Application, measurement and generation of ultra short Laser pulses

Lecture WS 2007/2008

Carsten Fallnich

Di. 10.15 - 11.45 SR AP (Room 222)

Already a short time after the realization of the principle of laser approximately 40 years ago ultra short light impulses could be generated and measured by using coupling of modes. But for considerable applications it takes time until the middle of the nineties, especially in industry and medicine. The decisive aperture succeeded with the development of new optical amplification media and new coupling methods of modes and the so improved comprehension of generation, measurement and manipulation of ultra short light pulses.

In addition to fundamentals modern potentials of application and nonlinear physics "of" and "with" ultra short light pulses will be introduced in the frame of the lecture. Thereby, the advantages as well as the existing constrictions of the required techniques should be explained for using their possibilities (realistic and successful). Dependent on number and interest of the participants it is planned to show small experiments etc. for better exemplification.

Schedule

No.	Date	Topic	Details	Remarks
1	16.10.2007	Introduction	Pre-Knowledge, structure of lecture, "What is a light pulse"	Activities of OT-Group
2	23.10.2007	Application I	(Precision) material processing	Applications with high power
3	30.10.2007	Application II	Telecommunication, metrology	Applications with short pulses
4	06.11.2007	Measurement I	Bolometer, Photodetectors, Streakcamera etc.
5	13.11.2006	Measurement II	Correlation measurement, gating etc.
6	20.11.2007	Generation I	Laser principle, basics of light pulse generation	Dispersion + nonlinear effects
7	27.11.2007	Generation II	Active/passive Q-switching, Q-switched lasers
8	04.12.2007	Generation III / Generation IV	Active mode-locking, incl. synchronous pumping	Fundamentals, work-out difference to mode-locking
9	11.12.2007		Passive mode locking, differences to Q-switching	also solitary pulses, solitons, self-organization
10	18.12.2007	Beam Sources I	Mode-locked lasers	Amplifying media + dispersion compensation
11	08.01.2008	Beam Sources II	Amplifier-systems	incl. chirped-pulse amplification (CPA)
12	15.01.2008	Beam Sources II	Frequency conversion	Second harmonic gen., freq. mixing, supercontinuum
13	22.01.2008	Beam Sources III / IV	OPA, OPO, attosecund pulse generation etc.	Chances for scaling of pulse parameters
14	29.01.2008	Application III + Beam Sources V, material see 08.01.2008	Application related selection, limitations	with respect to pulse width and energy, peak power etc.
15	05.02.2008	Lab-Tour IAP	Labs and experiments with reference to the lecture	AG Fallnich "and" AG Denz

Literature

 F. Kärtner, MIT, Ultrafast Optics, Lecture Notes Spring 2005