP BEAM
SEED
AMPLIFIED BEAM
ACTIVE MEDIUM
Figure 3.4: Amplier module in side-pumped grazing incidence conguration
portunely average gain and thermal distortions in the pumping plane. We
demonstrated very high small signal gain for such a conguration both in
continuous wave[12] and quasi-continuous wave[13] pumped modules, with
simple and cost eective setups that make this solution very attractive for
high stability, low energy picosecond pulses amplication.
3.2 Laser system setup
A conceptual scheme of the laser system setup is described in Figure 3.5.
It is in principle possible to identify ve dierent stages in the setup:
1. the high repetition frequency master oscillator;
2. the repetition frequency downscaling stage relying on the acousto-
optical pulse picker;
3. the single pass double stages amplier employing a couple of Nd:YVO
4
slabs in a grazing incidence one bounce conguration;
4. the Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) stage which provides both
the green output and the pump for the nal stage;
5. the Optical Parametric Generation (OPG) stage for the 790nm output.
Figure 3.5: Layout of the diode-pumped oscillator-amplier system. L1, L2, L3:
lenses; PD: photodiode generating the 56-MHz reference clock; AOPP:
acousto-optic pulse-picker; BD: beam dump; LD: quasi-cw laser diode
arrays; HWP: half-wave plate; slabs: Nd:YVO
4
grazing incidence high-
gain modules; LBO: SHG crystal; HS: harmonic separator; KTP: OPG
crystal
3.2.1 Overwiev of system functioning
Before going into the specications and the performances of any single stage,
we will describe qualitatively the operation of the whole laser system. The
core element for the correct device functioning is the synchronization of
pulse picking and amplication with the master oscillator pulses train. The
temporal operations sequence is described in Figure 3.6.
All the operations are coordinated by a microprocessor. The clock for
the processor is recovered by the master oscillator output through an oppor-
tunely reshaped monitor photodiode signal. The rst event to occur is the
amplier pump pulse formation. In order to exploit the maxium available
gain, the deection signal is sent to the pulse-picker exactly at the end of the
amplier pump pulse. Once the deection window is properly centered in
0
0
0
Amplifier Pump Pulse Amplifier Pump Pulse
Master oscillator provided high freq. clock signal
Idle time set by low freq. repetition rate
Deflection
signal
Deflection
signal
t
t
t
p
120s
p
120s
defl
15ns
defl
15ns
Figure 3.6: Temporal operations sequence of the laser system: the timing is set by
the high frequency ( 56 MHz) clock signal provided by the master os-
cillator; the low frequency repetition rate is set reducing or increasing
the idle time
order to optimize the single pulse selection (as will be more clearly explained
in 3.2.3), the time reference given directly by the master oscillator guaran-
tees the time-locking between amplication, deection window and selected
pulse. The desired repetition frequency can now be selected operating on
the duration of the idle time between two consequent amplication pump
pulses.
3.2.2 The 1064nm Master Oscillator
The low-power master oscillator is based on a Nd:YVO
4
2%-doped plane-
Brewster crystal pumped by a 1-W cw laser diode emitting at 808nm. The
output power versus input current characteristic of the pump source is shown
in Figure 3.7. Passive mode-locking was achieved with a semiconductor
saturable absorber mirror with 2% loss modulation at 1064nm.
400 800 1200
0
200
400
600
800
1000
I
al
(mA)
P
o
u
t

(
m
W
)
Figure 3.7: Output power characteristic of the diode pump
Since the Brewster cut of the laser crystal expands the cavity mode
diameter of a factor 2 in the polarization plane, in order to realize the
correct matching between pump and fundamental mode waists, a couple of
aspheric lenses of focal length f
1
= 4.5mm (NA = 0.55) and f
2
= 8mm (NA
= 0.5) was employed to re-image the diode emission (100m 1m) into
the laser crystal.
The cavity setup is described in Figure 3.8. The curved mirror R1 pro-
duce a fundamental mode size w
g
70m inside the active medium, while
the curved mirror R2 produces a waist w
a
w
g
over the saturable absorber.
R1
R2
M1
OC
M2
SAM
Nd:YVO4
Figure 3.8: Master Oscillator cavity setup: R1=R2=250mm, OC=98%, M1 and
M2 High Reectivity plane mirrors
Figure 3.9: Oscilloscope trace of the cw Mode-Locking pulse train
The R = 98% output coupler is a folding mirror for the standing wave cav-
ity, hence we had a double non collinear output beams, each carring out
50% of the output average power. The output laser beams are substantially
collimated with a 1/e diameter w 750m.
400 600 800 1000
0
40
80
120
Pump Current (mA)
T
o
t
a
l

P
o
u
t

(
m
W
)
Figure 3.10: Output power versus pump current characteristic of the Master Os-
cillator; each output beam carries out 50% of the total output power
The cavity optical length is 2.7m giving a cw mode-locking repetition
frequency of about 56MHz (see Figure 3.9). Due to the relatively low repe-
tition frequency, the critical intracavity pulse energy stability condition (see
Chapter 2, 2.1.2) was fullled at relatively low pump power. The output
power versus pump current characteristic of the master oscillator is shown
in Figure 3.10.
The stable cw Mode-Locking pump current threshold is approximatively
750mA: at this current level, each of the two output beams carries out
25mW average power.
The optical spectrum of the cw mode-locking is reported in Figure 3.11,
we measures a full width half maximum 0.3nm and a central wave-
length
0
= 1064.3nm.
1063.6 1064.1 1064.6 1065.1
0.0
0.4
0.8
1.2
Wavelength (nm)
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

