ABSTRACT
We report on a theoretical and experimental study of the energy transfer between an optical evanescent wave, propagating in vacuum along the planar boundary of a dielectric material, and a beam of sub-relativistic electrons. The evanescent wave is excited via total internal reflection in the dielectric by an infrared (λ = 2 µm) femtosecond laser pulse. By matching the electron propagation velocity to the phase velocity of the evanescent wave, energy modulation of the electron beam is achieved. A maximum energy gain of 800 eV is observed, corresponding to the absorption of more than 1000 photons by one electron. The maximum observed acceleration gradient is 19 ± 2 MeV/m. The striking advantage of this scheme is that a structuring of the acceleration element's surface is not required, enabling the use of materials with high laser damage thresholds that are difficult to nano-structure, such as SiC, Al2O3 or CaF2.
ABSTRACT
The temporal resolution of ultrafast electron diffraction and microscopy experiments is currently limited by the available experimental techniques for the generation and characterization of electron bunches with single femtosecond or attosecond durations. Here, we present proof of principle experiments of an optical gating concept for free electrons via direct time-domain visualization of the sub-optical cycle energy and transverse momentum structure imprinted on the electron beam. We demonstrate a temporal resolution of 1.2±0.3 fs. The scheme is based on the synchronous interaction between electrons and the near-field mode of a dielectric nano-grating excited by a femtosecond laser pulse with an optical period duration of 6.5 fs. The sub-optical cycle resolution demonstrated here is promising for use in laser-driven streak cameras for attosecond temporal characterization of bunched particle beams as well as time-resolved experiments with free-electron beams.
ABSTRACT
Future drag-free missions for space-based experiments in gravitational physics require a Gravitational Reference Sensor with extremely demanding sensing and disturbance reduction requirements. A configuration with two cubical sensors is the current baseline for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and has reached a high level of maturity. Nevertheless, several promising concepts have been proposed with potential applications beyond LISA and are currently investigated at HEPL, Stanford, and EADS Astrium, Germany. The general motivation is to exploit the possibility of achieving improved disturbance reduction, and ultimately understand how low acceleration noise can be pushed with a realistic design for future mission. In this paper, we discuss disturbance reduction requirements for LISA and beyond, describe four different payload concepts, compare expected strain sensitivities in the "low-frequency" region of the frequency spectrum, dominated by acceleration noise, and ultimately discuss advantages and disadvantages of each of those concepts in achieving disturbance reduction for space-based detectors beyond LISA.
ABSTRACT
The enormous size and cost of current state-of-the-art accelerators based on conventional radio-frequency technology has spawned great interest in the development of new acceleration concepts that are more compact and economical. Micro-fabricated dielectric laser accelerators (DLAs) are an attractive approach, because such dielectric microstructures can support accelerating fields one to two orders of magnitude higher than can radio-frequency cavity-based accelerators. DLAs use commercial lasers as a power source, which are smaller and less expensive than the radio-frequency klystrons that power today's accelerators. In addition, DLAs are fabricated via low-cost, lithographic techniques that can be used for mass production. However, despite several DLA structures having been proposed recently, no successful demonstration of acceleration in these structures has so far been shown. Here we report high-gradient (beyond 250 MeV m(-1)) acceleration of electrons in a DLA. Relativistic (60-MeV) electrons are energy-modulated over 563 ± 104 optical periods of a fused silica grating structure, powered by a 800-nm-wavelength mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The observed results are in agreement with analytical models and electrodynamic simulations. By comparison, conventional modern linear accelerators operate at gradients of 10-30 MeV m(-1), and the first linear radio-frequency cavity accelerator was ten radio-frequency periods (one metre) long with a gradient of approximately 1.6 MeV m(-1) (ref. 5). Our results set the stage for the development of future multi-staged DLA devices composed of integrated on-chip systems. This would enable compact table-top accelerators on the MeV-GeV (10(6)-10(9) eV) scale for security scanners and medical therapy, university-scale X-ray light sources for biological and materials research, and portable medical imaging devices, and would substantially reduce the size and cost of a future collider on the multi-TeV (10(12) eV) scale.
