pulse compression (original) (raw)
Definition: linear or nonlinear techniques for reducing the durations of optical pulses
Categories: 
light pulses, 
methods
- pulse compression
- adiabatic soliton compression
- dispersive pulse compression
- nonlinear pulse compression
- soliton compression
Related: Nonlinear Pulse Compression in a FiberChirped-pulse Ytterbium-doped Fiber Amplifier SystemParabolic Pulses in a Fiber Amplifierultrashort pulsesspectral phasepulse propagation modelingpulse durationpulse stretchersdispersion compensationnonlinearitiesself-phase modulationadiabatic soliton compressiondispersive mirrors
Opposite term: pulse stretching
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What is Pulse Compression?
There is variety of methods for temporally compressing (shortening) light pulses, i.e., reducing the pulse duration. Typically, such methods start in the picosecond or femtosecond region, i.e. already in the regime of ultrashort pulses. These methods can be grouped into two categories:
In this video, we explain how simulations can make R & D more effective.
- Linear pulse compression: When pulses are chirped, one can reduce their duration by removing (or at least reducing) this chirp, i.e. by flattening the spectral phase. Dechirping can be accomplished by sending the pulses through an optical element with a suitable amount of chromatic dispersion (→ dispersion compensation), such as a pair of diffraction gratings (a grating compressor) [1, 6], a prism pair [7], an optical fiber, a chirped mirror, a chirped fiber Bragg grating or a volume Bragg grating. The smallest possible pulse duration is then set by the optical bandwidth of the pulses, which is not modified by dispersive (linear) compression. In the ideal case, bandwidth-limited pulses are obtained.
- Nonlinear pulse compression: In a first step, the optical bandwidth is increased, typically with a nonlinear interaction such as self-phase modulation. In most cases, this leads to chirped pulses, often with a duration which is even larger than the original pulse duration. Thereafter, the pulse duration can be strongly reduced by linear (dispersive) compression (see above), which removes or at least decreases the chirp.
A special case is compression using a chirped QPM structure [21]. Here, a ($\chi^{(2)}$) nonlinearity is used not for spectral broadening, but rather for frequency-converting a strongly chirped pulse such that the converted pulse is not chirped and thus much shorter.
Methods for Nonlinear Pulse Compression
Nonlinear pulse compression can be done with different configurations of optical elements, and with methods which are based on different physical principles. Some examples are:
Figure 1: Setup for pulse compression with a normally dispersive fiber and a dispersive compressor.
- Originally unchirped pulses can be spectrally broadened by propagation in a normally dispersive optical fiber and then dispersively compressed as discussed above in the context of linear pulse compression [8]. The fibers used for spectral broadening may be standard optical fibers, photonic crystal fibers, hollow-core fibers, or hollow capillary fibers (for extremely intense pulses, see below). It is possible e.g. to start with picosecond pulses from a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser and reach pulse durations far below 1 ps, or to generate few-cycle pulses starting from pulses with e.g. 50 fs duration. Note that the pulse energy can in principle be fully preserved, although substantial parasitic losses are often encountered in practice.
- For high-intensity femtosecond pulses, the spectral broadening can be performed in a gas-filled hollow fiber or capillary [17]. Most of the optical power propagates in the gas, where self-phase modulation occurs. (The regime with ionization of the gas is avoided by staying at sufficiently low intensities.) Subsequent dispersive compression can be done, e.g., with double-chirped mirrors or some other kind of dispersive mirrors. This method is suitable e.g. for compressing 20-fs pulses with millijoule energies down to a few femtoseconds.
- After spectral broadening with a nonlinearity as described above, pulses can also be shorted by sending them through a suitable bandpass filter (and no dispersive element), if the filter bandwidth is well below the pulse bandwidth [44]. That kind of compression is of course associated with a substantial loss of pulse energy.
Figure 2: Setup for pulse compression with a fiber only. The compression mechanism could be higher-order soliton compression or adiabatic soliton compression.
- In higher-order soliton compression [5, 40], a pulse with an energy far above the fundamental soliton energy is injected into a fiber with anomalous dispersion. After a certain propagation distance, a strongly compressed pulse can be obtained, but the choice of propagation distance can be critical. The pulse energy can be roughly one to two orders of magnitude above that of a fundamental soliton.
- In adiabatic soliton compression [10, 12], a soliton pulse is compressed during propagation in a fiber the anomalous dispersion of which becomes weaker and weaker along the propagation direction. Alternatively, the pulse energy can be increased by amplification in a doped fiber with constant dispersion properties. The pulse energy is fairly limited due to the small soliton pulse energies of typical fibers.
- While the pulse is amplified in a rare-earth-doped fiber, its duration and spectral width both increase. A dispersive compressor can subsequently reduce the pulse duration strongly.
Figure 3: Setup for pulse compression with similariton pulse propagation.
- In a fiber amplifier with normal dispersion, self-similar parabolic pulses experience spectral broadening while a high pulse quality is preserved [16]. The parameters of the input signal pulses are fairly uncritical, and high pulse energies are possible. The resulting linear chirp makes it relatively easy to obtain strong temporal compression in a subsequent dispersive optical element.
- Pulse compression can also occur during nonlinear frequency conversion [11, 21, 25, 32]. Under certain circumstances, frequency doublers or optical parametric oscillators can emit pulses which are much shorter than the pump pulses.