(
a
.

u
.
)
=0.3 nm
Figure 3.11: Optical spectrum of the cw mode-locking
In Figure 3.12 the second harmonic non-collinear sech
2
shaped autocor-
relation trace of the pulses is shown. The pulse duration obtained is about
6.7ps. The time-bandwidth product 0.52 is far from the Fourier
transform limit, but this behaviour is typical for the resonator layout[14].
Figure 3.12: SHG non collinear sech
2
shaped autocorrelation trace
PULSE PICKER
FOCUSING LENS
MONITOR PHOTODIODE
COLLIMATING LENS
BEAM STOPPER
Figure 3.13: Frequency down-scaling stage
3.2.3 The pulse picking stage
The system frequency down-scaling is realized employing an Acousto-Optical
modulator (A-A Opto-Electronic MT200) as single pulse picker. The char-
acteristics of the device and its driver are reported in Table 3.1.
Parameter Specication
Carrier Drive Frequency f
0
200MHz
Aperture (vert. hor.) 0.22 mm
2
Polarization IN/OUT Linear perp.
Max. Power Density 5W/mm
2
Laser frequency shift 200MHz
Static extinction ratio 2000:1
Rise time 160ns/mm
Rise time (min) 10ns (diam 64m)
Refraction index 2.2
AO wave velocity 4200m/s
Optical transmission 98%
1st order ecency 75%
RF Power 2.2W
Table 3.1: Constructor specication for the Acousto-Optical Modulator
As represented in Figure 3.13, one of the two laser beams arriving from
the Master Oscillator stage is the signal input for the Monitor Photodiode
(MP), while the other passes through the acousto-optical modulator.
As previously described, the monitor photodiode signal, opportunely am-
plied, provides a clock signal for a custom electronic controller based on a
microprocessor. The controller synchronizes the pulse picker deection win-
dow with the amplication stage, in order to create the population inversion
inside the amplier slabs with the correct timing with respect to the seeded
single pulse. A focusing lens resize the input beam inside the acousto-optical
modulator in order to minimize the deection rise-time, while a second lens,
opportunely placed after the modulator, collimates to the right dimension
the emerging laser beam.
Since the time spacing between two adjacent pulses is xed by the repe-
tition rate of the master oscillator to 18ns, we operated close to the best
performances of the pulse picker in terms of rise and fall time. In other
words only an accurate alignment and a proper choice of the beam diameter
inside the device, make possible to select a single pulse inside the deection
window. Also the deection ecency was reduced by the single pulse se-
lection constrain. In our best conditions we estimated 65% pulse-picking
ecency after the AOM.
40 30 20 10 0 10 20 30 40
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
delay (ns)
A
m
p
l
i
t
u
d
e

(
a
.
u
.
)
Figure 3.14: Single pulse selection
An amplitude ratio between the selected and the adjacent pulses of about
20:1 was the best result we achieved. The behaviour of the system is clearly
explained by Figure 3.14.
The relatively low extinction of the adjacent pulses was not an issue in
our case since nonlinear frequency conversion required in subsequent stages
improves drastically this parameter. However, if single pulses with higher
contrast were required at 1064nm, a faster pulse picker, or two acousto-
optic pulse pickers in series, or an oscillator running at a lower repetition
rate could have been employed. We chose to use an acousto-optic pulse
picker since its driving electronics is easier to develop and customize than
that for electro-optic devices, which require fast switching of high voltages,
generating electromagnetic noise that is more dicult to suppress. Fur-
thermore, acousto-optic pulse pickers are cheaper and more exible allowing
operation from single-shot to hundreds of kHz repetition rate. We tested the
laser system with pulse repetition rate up to 100Hz, but in principle there is
no limitation in frequency selection, and even user-dened sequences pulses
could be generated.
3.2.4 Amplication stage
The amplication stage setup is represented in Figure 3.15.
HWP
QCW DIODES
MICROLENSES
COLLIMATION
SEED
BEAM
AMPLIFIED
Nd:YVO slabs
4
Figure 3.15: Amplication stage setup: a couple of Quasi Continuous-Wave
(QCW) 150W peak power laser diodes pump two slabs of Nd:YVO
4
;
a collimation lens and Half Wave Plate (HWP) provides the right
polarization and pump spot dimension on the amplier crystal face
The amplication stage is based on a couple of 4212mm
3
Nd:YVO
4
slabs, 1% doped, 5
wedge, in a grazing-incidence conguration. Each slab

was pumped by a 150W peak power quasi-cw laser diode array with emitting
size 10mm1m, tuned at 808nm and collimated by a microlens. The input
and output faces were antireection-coated at 1064nm, while the pump side
was left uncoated. Half-wave plates were used to align the polarization of
the pump diode arrays with the Nd:YVO
4
c-axis (perpendicular to the plane
of Figure 3.15). The slabs were placed few millimeters apart for maximum
compactness, furthermore the pump diodes could be connected in series with
minimum parasitic inductance, and driven by a single power supply unit.
The beam diameter of the injected seed pulse was 1mm (full width
at 1/e
2
), slightly larger than the 0.8-mm thin gain sheet provided by the
microlens-collimated diode arrays. The seed polarization was also parallel
to the crystal c-axis, for maximum gain.
The output energy versus input current caracteristic of the Quasi-cw
pump diodes is reported in Figure 3.16.
0 40 80 120
0
5
10
15
20
I
al
(A)
E
p
u
m
p

