Few-cycle pulse characterization with an acousto-optic pulse shaper

Tailoring octave-spanning ultrashort laser pulses using multiple prisms

We demonstrate a novel pulse shaper in which an incident laser beam is angularly dispersed by a first prism, and then it is split into separate beams using multiple prisms. Since this new pulse shaper offers independent control of the amplitude and phase of the separate beams, it can produce pulses having desired temporal shapes. Furthermore, it imposes a significant amount of negative group delay dispersion (GDD) over an octave spectrum near visible, which can compensate for a positive GDD accumulated in the process of spectral broadening. Consequently, single-cycle or few-cycle laser pulses can be produced without the need for chirped mirrors.

Selective generation of ultracold high-density 1s orthoexcitons in Cu2O with phase-modulated pulse using acousto-optic programmable filter

Ultracold and high-density 1s orthoexcitons in semiconductor cuprous oxide are prepared via resonant two-photon absorption of a phase-tailored femtosecond pulse, by utilizing an acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter. The stability of the quantum degenerate exciton gas is studied using excitonic Lyman spectroscopy. A density of 10(16) cm(-3) is realized without creating hot carriers, and the Lyman spectrum remains unchanged at this density. This result assures the stability of a spontaneous Bose-Einstein condensate of excitons at sub-Kelvin temperatures.

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal pulse characterization with an acousto-optic pulse shaper and a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor

We demonstrate a simplified arrangement for spatiotemporal ultrashort pulse characterization called Hartmann-Shack assisted, multidimensional, shaper-based technique for electric-field reconstruction. It employs an acousto-optic pulse shaper in combination with a second-order nonlinear crystal and a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The shaper is used as a tunable bandpass filter, and the wavefronts and intensities of quasimonochromatic spectral slices of the pulse are obtained using the Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The wavefronts and intensities of the spectral slices are related to one another using shaper-assisted frequency-resolved optical gating measurements, performed at particular points in the beam. This enables a three-dimensional reconstruction of the amplitude and phase of the pulse. We present some example pulse measurements and discuss the operating parameters of the device.

Shaper-assisted phase optimization of a broad "holey" spectrum

We develop a technique for optimizing the phase of broad spectrally-separated frequency sidebands-a "holey" spectrum. We use a source of multiple-order coherent Raman sidebands, obtained by crossing femtosecond pump and Stokes beams in synthetic single-crystal diamond. We combine the sidebands into a single beam and show the phase coherence among the sidebands by investigating the interference between them in groups of three while varying one sideband phase by an acousto-optics pulse shaper. We then show how we optimize the broad "holey" spectrum by overcoming the limited temporal shaping window of the pulse shaper. We also explore how the resultant second harmonic/sum frequency generation of the full combined broadband spectrum varies as we vary different sideband phases. This step-by-step phase optimization of the "holey" spectrum can be applied to sidebands with similar structure to synthesize arbitrary optical waveforms.