Subject(s)
Acceleration , Electrons , Lasers , Particle Accelerators/instrumentation , Aluminum Oxide , Diagnostic Imaging/instrumentation , Equipment Design , X-RaysABSTRACT
We have demonstrated key advances towards a solid-state laser amplifier at 1.03 microm for global remote wind sensing. We designed end-pumped zig-zag slab amplifiers to achieve high gain. We overcame parasitic oscillation limitations using claddings on the slab's total internal reflection (TIR) and edge surfaces to confine the pump and signal light by TIR and allow leakage of amplified spontaneous emission rays that do not meet the TIR condition. This enables e3, e5, and e8 single-, double-, and quadruple-pass small-signal amplifier gain, respectively. The stored energy density is 15.6 J/cm3, a record for a laser-diode end-pumped Yb:YAG zig-zag slab amplifier.
Subject(s)
Optics and Photonics , Oscillometry/instrumentation , Ytterbium/chemistry , Atmosphere , Crystallization , Doppler Effect , Earth, Planet , Equipment Design , Lasers , Models, Chemical , Models, Statistical , Oscillometry/methods , Spectrophotometry/methods , Weather , WindABSTRACT
We report the demonstration of the first, to our knowledge, cladding-pumped continuous-wave Yb(3+)-doped phosphate-glass fiber laser. Phosphate hosts are of interest because they can be much more heavily doped than silica, and because of the possibility that they may have a higher photodarkening threshold. In an 84.6 cm double-clad fiber doped with 12 wt. % of Yb(2)O(3) and laser-diode pumped at 940 nm, nearly 20 W of single-mode 1.07 microm output power was generated with 60.2 W of absorbed pump power. The measured dependence of the output power on pump power is in excellent agreement with simulations.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate a new particle acceleration mechanism using 800 nm laser radiation to accelerate relativistic electrons in a semi-infinite vacuum. The experimental demonstration is the first of its kind and is a proof of principle for the concept of laser-driven particle acceleration in a structure loaded vacuum. We observed up to 30 keV energy modulation over a distance of 1000 lambda, corresponding to a 40 MeV/m peak gradient. The energy modulation was observed to scale linearly with the laser electric field and showed the expected laser-polarization dependence. Furthermore, as expected, laser acceleration occurred only in the presence of a boundary that limited the laser-electron interaction to a finite distance.
ABSTRACT
We examine wave-front distortion caused by high-power lasers on transmissive optics using a Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor. The coupling coefficient for a thermally aberrated Gaussian beam to the TEM(00) mode of a cavity was determined as a function of magnitude of the thermally induced aberration. One wave of thermally induced phase aberration between the Gaussian intensity peak and the 1/e(2) radius of the intensity profile reduces the power-coupling coefficient to the TEM(00) mode of the cavity to 4.5% with no compensation. With optimal focus compensation the power coupling is increased to 79%. The theoretical shape of the thermally induced optical phase aberration is compared with measurements made in a neutral-density filter glass, Faraday glass, and lithium niobate. The agreement between the theoretical and the measured thermal aberration profiles is within the rms wave-front measurement sensitivity of the Shack-Hartmann wave-front sensor, which is a few nanometers.
ABSTRACT
Experimental demonstrations of two edge-pumped zigzag slab lasers are presented. The Nd:YAG slab laser generated 127 W of multimode output power with 300W of pump power. Preliminary results with a Yb:YAG slab produced 46 W of output power with 315W of pump power. The edge-pumped slab design permits symmetric conduction cooling and efficient pump absorption and accepts large-numerical-aperture pump sources.
ABSTRACT
We present a pump-and-signal-resonant optical parametric oscillator that provides 25 dB of amplitude noise suppression of the transmitted pump beam from dc to 20 kHz. The upper frequency range of the optical limiter increases as the pump power is increased, up to 1 MHz with 580 mW of input power. The amount of noise suppression is limited by pump-depletion effects. The upper frequency range is limited by the temporal response of the device. We present a numerical analysis that predicts this behavior.
ABSTRACT
All-reflective interferometric gravitational-wave detector configurations with a diffraction grating as a power beam splitter have been proposed to reduce thermal lensing. We demonstrate the use of a diffraction grating as a polarization beam splitter in a zero-area polarization Sagnac interferometer.
ABSTRACT
When the frequency of light coupled into a cavity is suddenly shifted, the radiation emanating from the input port of the previously excited cavity can beat with the reflection of the frequency-shifted input on the surface of a photodetector. When the beat frequency is stable, the time decay of the resulting optical heterodyne signal can be used to measure intracavity absorption spectra with near quantum-limited sensitivity.
