Numerical investigation of the effect of the temporal pulse shape on modification of fused silica by femtosecond pulses

We report the results of numerical studies of the impact of asymmetric femtosecond pulses focused in the bulk of the material on the femtosecond modification of fused silica. It is shown that such pulses lead to localisation of absorption in the process of femtosecond modification and to a decrease in the threshold energy of modification. It is found that the optimal asymmetry parameters for reaching the maximum plasma density in the focusing region depend on the pulse energy: at an initial energy of about 100 nJ, it is preferable to use pulses with positive TOD; however, when the energy is increased, it is preferable to use pulses with negative TOD. This is explained by differences in the dynamics of the processes of absorption of energy of a pulse propagating in the material.

Numerical Investigation on Laser Transformation Hardening with Different Temporal Pulse Shapes

A 3-D numerical model for pulsed laser transformation hardening (LTH) is developed using the finite element method. In this model, laser spatial and temporal intensity distribution, temperature-dependent thermophysical properties of material, and multi-phase transformations are considered. The influence of laser temporal pulse shape on connectivity of hardened zone, maximum surface temperature of material and hardening depth is numerically investigated at different pulse energy levels. Results indicate that these hardening parameters are strongly dependent on the temporal pulse shape. For the rectangular temporal pulse shape, the temperature field obtained from this model is in excellent agreement with analytical solution, and the predicted hardening depth is favorably compared with experimental one. It should be pointed out that appropriate temporal pulse shape should be selected according to pulse energy level in order to achieve desirable hardening quality under certain laser spatial intensity distribution.

Control of material transport through pulse shape manipulation-a development toward designer pulses

The variety of laser systems available to industrial laser users is growing and the choice of the correct laser for a material target application is often based on an empirical assessment. Industrial master oscillator power amplifier systems with tuneable temporal pulse shapes have now entered the market, providing enormous pulse parameter flexibility in an already crowded parameter space. In this paper, an approach is developed to design interaction parameters based on observations of material responses. Energy and material transport mechanisms are studied using pulsed digital holography, post process analysis techniques and finite-difference modelling to understand the key response mechanisms for a variety of temporal pulse envelopes incident on a silicon (1/1/1) substrate. The temporal envelope is shown to be the primary control parameter of the source term that determines the subsequent material response and the resulting surface morphology. A double peak energy-bridged temporal pulse shape designed through direct application of holographic imaging data is shown to substantially improve surface quality. © 2014 IEEE.

Accurate determination of the absolute phase and temporal-pulse phase of few-cycle laser pulses

A Fourier analysis method is used to accurately determine not only the absolute phase but also the temporal-pulse phase of an isolated few-cycle (chirped) laser pulse. This method is independent of the pulse shape and can fully characterize the light wave even though only a few samples per optical cycle are available. It paves the way for investigating the absolute phase-dependent extreme nonlinear optics, and the evolutions of the absolute phase and the temporal-pulse phase of few-cycle laser pulses.

Pulse shape measurements using single shot-frequency resolved optical gating for high energy (80 J) short pulse (600 fs) laser

Relevant to laser based electron/ion accelerations, a single shot second harmonic generation frequency resolved optical gating (FROG) system has been developed to characterize laser pulses (80 J, ∼600 fs) incident on and transmitted through nanofoil targets, employing relay imaging, spatial filter, and partially coated glass substrates to reduce spatial nonuniformity and B-integral. The device can be completely aligned without using a pulsed laser source. Variations of incident pulse shape were measured from durations of 613 fs (nearly symmetric shape) to 571 fs (asymmetric shape with pre- or postpulse). The FROG measurements are consistent with independent spectral and autocorrelation measurements. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

Influence of Current Pulse Shape on Directly Modulated Systems Performance in Metro Area Optical Networks

