Frequency Combs
Mid-IR frequency combs have emerged as a new generation of spectroscopic tools for molecular science due to their ability to quickly acquire a broadband molecular spectrum with high spectral resolution. High average power frequency combs allow for increased sensitivity and shorter acquisition times. Our work on frequency combs focuses on increasing the average output power of mid-IR frequency combs and extending the wavelength coverage further into the mid-IR spectral region.
Previous Relevant Work:
Flexible all-PM NALM Yb:fiber laser design for frequency comb applications: operation regimes and their noise propertieson OP-GaAs
We present a flexible all-polarization-maintaining (PM) mode-locked ytterbium (Yb):fiber laser based on a nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). In addition to providing detailed design considerations, we discuss the different operation regimes accessible by this versatile laser architecture and experimentally analyze five representative mode-locking states. These five states were obtained in a 78-MHz configuration at different intracavity group delay dispersion (GDD) values ranging from anomalous (-0.035 ps2) to normal (+0.015 ps2). We put a particular focus on the characterization of the intensity noise as well as the free-running linewidth of the carrier-envelope-offset (CEO) frequency as a function of the different operation regimes. We observe that operation points far from the spontaneous emission peak of Yb (∼1030 nm) and close to zero intracavity dispersion can be found, where the influence of pump noise is strongly suppressed. For such an operation point, we show that a CEO linewidth of less than 10-kHz at 1 s integration can be obtained without any active stabilization.
Three-photon absorption in optical parametric oscillators based on OP-GaAs
We report on, to the best of our knowledge, the first singly resonant (SR), synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on orientation-patterned gallium arsenide (OP-GaAs). Together with a doubly resonant (DR) degenerate OPO based on the same OP-GaAs material, the output spectra cover 3 to 6 μm within ∼3 dB of relative power. The DR-OPO has the highest output power reported to date from a femtosecond, synchronously pumped OPO based on OP-GaAs. We observed strong three-photon absorption with a coefficient of 0.35±0.08 cm3/GW2 for our OP-GaAs sample, which limits the output power of these OPOs as mid-IR light sources. We present a detailed study of the three-photon loss on the performance of both the SR- and DR-OPOs, and compare them to those without this loss mechanism.