- When high-intensity few-cycle femtosecond pulses are injected into a gas jet, high harmonic generation can occur, and under certain circumstances pulse durations of a few hundred attoseconds are achieved [23, 24]. The underlying physical mechanism is completely different to that of other methods of pulse compression.
Which of these methods is most suitable depends on a number of circumstances, including the initial and required pulse duration, the pulse energy, and the demands on pulse quality.
Simulations on Pulse Compression
For designing a pulse compressor, a suitable simulator is essential to have. For example, find out what length of fiber is required for spectral broadening, what is the influence of its dispersion, what compressor dispersion will be required, and how sensitive it is to input pulse parameters. The RP Fiber Power software is an ideal tool for such work.
Nonlinear Pulse Compression in a Fiber
We explore how we can spectrally broaden light pulses by self-phase modulation in a fiber and subsequently compress the pulses using a dispersive element. A substantial reduction in pulse duration by more than an order of magnitude is easily achieved, while the pulse quality is often not ideal.
Pulse compression setups can be analyzed and optimized using pulse propagation modeling.
Figure 4: Simulation widget from 3DOptix, demonstrating a prism compressor. Click on the preview image to load the simulation.
Suppliers
Sponsored content: The RP Photonics Buyer's Guide contains 25 suppliers for pulse compressors. Among them:
âš™ hardware
Geola offers phase-conjugating cells which are suitable for pulse compressors achieving very high peak intensities. This is useful for applications like material processing, laser machining, and certain scientific experiments.
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The APE femtoControl is a compact motorized dispersion compensation unit for compressing femtosecond laser pulses in the spectral range of Ti:sapphire lasers, as well as for 2P and 3P microscopy (options for e.g. 1300 nm, 1700 nm, and up to 2500 nm possible.
femtoControl compensates for material dispersion by applying the inverse amount of dispersion to the pulse. This is generated by a pair of prisms on motorized translation stages allowing continuous adjustment of the pulse length.
For example, femtoControl can help to achieve more crisp and clearer microscope images especially for multi-photon microscopy.
âš™ hardware
Our pulse stretcher and compressor fiber Bragg gratings are used in chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) systems. They exhibit low insertion loss, allowing for high system efficiency. O/E Land Inc. offers both standard and custom-made pulse stretching and compression fiber Bragg grating products.
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The new few-cycle flexible hollow core fiber system allows you to choose various fiber lengths and inner diameters to achieve a desired nonlinear effect. Experimentally measured transmission for multi-mJ femtosecond pulses ranges between 50% and >90%, depending on the application.
The most versatile choice for laser pulse post compression: The few-cycle hollow core fiber supports input energies from 50 ÎĽJ to 100 mJ, up to 20 times compression and transmission >90% while keeping the footprint and optical path length at a minimum.
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FastLas is an incredible tool to change your standard ultra-short pulse laser into an exceptional very Ultra-Short Pulse (USP) with a pulse duration at the output of the system less than 50 fs.
- compatible with current USP lasers
- nonlinearity, broadening and compression is managed thanks to a gas filled fiber
- water cooling allows to shorten pulses at high energy
- responsive and efficient technical support for installation
The FastLas is equipped with a pre-alignment system to facilitate the installation and the injection of the customer’s laser signal into the FastLas.
âš™ hardware
Thorlabs manufactures a suite of options for dispersion management, including a pre-compensation module, dispersion compensating fiber, chirped mirrors, and low GDD optics. For ultrafast applications where dispersion must be well known and managed, Thorlabs’ portfolio includes a robust benchtop white light interferometer for characterizing reflective and transmissive dispersive properties of optics and coatings. Using two different detectors, the Chromatis™ dispersion measurement system is capable of measurements in the 500 — 1650 nm range, providing a means for measuring optics used for common femtosecond systems, including Ti:sapphire systems as well as 1 µm and 1550 nm oscillators. The Chromatis complements our ultrafast family of lasers, amplifiers, and specialized optics including nonlinear crystals, chirped mirrors, low GDD mirrors/beamsplitters, and dispersion compensating fiber.
âš™ hardware
We offer different add-on pulse compression modules (MIKSs) to spectrally broaden and temporally shorten the pulses from your picosecond or femtosecond laser. The modules are compatible with nearly all commercial ultrafast lasers. Pulse shortening factors of 5× to 10× are easily reachable in a single stage with over 90% transmission. The core of our technology is nonlinear spectral broadening in multipass cells. For example, MIKS1_S module shortens the input pulses with 200–400 fs pulse duration and 1–200 μJ energy down to <50 fs with extremely high transmission of over 90%. This module can be shipped to you and easily installed remotely.
âš™ hardware
SAVANNA-HP, by UltraFast Innovations (UFI®), is a pulse compressor based on a stretched-flexible hollow-core fiber (SF-HCF). It has been developed in collaboration with the Institute for Nanophotonics in Göttingen. It spectrally broadens high-energy femtosecond input pulses by nonlinear interaction with a noble gas of adjustable gas pressure inside a hollow fiber and subsequently compresses the pulse using chirped mirror technology from UltraFast Innovations (UFI).
The state-of-the-art SF-HCF technique allows nearly ideal waveguiding, reducing the losses to a minimum and allowing the application of self-phase modulation over an interaction length of up to 8 m. It can handle extremely intense input pulses with a few tens of mJ pulses and an average power of up to 20 W — with active cooling, even up to several hundred watts. With this, we provide an unmatched compression unit for today's state-of-the-art lasers.
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