(
m
J
)
Diode 1
Diode 2
Figure 3.16: Output energy versus input current caracteristic for the QCW 150W
peak power diodes
The two diodes show a similar slope eciency but dierent thresholds,
hence the output energy at the same input current level was dierent. In par-
ticular the rst amplication module was more ecient. A Peltier Thermo-
Electroc-Cooler (TEC) module provided the correct temperature set point
to the system in order to match the spectral emission of the QCW diodes
with the absorption peak of the active media.
The typical pump current pulse is reported in Figure 3.17. It is a squared
current pulse of maximum amplitude 135A and width
pump
120s.
The pump pulse duration was selected in order to maximize the amplier
gain, since no particular thermal load constrain was experienced at our low
repetition rate.
Figure 3.17: Typical 120s-long pump pulse, a conversion factor of 20A/V gives
a pump current amplitude of 135A
Guidelines for a numerical modeling of the amplier behaviour are re-
ported in Appendix A.
Amplication results
Small-signal single-pass gain as high as 1.310
5
was measured at the maxi-
mum pump level, with a maximum output energy of about 10J per pulse
(saturated gain 10
5
), still with 1-mm beam diameter. Both the pulse
duration and the smooth TEM
00
beam prole of the seed pulse were well
preserved (M
2
1.2). Owing to the extremely high single-pass gain, the
amplier setup was prone to self-lasing with the slightest scattering along
the beam path, therefore two diaphragms had to be placed before and after
the amplier in order to avoid such shortcomings. These are not especially
dangerous, but subtract gain (and energy) to the amplifying process. An
optical isolator was not required to shield the oscillator.
The duration of the amplied pulses was measured. In Figure 3.18 the
background free, non collinear SHG autocorrelation trace of the pulses is
reported.
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30
0.0
0.5
1.0
t (ps)
S
H
G

A
u
t
o
c
o
r
r
.

S
i
g
n
a
l

(
a
.
u
.
)
8.2 ps
Figure 3.18: Background free, non collinear SHG autocorrelation trace of the
amplied pulses
1063.6 1064.0 1064.4 1064.8
0.0
0.4
0.8
Wavelength (nm)
A
.
U
.
Amplified Pulse
MO Pulse
0.3 nm
0.2 nm
Figure 3.19: Comparison between the seed and an amplied pulse train optical
spectrum; slight narrowing and central wavelength shift for the am-
plied pulses can be appreciated
A duration
p
8.2ps was obtained from the 6.7ps seed pulses. Also
the optical spectrum of the pulses was measured after the amplication
stage. In order to show more clearly the spectral narrowing and the central
peak wavelength slight shift, in Figure 3.19 we plot on the same scale the
spectrum already reported in Figure 3.11, relative to the seed pulses, and
the amplied pulses optical spectrum.
Even if the pulse duration after amplication was increased, nevertheless
the relatively great spectral narrowing contributed to reduce signicantly the
time-bandwidth product for the amplied pulses to a value 0.43.
3.2.5 The Second Harmonic Generation stage
The Second Harmonic Generation stage relies on a 15mm long AntiReec-
tion coated LBO crystal cut for Type-I critical phase matching at 1064nm.
In Figure 3.20 an example of the beam direction and the polarization
directions for phase-matched second-harmonic generation in LBO based on
the Type-I scheme with polarizations ordinary-ordinary-extraordinary in the
XY plane is shown.
Y
Z
X
LBO
2
k
,2
Figure 3.20: Critical phase matching of SHG in LBO. The polarization directions
of fundamental () and second-harmonic generated wave (2) are
perpendicular to the beam direction, and to each other, the crystal
is cut with the angle for phase-matching at 1064nm
In critical phase matching (also called angle phase matching) the inter-
acting beams are aligned at some angle(s) to the axes of the index ellipsoid.
In almost all cases, there are one or two waves polarized along one axis of
the index ellipsoid ( ordinary beam), while another one or two waves are
polarized at some variable angle with the plane spanned by the other two
axes ( extraordinary beam). Adjustment of the propagation angle allows
to modify the refractive index of the extraordinary beam (called extraordi-
nary refractive index), while the ordinary index stays constant. For some
angular position, phase matching may be achieved.
The phase matching condition for the wave vectors of fundamental and
SH eld implies a condition for the refractive ordinary and extraordinary
indexes at the frequency and 2. For collinear phase matching, in which
the beams at and 2 are parallel:
2k
= k
2
n
(o)
= n
(e)
2
Due to dispersion, usually n
(o)
= n
(e)
2
, however phase matching condition
can be achieved opportunely choosing the angle (Figure 3.20) in a way
that:
1
n
2
2
()
=
sin
2
()
n
2
x,2
+
cos
2
()
n
2
y,2
1
n
2
z,
where n
x,y,z
() are given by the Sellmeier equations[15].
In our case beam propagates within the XY plane, the fundamental eld
polarization is ordinary (o, here in Z direction) and the second-harmonic
polarization is extraordinary (e, with an angle to the X axis). This is
Type-I phase matching in which the two fundamental photons have the
same polarization, perpendicular to that of the double frequency generated
one.
Referring to Figure 3.21 we can obtain the required parameter for the
crystal cut. For a pump wavelength of 1064nm the phase-matching angle
would be 9.5
. In order to make the system non-sensitive to room tem-

perature variations, the LBO crystal was mounted in a thermally controlled
copper holder and warm up to 35
C during laser operations.

