Comparative study on the temporal contrast of femtosecond mode-locked laser oscillators

We have investigated the temporal intensity contrast characteristics from a broad range of mode-locked short-pulse oscillators used for seeding high-power terawatt and petawatt-class laser systems. Saturable absorber (SESAM), Kerr lens (KLM), nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) in optical fibers...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inOptics letters Vol. 41; no. 14; p. 3221
Main Authors Stuart, Nicholas, Robinson, Timothy, Hillier, David, Hopps, Nick, Parry, Bryn, Musgrave, Ian, Nersisyan, Gagik, Sharba, Ahmed, Zepf, Matthew, Smith, Roland A
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 15.07.2016
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Summary:We have investigated the temporal intensity contrast characteristics from a broad range of mode-locked short-pulse oscillators used for seeding high-power terawatt and petawatt-class laser systems. Saturable absorber (SESAM), Kerr lens (KLM), nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) in optical fibers and synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) mode-locked sources have been measured using a third-order autocorrelator with up to 10 dynamic range. We restricted the temporal characterization to features <30  ps about the laser pulse that reflect fundamental mode-locking processes. We find additional nonlinear terms and residual higher-order dispersion limits the performance of KLM and NPE sources up to the 10 contrast level, while >10 contrast was observed from the SESAM and OPO laser pulse trains.
ISSN:1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/ol.41.003221