Due to the fact that a metro network market is very cost sensitive, direct modulated schemes appear attractive. In this paper a CWDM (Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing) system is studied in detail by means of an Optical Communication System Design Software; a detailed study of the modulated current shape (exponential, sine and gaussian) for 2.5 Gb/s CWDM Metropolitan Area Networks is performed to evaluate its tolerance to linear impairments such as signal-to-noise-ratio degradation and dispersion. Point-to-point links are investigated and optimum design parameters are obtained. Through extensive sets of simulation results, it is shown that some of these shape pulses are more tolerant to dispersion when compared with conventional gaussian shape pulses. In order to achieve a low Bit Error Rate (BER), different types of optical transmitters are considered including strongly adiabatic and transient chirp dominated Directly Modulated Lasers (DMLs). We have used fibers with different dispersion characteristics, showing that the system performance depends, strongly, on the chosen DML?fiber couple.

Pulse-Shape Analysis of PDM-QPSK Modulation Formats for 100 and 200 Gb/s DWDM transmissions

Advanced optical modulation format polarization-division multiplexed quadrature phase shift keying (PDM-QPSK) has become a key ingredient in the design of 100 and 200-Gb/s dense wavelength-division multiplexed (DWDM) networks. The performance of this format varies according to the shape of the pulses employed by the optical carrier: non-return to zero (NRZ), return to zero (RZ) or carrier-suppressed return to zero (CSRZ). In this paper we analyze the tolerance of PDM-QPSK to linear and nonlinear optical impairments: amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise, crosstalk, distortion by optical filtering, chromatic dispersion (CD), polarization mode dispersion (PMD) and fiber Kerr nonlinearities. RZ formats with a low duty cycle value reduce pulse-to-pulse interaction obtaining a higher tolerance to CD, PMD and intrachannel nonlinearities.

飞秒脉冲时空变换整形技术

飞秒激光脉冲通过时空变换技术将时域信息变换到空域，通过空域的处理再返回到时域，是实现飞秒激光脉冲整形、测量和控制的一项重要技术。在应用方面，可产生各种所需要的波形．已广泛应用在飞秒化学、信号处理、安全通信、生物学和医学成像等方面。介绍了飞秒时空变换脉冲整形的几种方法。

高功率钕玻璃激光三倍频脉冲时间波形的研究

基于目前国内规模最大的激光驱动器——“神光Ⅱ”八路基频光已经实现功率平衡运行，通过改变其中若干路三倍频系统各调谐量的偏离，对输出三倍频波形进行束与束之间的横向对比研究．研究发现，对于Ⅱ类-Ⅱ类偏振失配三倍频系统，在影响转换效率的三个调谐量中，偏振分配角失配△θp，对三倍频波形影响最大；在入射基频功率密度约为1．0GW／cm^2情况下，当三倍频系统三个调谐量都处在最佳匹配时，三倍频波形半峰全宽τ最小。研究工作为最终实现“神光Ⅱ”八路光束三倍频功率平衡输出提供了晶体调试的方法。

Role of the plasma scale length in the harmonic generation from solid targets

We have investigated the generation of high harmonics from the interaction of 150 fsec, 790 nm, and 395 nm laser pulses with solid targets. Experiments are presented that demonstrate a strong dependence of the conversion efficiency on the temporal pulse shape and the resulting density scale length (L/lambda) of the preformed plasma. The highest conversion efficiencies are achieved for short density scale lengths (L/lambda less than or equal to 0.4), which result from high contrast ratio pulse interactions. [S1063-651X(98)50211-5].

Measuring temporal fluctuation on femtosecond scale in a random medium

We report an observation of femtosecond optical fluctuations of transmitted light when a coherent femtosecond pulse propagates through a random medium. They are a result of random interference among scattered waves coming from different trajectories in the time domain. Temporal fluctuations are measured by using cross-correlated frequency optical gating. It is shown that a femtosecond pulse will be broadened and distorted in pulse shape while it is propagating in random medium. The real and imaginary components of transmitted electric field are also distorted severely. The average of the fluctuated transmission pulses yields a smooth profile, probability functions show good agreement with Gaussian distribution. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.