Figure 3.21: Phase-matching angle for critical phase matching of frequency dou-
bling in LBO at room temperature, conguration Ordinary - Ordi-
nary - Extraordinary in the XY plane
Experimental results
The SHG stage scheme with the fundamental, undepleted fundamental and
second harmonic beam polarization, is shown in Figure 3.22. Since the huge
small signal gain allows self lasing in the amplication stage, a scattered
light stopper pinhole was placed next to the LBO crystal. An harmonic
separator mirror divides the undepleted fundamental beam from the 532nm
output.
The excellent second harmonic beam prole is shown in Figure 3.23.
A conversion ecency of 55%, corresponding to a maximum energy of
5.5J per pulse at 532nm, was obtained without the need to focus the fun-
damental beam inside the second harmonic generation crystal. Moreover the
non-linear process contributed to further increase the ratio between the am-
plied selected pulses and the adjacent not completely extinguished pulses
shown in Figure 3.14.
The oscilloscope traces of both the amplied infrared pulse and its sec-
ond harmonic are shown in Figure 3.24. Subnanosecond InGaAs and silicon
N
O
N

D
E
P
L
E
T
E
D

I
R
BEAM STOPPER
AMPLIFIED FUNDAMENTAL BEAM
GREEN OUTPUT
HARMONICS
SEPARATOR
LBO
SCATTERING STOPPER
DIAPHRAGM
SHG FIELD POL.
FUND. FIELD POL.
Figure 3.22: SHG stage setup
Figure 3.23: A picture of the second harmonic beam
photodiodes were used for these measurements, along with a 1-GHz oscillo-
scope (Tektronix TDS5104B). It is worth noting that notwithstanding the
weakly saturated amplication process, relatively stable pulses with ampli-
tude uctuations as small as 2% (one-sigma) were recorded.
3.2.6 The Optical Parametric Generation (OPG) stage
The nal system stage is represented by an Optical Parametric Generation
stage, necessary to provide the few picosecond pulses with a wavelength
near 800nm needed for the photoconductivity measurements. To this end,
Figure 3.24: Oscilloscope traces of the undepleted fundamental and second har-
monic pulses, normalized so that the ratio of the peaks corresponds
to the observed conversion eciency. In case of 2 pulse, also the
adjacent small pulses are strongly depressed by the non-linear process
a traveling-wave OPG was set up using a 15mm long and uncoated KTP
crystal cut for Type-II phase-matching in the XZ plane. In this scheme,
reported in Figure 3.25, an ordinarily polarized pump photon is splitted
into an ordinary idler photon and an extraordinary signal photon, with the
following constrain about the energy:
o
p
e
s
+o
i
;
1
p
=
1
s
+
1
i
A parametric generator is an optical parametric amplier with quite
high gain (many tens of dB), so that a signicant output power is gener-
ated even without any input signal. The physical origin of this emission is
parametric uorescence, amplied to high levels. This phenomenon is sim-
ilar to amplied spontaneous emission (ASE) in a laser amplier; in both
cases, quantum uctuations of the vacuum (the so called vacuum noise) are
amplied to macroscopic power levels.
Compared with an Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO), the setup of
a parametric generator is simpler, because it does not need a cavity. One
may simply tune the wavelengths of signal and idler by inuencing the phase-
X
Y
Z
s
p,i
KTP
k
p,s,i
Figure 3.25: Type-II phase matching in the XZ plane for KTP crystal. The
polarization directions of pump (p), signal (s) and idler (i) are also
reported
matching conditions, which corresponds in our critical Type-II phase match-
ing scheme in an angular rotation of the KTP crystal in the vertical plane.
Of course OPO can have a much lower threshold pump power and the re-
Figure 3.26: Signal (blue) and idler (green) wavelength as a function of crystal
tilting angle in the vertical plane
quired high intensities in OPG setups sometimes force one to operate not
that far below the optical damage threshold of the nonlinear material, as
it was in our case. The theoretical idler and signal accordability range is
shown in Figure 3.26
A side view of the nal stage setup is represented in Figure 3.27.
TUNABLE OUTPUT BEAM
KTP CRYSTAL
PUMP BEAM 532nm
FOCUSING LENS
f = 100mm
UNDEPLETED GREEN PUMP
Figure 3.27: Side view of the Optical Paramatric Generation setup
Parametric superuorescence was readily observed by pumping with
5.5J energy, 532nm pulses and using a 100mm focal lens. The spot radius
was calculated to be w
0
40m, and the peak intensity 25 GW/cm
2
, rea-
sonably below to the threshold of surface optical damage at 8ps pulsewidth
for the uncoated crystal (35 GW/cm
2
using an inverse-square law scaling
rule from the specied threshold of 1 GW/cm
2
at 10ns[16]).
With this setup the OPG was pumped at about twice its threshold level
at 790nm, and was readily tunable in the range 770nm 1020nm (signal
wavelength
s
, see Figure 3.28) and 1110nm 1720nm (idler wavelength
i
).
The signal bandwidth was 1nm, close to the resolution of the monochro-
mator used for OPG characterization (Ocean Optics USB2000), and the
conversion eciency was of few percents. The OPG tuning range was
actually limited by mechanical constraints, and might be readily extended
down to 650nm, where the idler absorption starts limiting the conversion
process.
The pump intensity threshold condition for the OPG can be written
as[17]:
I
2,th
= 4.6
0
cn
3
i
d
2
eff
L
2
eff
(3.1)
Figure 3.28: Spectra of the OPG pulses, obtained at several tuning angles
where:
0
is the vacuum permittivity;
c is the speed of light;
n = 1.8 is the average refractive index;
d
eff
= 3.2 pm/V is the nonlinear coecient.
In eq. (3.1) the spatial walk-o angle (see Appendix B, B.2) 2.7
and the gaussian beam diraction (confocal parameter b = 2nw