ABSTRACT
We describe a polarization Sagnac interferometer with an in-loop half-wave plate that allows signal detection at the reciprocal port of the beam splitter while maintaining the ability to detect the signal at a dark fringe. Postmodulation and balanced heterodyne detection are used to recover the signal. This topology is simple to control because of its common-path characteristics and its collinear signal and local oscillator. The robustness of this scheme to amplitude and frequency fluctuations of the laser is demonstrated. Intraloop birefringence in this interferometer acts as a loss, reducing the power on the detector. The magnitude of this loss is discussed and experimentally verified.
ABSTRACT
We report continuous-wave single-pass second-harmonic generation (SHG) in 4-mum -period 0.5-mm-thick backswitch-poled lithium niobate. Pump sources at 920-930 nm include both Ti:sapphire and diode-oscillator-amplifier lasers. SHG of a Ti:sapphire laser at 6.1%/W efficiency, producing 61 mW of power at 460 nm, is demonstrated in 50-mm-long periodically poled lithium niobate samples with a nonlinear coefficient d(eff) approximately 9pm/V, and 60 mW at 465 nm and 2.8%/W efficiency is obtained by SHG of a laser-diode source.
ABSTRACT
We report an efficient, visible, nanosecond optical parametric generator of periodically poled lithium niobate pumped at 532 nm by a frequency-doubled, diode-pumped, passively Q -switched, single-mode Nd:YAG laser with 90-muJ pulse energy. The signal radiation is tunable from 637 to 593 nm. The maximum signal-conversion efficiency is 23%. Optical parametric amplification of a He-Ne laser at 632.8 nm is also studied.
ABSTRACT
We report a continuous-wave (cw) 532-nm-pumped singly resonant optical parametric oscillator (SRO) based on periodically poled lithium niobate. The pump source is a commercial 5-W cw diode-pumped, multilongitudinal-mode, intracavity-doubled Nd:YVO(4) laser. Using a four-mirror ring SRO cavity and single-pass pumping, we achieved subwatt internal oscillation threshold, 56% quantum efficiency, and output tuning from 917 to 1266 nm.
ABSTRACT
All-reflective Michelson, Sagnac, and Fabry-Perot interferometers based on grating beam splitters are experimentally demonstrated at a wavelength of 1064 nm. A 1200-groove/mm grating diffracting 0 and -1 orders with an efficiency of 48.2% for each order was used as a near-50/50 beam splitter. The all-reflective Sagnac and Michelson interferometers were formed by reintroducing both of the diffracted beams back to the grating. The Fabry-Perot interferometer was formed in a Littrow configuration by using a 1700-groove/mm grating with a blazing efficiency of 91% as a cavity coupler. These interferometers encompass all the fundamental configurations of all-reflective laser interferometric gravitational-wave detectors, promising improved wave-front quality by avoiding volume thermal effects in transmissive optics under high-power laser illumination.
ABSTRACT
Tunable 90-ps 15.6-17.6-microm coherent radiation was generated by means of difference-frequency mixing in diffusion-bonded-stacked GaAs. The sample consisted of 24 alternately rotated layers with a total length of 6 mm and with low optical loss to achieve third-order quasi-phase matching. The wavelength-tuning curve was close to the theoretical prediction, demonstrating that the bonding process maintained nonlinear optical phase matching over the entire interaction length. Maximum conversion efficiency of 0.7%, or 5% internal quantum efficiency, was measured at 16.6 microm, consistent with the theoretical predictions.
ABSTRACT
We report on the use of a fixed-spacer Fabry-Perot ring cavity to filter spatially and temporally a 10-W laser-diode-pumped Nd:YAG master-oscillator power amplifier. The spatial filtering leads to a 7.6-W TEM (00) beam with 0.1% higher-order transverse mode content. The temporal filtering reduces the relative power fluctuations at 10 MHz to 2.8x10(-9)/ radicalHz, which is 1 dB above the shot-noise limit for 50 mA of detected photocurrent.
ABSTRACT
We present measurements of the power noise that is due to optical amplification in a laser-diode-pumped Nd:YAG free-space traveling-wave linear amplifier in a master-oscillator-power-amplifier configuration. The quantum noise behavior of the optical amplifier was demonstrated by use of InGaAs photodetectors in a balanced detection configuration, at a total photocurrent of 100 mA and in a frequency band from 6.25 to 15.625 MHz. The experimental results are in good agreement with predictions.
