High power ultrafast laser with highly dynamic repetition rate and constant pulse energy from single pulse to 10 MHz

Harth, Florian; Herrmann, Thomas; L’huillier, Johannes A.

doi:10.1117/12.2507821

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…It is possible to directly modulate pump power [15], however, this method is often limited by the slow response times and in some cases must include advanced thermal management setups for pump wavelength stabilization [16]. A different approach uses additional idler light source which keeps the population inversion at constant level, between selected marker pulses, even in the case of continuous pumping of the amplifier [17][18][19]. In order to achieve pulse-on-demand operation, idler and marker light must be separated at the laser output, so that only marker pulses are sent to the workpiece.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pulse-on-demand laser operation from nanosecond to femtosecond pulses and its application for high-speed processing

Petelin

Černe

Mur

et al. 2021

Advanced Optical Technologies

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In this manuscript we present a true pulse-on-demand laser design concept using two different approaches. First, we present a fiber master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) based quasi-continuous wave (CW) laser, working at high modulation bandwidths, for generation of nanosecond pulses. Second, we present a hybrid chirped pulse amplification (CPA)-based laser, combining a chirped-pulse fiber amplifier and an additional solid-state amplifier, for generation of femtosecond pulses. The pulse-on-demand operation is achieved without an external optical modulator/shutter at high-average powers and flexible repetition rates up to 40 MHz, using two variants of the approach for near-constant gain in the amplifier chain. The idler and marker seed sources are combined in the amplifier stages and separated at the out using either wavelength-based separation or second harmonic generation (SHG)-generation-based separation. The nanosecond laser source is further applied to high throughput processing of thin film materials. The laser is combined with a resonant scanner, using the intrinsic pulse-on-demand operation to compensate the scanner’s sinusoidal movement. We applied the setup to processing of indium tin oxide (ITO) and metallic films on flexible substrates.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The other method is to introduce long idler pulses or even CW idler light between short marker pulses. Due to different pulse durations, idler and marker pulses can be separated at the output via the second harmonic generation (SHG) [17,20,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulse-on-demand laser operation from nanosecond to femtosecond pulses and its application for high-speed processing

Petelin

Černe

Mur

et al. 2021

Advanced Optical Technologies

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“…The solution that offers laser-pulse generation with a true pulse-on-demand mode uses a combination of idler and marker sources that seed the laser's amplifier chain. The idler signal keeps the gain of the amplifiers constant between marker pulses [25] to [27]. The benefit of this approach is also that the controlled idler signal prevents the build-up of the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and enables the formation of marker pulses at very low repetition rates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulses on Demand in Fibre and Hybrid Lasers

Petkovšek

Agrež

Petelin

et al. 2019

SV-JME

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This paper presents an investigation of pulse-on-demand operation in fibre and hybrid lasers. Two methods for efficient gain control that enable the generation of laser pulses at arbitrary times with controlled pulse parameters are presented. The method of direct modulation of the pump power in the high-power laser oscillator is shown to generate pulses with a duration in the nanosecond range, with repetition rates varying during operation from a single shot to over 1 MHz. An advanced method using a combination of marker and idler seeding a fibre amplifier chain is investigated. Such a system can easily achieve repetition rates of several tens of MHz. The lasers’ performances were successfully tested in a real environment on an industrial platform for laser transfer printing. Similar concepts were used for a laser source with ultrashort laser pulses (femtosecond range) on demand by using a mode-locked seed as a source and a solid-state amplifier to achieve high pulse energy and peak power.

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