2
0
/
2
) are
included as in [18] for SHG, dening a squared eective interaction length:
L
2
eff
= L
2
b
L
tan
1
_
L
b
_
tanh
_
L
a
L
_
(3.2)
The experimental results are reasonably reproduced by this model if
one denes a walk-o length L
a
= 2
w
0
/ in eq. (3.2), twice the value
assumed heuristically for second-harmonic generation in [18]. Since the opti-
cal parametric generator operated at only two times above pump threshold,
it was not as stable as the pump pulse, but exhibited 30% amplitude
uctuations.
A picture of the whole laser system is shown in Figure 3.29. The footprint
of the laser box is 45cm60cm.
LEGEND
1 1W CW Diode Pump
2 CW-ML Laser cavity
3 Monitor output (to monitor PhotoDiode)
4 Acousto-optical Pulse Picker
5 Non deected beam stopper
6 QCW Amplication stage
7 SHG generation stage (LBO crystal)
8 Harmonic separator
9 OPG stage (KTP crystal)
10 532nm and 800nm output beams
Table 3.2: Legend of Figure 3.29
Figure 3.29: System setup, see Table 3.2 for legend
Bibliography
[1] P. Heinz, A. Seilmer, A. Piskarskas, Picosecond Nd:YLF laser-
multipass amplier source pumped by pulsed diodes for the operation of
powerful OPOs, Opt. Commun. 136, 433-436 (1997)
[2] M. Siebold, M. Hornung, J. Hein, G. Paunescu, R. Sauer-
brey, T. Bergmann, G. Hollemann, A highaverage power diode-
pumped Nd:YVO
4
regenerative laser amplier for picosecond-pulses,
Appl. Phys. B 78, 287-290 (2004)
[3] J. Kleinbauer, R. Knappe, R. Wallenstein, 13-W picosecond
Nd:GdVO
4
regenerative amplier with 200-kHz repetition rate, Appl.
Phys. B 81, 163-166 (2005)
[4] A. Killi, J. Dorring, U. Morgner, M. J. Lederer, J. Frei, D.
Kopf, High speed electro-optical cavity dumping of mode-locked laser
oscillators, Opt. Express 13, 1916-1922 (2005)
[5] X. Liu, D. Du, G. Mourou, Laser ablation and micromachining
with ultrashort laser pulses, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-33,
17061716 (1997)
[6] R. Osellame, S. Taccheo, M. Marangoni, R. Ramponi, P. La-
porta, D. Polli, S. De Silvestri, G. Cerullo, Femtosecond writing
of active optical waveguides with astigmatically shaped beams, J. Opt.
Soc. Am. B 20, 15591567 (2003)
[7] G. Cerullo, S. De Silvestri, Ultrafast optical parametric ampliers,
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 74, 118 (2002)
84 Bibliography
[8] G. N. Gibson, R. Klank, F. Gibson, B. E. Bouma, Electro-
optically cavity-dumped ultrashort-pulse Ti:sapphire oscillator, Opt.
Lett. 21, 10551057 (1996)
[9] J. E. Bernard, A. J. Alcock, High-eciency diode-pumped Nd:YVO
4
slab laser, Opt. Lett. 18, 968-970 (1993)
[10] M. J. Damzen, M. Trew, E. Rosas, G. J. Crofts, Continuous-
wave Nd:YVO
4
grazing-incidence laser with 22.5W output power and
64% conversion ecency, Opt. Comm. 196, 237-241 (2001)
[11] G. Smith, M. J. Damzen, Spatially-selective amplied spontaneous
emission source derived from an ultra-high gain solid-state amplier,
Opt. Express 14, 3318-3323 (2006)
[12] A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, G. Reali, A. Tomaselli,
D. Scarpa, C. Vacchi, Amplication of a Low-Power Picosecond
Nd:YVO
4
Laser by a Diode-Laser Side-Pumped Grazing-Incidence Slab
Amplier, IEEE J. Quantum Electron., 42, pp. 772-776 (2006)
[13] A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, D. Scarpa, A. Tomaselli, G.
Reali, C. Vacchi, C. Braggio, High-gain diode-pumped amplier for
generation of microjoule-level picosecond pulses, Opt. Exp. 14, 9244-
9249 (2006)
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86 Bibliography
Appendix A
Guidelines for a model of a
grazing incidence single-pass
QCW amplier
In order to better understand the behavior of the grazing-incidence amplier,
we introduce a simplied model based on standard QCW amplier theory.
A.1 Grazing incidence single pass amplier
Lets start from the rate equation for the amplier during pumping:
dn
dt
= W
p
f
(A.1)
with:
W
p
=

