Rapid-scan acousto-optical delay line with 34 kHz scan rate and 15 as precision.

An optical fast scan delay exploiting the near-collinear interaction between a train of ultrashort optical pulses and an acoustic wave propagating in a birefringent crystal is introduced. In combination with a femtosecond Er:fiber laser, the scheme is shown to delay few femtosecond pulses by up to 6 ps with a precision of 15 as. A resolution of 5 fs is obtained for a single sweep at a repetition rate of 34 kHz. This value can be improved to 39 as for multiple scans at a total rate of 0.3 kHz.

Grism compressor for carrier-envelope phase-stable millijoule-energy chirped pulse amplifier lasers featuring bulk material stretcher.

We demonstrate compression of amplified carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stable laser pulses using paired transmission gratings and high-index prisms, or grisms, with chromatic dispersion matching that of a bulk material pulse stretcher. Grisms enable the use of larger bulk stretching factors and thereby higher energy pulses with lower B-integral in a compact amplifier design suitable for long-term CEP control.

Active stabilization of a rapidly chirped laser by an optoelectronic digital servo-loop control.

We propose and demonstrate a novel active stabilization scheme for wide and fast frequency chirps. The system measures the laser instantaneous frequency deviation from a perfectly linear chirp, thanks to a digital phase detection process, and provides an error signal that is used to servo-loop control the chirped laser. This way, the frequency errors affecting a laser scan over 10 GHz on the millisecond timescale are drastically reduced below 100 kHz. This active optoelectronic digital servo-loop control opens new and interesting perspectives in fields where rapidly chirped lasers are crucial.

Wideband and high-resolution coherent optical transients with a frequency-agile laser oscillator.

We report what is believed to be the first experimental demonstration of a wideband spectral coherent process driven by a frequency-agile laser in a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. The very demanding chirp-transform algorithm is studied in detail and is applied to radio-frequency spectral analysis. A time-bandwidth product of 24,000 is demonstrated.

Photon echoes in an amplifying rare-earth-ion-doped crystal.

We report what we believe is the first experimental demonstration of photon echoes in an amplifying rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. Population inversion is achieved by optical pumping, which yields high-power photon echoes, with an energy gain of as much as a factor of 5. Effects of the pump on the photon echo process highlight the advantages of an amplifying crystal. New questions concerning the optical dephasing mechanisms in Er3+:YSO have arisen.