p
p
wL
P
inc
(0)e
px
p
(A.2)
where in eq. (A.1) and (A.2) we introduced the following quantities:
n is as usual the population inversion;
f
is the uorescence life-time of the amplifying material (sec);
W
p
is the pump rate;
87
88 Guidelines for a model of a grazing incidence single-pass QCW amplier
p
is the active medium pump absorption coecient at the pumping
wavelength (cm
1
);
x is the pump propagation direction in a side-pumping scheme;
w and L are respectively the height of the pumped region and the
crystal length;
p
,
l
and
p
have the usual meaning.
Assuming a pump pulse duration
p
, in order to nd the population inversion
as a function of
p
we have to integrate eq. (A.1):
_
n
i
0
dn
n W
p
f
=
_
p
0
dt
f
=
f
(A.3)
from which we obtain:
ln
_
n
i
W
p
f
W
p
f
_
=
f
= n
i
= W
p
f
_
1 e
p/
f
_
(A.4)
which reduces to the steady state solution wit CW pumping for
p
.
Lets introduce now the geometry of our system and the new working
coordinates. The side-pumped slab is represented in Figure A.1. The crystal
length is L, the internal bounce angle is and it is assumed to be small, al-
lowing all the usual trigonometrical approximations. The pump propagation
direction is x, while the amplied beam propagation direction is given by
s. A local coordinate in the transverse direction of the propagating beam
is dened. Coordinates x can be given in function of s and xi according to
this transformation:
x(s, ) =
L
2
+ +s
The output uence after a single pass amplication is given by[1][2]:
F
o
= F
s
ln
_
1 +e
g
0
_
e
F
i
/Fs
1
__
(A.5)
where F
s
=

l
is the saturation uence for the active medium and g
0
is
the small signal gain.
A.1 Grazing incidence single pass amplier 89
x
y
s
L/2
0
L/2
e
p|x|
Figure A.1: Geometry denitions for the side-pumped grazing incidence slab am-
plier medium
Considering the situation represented in Figure A.1, we can evaluate the
gain experienced by the laser beam during its bouncing propagation inside
the active medium:
g
0
=
_
L
0
ndz = W
p
f
_
1 e
p/
f
_
(A.6)
in which is the active material emission cross section an is the path gain
integral, dened as follows:
=
_
L
0
e
p|x|
ds (A.7)
Using the expression of x(s, ) and integrating along the beam path, we
obtain:
=
2
_
1 e
pL/2
cosh(
p
)
_
(A.8)
For an easier understanding of the physical behaviour of the system we can
make some approximations and imagine a at-top prole for the seed laser
beam entering the amplier. This assumption leads to a new expression for
, averaged along the direction. Introducing the at-top input beam waist
w
i
, we have:
< >
w
i
=
1
2(w
i
/2)
2
_
w
i
/2
0
()d =
=
2
_
1 e
pL/2
2
w
i
_
w
i
/2
0
cosh(
p
)d
_
=
=
2
_
1 e
pL/2
2
w
i
p
sinh
_
p
w
i
2
_
_
(A.9)
This leads to the nal approximated expression for the small signal gain:
< g
0
>
w
i
< W
p
>
f
_
1 e
p/
f
_
=
=

p
l
E
inc
wLF
s
p
_
1 e
p/
f
_
. .
T
2
_
1 e
pL/2
2
w
i
p
sinh
_
p
w
i
2
_
_
(A.10)
where:
E
inc
is the pump energy entering in the active medium;
F
s
=

l
is the saturation uence of the active medium;
T
depends on the ratio between pump pulse duration and uorescence
time and measures the fraction of deposed pump energy available for
extraction;
w, L and represent respectively the height of the pumped region, the
crystal length and the internal bounce angle;
p
is the absorption coecient at the pump wavelength;
w
i
is the at-top shaped input beam waist.
A.2 1st order consideration while designing a sin-
gle pass amplier
In high gain amplication modules the rst constrain to consider for e-
cient operation is the limit set by Amplied Spontaneous Emission (ASE)
A.2 1st order consideration while designing a single pass amplier 91
to single-pass small signal gain g
0
. The ASE rising, roughly speaking, xes
a limit to the maximum achievable gain. When amplied laser beam uence
becomes comparable to ASE, any further increasing in single-pass small sig-
nal gain means to transfer energy not to the seed beam, but to the ASE
itself.
In order to have a more quantitative idea of the situation, we can refer to
Figure A.2, in which ASE uence normalized with respect to active medium
saturation uence is given as a function of single pass small signal gain[3].
Figure A.2: Fluence of ASE Fin normalized with respect to the saturation u-
ence Fsat as a function of the single pass small signal gain g0 for
an emission solid angle = 4 10
4
sterad. Dashed curve is ob-
tained with the approximation Fin Fsat, dotted line refers to the
approximation of Fin Fsat
Considering a non-saturated amplier in which the amplied beam u-
ence is few percent of the saturation uence, the small signal single pass
gain should fall in the range 5 10 in order to avoid that ASE becomes
predominant. If we use the g
0
expression given by (A.10) with the physical
parameters summarized in Table A.1 (that applies to our working condition)
we obtain a rough value g
0
9.
Experimental working conditions
p
808nm
l
1064nm
w 1mm L 12mm
E
inc
18mJ F
sat
0.15J/cm
2
f
90s
p
120s
p
25cm
1
w
i
400m
4
Table A.1: Physical parameters in our working condition (active medium

Nd:YVO
4
) for a 1st order estimation of g
0
Appendix B
Critical parameters for
ecient harmonic and
parametric generation
B.1 Second harmonic ecient generation in LBO
Second harmonic generation eciency can be dened in terms of energy as
follows[1]:
=
E
2
E
= tanh
2
_
_
8
2
Z
0
d
2
eff
n
3
l
2
I
sinc
_
kl
2
_
_
_
(B.1)
where:
Z
0
=377 is the vacuum impedance;
d
eff
is the eective non-linear coecient of the material;
l is the crystal length;
I
is the intensity (W/cm

2
) of the fundamental beam;
k is the phase mismatch.
93
94 Critical parameters for ecient harmonic and parametric generation
In order to optimize the design of the SHG stage some critical parameters
have to be taken into account:
Spatial walk-o :
- the direction of the power ow, given by the Poynting vector, is
in general dierent for the E
2
eld with respect to the E
eld. The
walk-o angle is dened as follows:
= | tan
1
_
n
2
2,y
n
2
2,x
tan
_
|
where is the phase-matching angle.
The walk-o angle as function of the fundamental eld wavelength is
reported in Figure B.1.
Figure B.1: Walk-o angle as a function of wavelength in LBO
Temporal walk-o :
- it is a consequence of group velocity dispersion (GVD); temporal
walk-o per unit length of the crystal is dened as follows:
t
woff
= |
1
v
g,2
1
v
g,
|
B.1 Second harmonic ecient generation in LBO 95
Figure B.2: Group Velocity Dispersion in LBO as a function of pump wavelength
Figure B.2 shows the behaviour of LBO crystal around 1.064m fun-
damental eld wavelength.
Angular acceptance :
- it is a measure of how accurately the crystal has to be oriented in
order to achieve the maximum conversion ecency. Since the conver-
sion ecency is proportional to sinc
2
_
kl
2
_
(see Eq. (B.1)), the an-
gular acceptance is set to the value that makes sinc
2
_
kl
2
_
=
1
2
:
p.m.
+ =
kl
2
= 0.443 (B.2)
Furthermore, since the transversely limited wavefronts of width 2w
have a diraction angle =
2
w
, this should be smaller than the
crystal angular acceptance.
Figure B.3 shows the behaviour of LBO around 1.064m.
Temperature acceptance :
Figure B.3: Angular acceptance in LBO around 1.064m
Figure B.4: Temperature acceptance in LBO around 1.064m
- it is a measure of how accurately the crystal has to be thermally
controlled in order to achieve the maximum conversion ecency. Ac-
B.2 Optical parametric generation in KTP 97
cording to the denition of angular acceptance, we have:
T
p.m.
+ T =
kl
2
= 0.443
In Figure B.4 the temperature acceptance around the fundamental
1.064m wavelength is reported.
In Table B.1 the values of all of these parameters in our working condition
are summarized.
SHG critical parameters
Spatial walk-o 0.33
Temporal walk-o t
woff
0.67ps
Angular acceptance 3.3mrad
Temperature acceptance T 3.7
C
Table B.1: Working Conditions: Crystal length l = 1.5cm,
= 1.064m
B.2 Optical parametric generation in KTP
As previously discussed for LBO, also for KTP crystal, critical parameters
for ecient non-linear conversion are walk-o angle, Group Velocity Dis-
persion (GVD) and angular acceptance.
Spatial walk-o :
- as we already said for second harmonic generation, it measures
the angle between the Poynting vector of the pump beam and of the
signal generated beam.
In Figure B.5 the walk-o angle for the signal beam in the range from
0.6 to 1m wavelength is reported.
As reported in 3.2.6, in our working conditions the spatial walk-o
angle 2.7
. In addiction to walk-o length, also Rayleigh range

(dened as
w
2
0
p
9mm in our working conditions) of focused pump
Figure B.5: Walk-o angle for signal in KTP as a function of wavelength
beam should be taken into account while designing the OPG stage,
since it xes the maximum non-linear interaction lenght.
Group Velocity Dispersion:
- gives the temporal delay, measured in picosecond, that pump,
idler and signal accumulate while propagating in a unity length of
non-linear crystal.
In Figure B.6 the behaviour of KTP crystal is shown.
Angular acceptance:
- it measures how accurately the crystal has to be oriented in order
to achieve the maximum conversion eciency at the desired signal and
idler wavelength. Its denition is given in eq. (B.2) and the behaviour
of KTP is shown in Figure B.7.
Once again, since the transversely limited wavefronts of width 2w have
a diraction angle =
2
w
, this should be smaller than the crystal
angular acceptance.
B.2 Optical parametric generation in KTP 99
Another parameter that should be considered is the spectral bandwidth of
both signal and idler generated beams. In Figure B.8 the behaviour of
Figure B.6: GVD in KTP for signal with respect to pump (blue curve) and to
idler (green curve) for a signal wavelength ranging from 0.6 to 1m
Figure B.7: Angular acceptance in KTP with respect to signal wavelength in the
range 0.6-1m
KTP over the entire generable bandwidth with 532nm pump wavelength is
reported.
Figure B.8: Signal (blue curve) and idler (green curve) spectral bandwidth ver-
sus wavelength in KTP. The signal bandwidth in the range 0.6-1m
is lower than the 1nm maximum resolution of the Ocean Optics
USB2000 spectrometer employed the OPG characterization reported
in Figure 3.28, as expected by the measurements results
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102
Issues and workshops
Issues
1. A. Agnesi, F. Pirzio, A. Tomaselli, G. Reali, C. Braggio, Multi-GHz
tunable-repetition-rate mode-locked Nd:GdVO
4
laser, Optics Express,
Vol. 13, pp. 5302-5307, (2005)
Abstract: We report on a simple design for a multi-GHz tun-
able repetition-rate diode-pumped picosecond laser. Using a plano-
Brewster Nd:GdVO
4
crystal in a V-folded cavity employing only read-
ily available commercial components, we achieved passive mode-locking
with 4.4-ps pulses tunable in the range 2.5-2.7 GHz. This laser is meant
to be employed in the MIR experiment that aims at the detection of
the Schwinger radiation (dynamical Casimir eect)
2. A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, G. Reali, A. Tomaselli, D. Scarpa, C.
Vacchi, Amplication of a Low-Power Picosecond Nd:YVO
4
Laser by
a Diode-Laser Side-Pumped Grazing-Incidence Slab Amplier, IEEE
Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 42, pp. 772-776, (2006)
Abstract: An optimized diode-laser side-pumped grazing inci-
dence Nd:YVO
4
amplier was used to increase the power of a 50-mW
150-MHz continuous-wave (CW)-pumped mode-locked oscillator up to
6.1 W in single pass, with 22% optical-to-optical eciency, or up to
8.4W in double pass, with 30% eciency. Both beam quality (M
2
1.4
from TEM
00
seed pulses) and pulse duration (7.5 ps from 6.9 ps) were
preserved. Single- or double pass small-signal gain greater than 40 dB
104 Issues and workshops
was achieved. These experimental results have been corroborated by
a numerical model analysis of the amplier.
3. A. Agnesi, F. Pirzio, G. Reali, G. Piccinno, Sub-nanosecond diode-
pumped passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO
4
laser with peak power 1MW,
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 89, pp. 101120-1 101120-3 (2006)
Abstract: The authors report on a passively Q-switched diode
pumped Nd:GdVO
4
miniature laser generating 0.5mJ pulses at 1063nm,
with 420ps time duration and 1.2MW peak power, at a repetition rate
up to 200Hz and with a nearly diraction limited beam quality M
2
1.1.
4. A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, D. Scarpa, A. Tomaselli, G. Reali, C.
Vacchi, High gain diode pumped amplier for generation of microjoule-
level picosecond pulses, Optics Express, Vol. 14, pp. 9244-9249
(2006)
Abstract: A diode-pumped single-pass amplier system relying
on two grazing-incidence Nd:YVO
4
slabs was developed to increase
the energy of low-repetition-rate pulses from a decimated low-power
cw mode-locked oscillator. Single-pass unsaturated gain up to 1.310
5
was achieved, and amplied pulses of 10-J energy and 8.0-ps duration
were obtained. Ecient second harmonic generation (SHG) at 532nm
was achieved, as well as traveling-wave parametric conversion in the
range 770-1020nm (signal) and 1110-1720nm (idler).
Workshops
1. A. Agnesi, F. Pirzio, A. Tomaselli, F. Bongli, T. Marolo, Thermal
lens characterization of a side-pumped Nd:YVO
4
laser
XV International Symposium on Gas Flow, Chemical Lasers,
and High-Power Lasers - Prague (CZ) - Poster Session Septem-
ber 2004.
2. A. Agnesi, A. Guandalini, A. Lucca, F. Pirzio, A. Tomaselli, G. Reali,
E. Sani, A. Toncelli, M. Tonelli, Passive stabilization technique applied
Issues and workshops 105
to continuous-wave picosecond mode-locked Yb:YAG and Nd:BaY
2
F
8
lasers
CLEO - Baltimore (US) - Oral Session, May 2005
3. A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, G. Reali, D. Scarpa, A. Tomaselli,
C. Vacchi, Amplication of a low power picosecond Nd:YVO
4
laser to
multiwatt level with a side pumped grazing incidence slab
EUROPHOTON CONFERENCE - Pisa (IT) - Poster Ses-
sion, September 2006
4. A. Agnesi, L. Carrà, F. Pirzio, G. Reali, D. Scarpa, A. Tomaselli,
C. Vacchi, C. Braggio, Novel amplication scheme for generation of
microjoule-level picosecond pulses
EUROPHOTON CONFERENCE - Pisa (IT) - Oral Session,
September 2006

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UNIVERSIT

A DEGLI STUDI DI PAVIA

have the usual meaning.

, in order to allow maximum overlap of the tangential and sagittal

Figure 2.16: Cavity setup with LBO placed near SAM

wedge, in a grazing-incidence conguration. Each slab

. In order to make the system non-sensitive to room tem-

C during laser operations.

and the gaussian beam diraction (confocal parameter b = 2nw

Table A.1: Physical parameters in our working condition (active medium

is the intensity (W/cm

. In addiction to walk-o length, also Rayleigh range

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