Patent Application
20220376456
This application claims priority to EP 21174282.0, filed May 18, 2021, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties for all purposes.
The invention relates to a laser amplifier apparatus, configured for creating laser pulses by optical amplification. In particular, the invention relates to a high-energy-pulsed and high-average-power laser amplifier apparatus, including a gain medium arranged in a multi-pass beam path configuration. Furthermore, the invention relates to a method of amplifying laser pulses, wherein the laser amplifier apparatus is used. Applications of the invention are available e.g., in optical parametric chirped pulse amplification, inverse Compton scattering, high-energy THz generation and material processing.
In the present specification, reference is made to the following prior art illustrating the technical background of the invention, in particular relating to the configuration and operation of thin disc lasers and laser amplifiers:
In science and industry, there is a need for pulsed lasers which are capable of simultaneously emitting high energy and high average power. In particular, laser systems for producing joule-level laser pulses together with kilowatt average-power output would offer new applications in scientific and industrial markets. According to an example of scientific applications, a laser amplifier producing high energy pulses at high repetition rates is required for an all-optically-driven Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) based X-ray source. Other applications of high energy and high average power laser amplifier technology are pump-probe experiments instrumentally used in accelerator facilities, wherein laser drivers provide pumps for the generation of high-average-power ultrashort pulses with wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared through parametric amplification schemes, such as optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). Furthermore, fast (ns), energetic (1 to 50 Joule) laser pulses with low repetition rates (1 to 20 Hz) are used in niche industrial applications, such as laser peening, percussion drilling and laser trepanning.
Known laser sources, e.g., for accelerator applications, generate energetic ultrafast (ps) laser pulse-trains e.g., with MHz repetition rate in millisecond bursts repeating at 10 Hz frequency. Present science and industry users need a new generation of lasers that provide a higher level of performance in terms of energy and average power. As an example, industry applications, like strengthening of gears and valves, the drilling at high angles of fuel injectors and turbine blade cooling passages, etc., in the automotive industry, need a high throughput to achieve production levels that make the process accessible to the mass-market. This requires a laser system that can provide high beam-quality joule-level laser pulses of nanosecond pulse durations and kilowatt average powers at high repetition rates (kHz).
Laser sources, which are based on optically pumping thin disc gain materials are described e.g., in [1], [2] and [3]. As these lasers sources (thin disc lasers) do not have amplifier configurations, they have a limited output power. As a further restriction, these techniques suffer from optical damages at the thin disc gain materials.
A laser amplifier using a solid state gain medium is proposed in [4] for obtaining high pulse energies in short pulses of a few hundred picosecond durations. The gain medium is a composite optical gain element which is made of substantially index-matched sections: an undoped YAG cap bonded to a gain layer of Yb:YAG. With the composite optical gain medium of [4], pumped in a multi-pass configuration with telescopic imaging, an output energy of 100 mJ at 250 Hz has been obtained ([5] to [7]). However, the technique of [4] to [7] still may have disadvantages in terms of limited output power and a complex device configuration. If increased pump energies are applied, a risk of optical damages at the optical gain medium substantially increases, thus reducing the operation duration of the amplifier.
Objectives of the invention are to provide an improved laser amplifier apparatus for creating laser pulses by optical amplification and an improved method of amplifying laser pulses, avoiding disadvantages of conventional techniques and/or providing new or extended applications. In particular, laser pulse amplification is to be obtained with increased output power, increased repetition rate, reduced complexity, reduced risk of optical damages and/or extended duration of stable operation, in particular at the gain medium.
The above objectives are solved by a laser amplifier apparatus and a method of amplifying laser pulses of the invention.
According to a first general aspect of the invention, the above objective is solved by a laser amplifier apparatus for creating laser pulses by optical amplification, i.e., by irradiating a crystalline gain medium with synchronized series of equally spaced pump and seed laser pulses, wherein amplified output laser pulses are created by a nonlinear interaction of the pump and seed laser pulses in the gain medium. Alternatively, single pulse amplification or burst mode amplification can be provided, wherein macropulses are amplified that contain groups of micropulses with different repetition rates.
The laser amplifier apparatus comprises the gain medium, which is arranged for receiving at least one seed pulse, preferably a sequence of seed pulses, and at least one pump pulse, preferably a sequence of pump pulses, and for emitting at least one optically amplified output laser pulse, preferably a sequence of optically amplified output laser pulses. Spatial portions of the gain medium, where the at least one amplified output laser pulse is created are called emitting sections of the gain medium. A cooling device is provided which is adapted for cooling the gain medium. The cooling device is thermally coupled with the gain medium, so that heat created by the nonlinear interaction of the pump and seed laser pulses in the gain medium can be conducted out of the laser amplifier apparatus.
The laser amplifier apparatus further comprises a resonator device including the gain medium and comprising a plurality of resonator mirrors spanning a folded, telescopic resonator beam path with a multi-pass geometry. The resonator mirrors are arranged such that multiple passages of the seed and pump pulses through the gain medium are provided.
For coupling the at least one pump pulse and the at least one seed pulse to the resonator device and for coupling the at least one output laser pulse out of the resonator device, the laser amplifier apparatus further comprises a coupler arrangement. The coupler arrangement comprises reflective elements, like fully reflective and/or semi-reflective mirrors. The reflective elements are arranged such that the seed and pump pulses can be directed from a seed source device and from a pump source device via an input coupling portion (or: first coupler device) into the resonator beam path and the amplified output laser pulses can be directed via an output coupling portion (or: second coupler device) out of the resonator beam path. Preferably, the resonator device and the output coupling portion are configured such that a single amplifier aperture is provided where the output laser pulses are emitted.
According to the invention, the resonator mirrors comprise a first telescope mirror and a second telescope mirror, which arranged with a mutual distance and a focal section therebetween and which define an optical axis (or: main axis, z-axis) of the resonator device. The focal section comprises coinciding foci of the telescope mirrors, i.e., the telescope mirrors have the common focal section. Preferably, the telescope mirrors are parabolic reflectors. The focal section is in a confocal plane perpendicular to the optical axis. Preferably, in the confocal plane, there is a pinhole, which can be used for spatial filtering of the amplified beam. Furthermore, according to the invention, the resonator mirrors comprise a first group of end mirrors and a second group of end mirrors which are arranged between the first and second telescope mirrors for forming a folded resonator beam path, wherein each of the first and second groups of end mirrors are arranged on a ring-shaped section surrounding the optical axis. Accordingly, beam path sections of the resonator beam path are inclined relative to the optical axis of the resonator device. The resonator mirrors are arranged such that the emitting sections of the gain medium are imaged in themselves.
Folding of the resonator beam path means that the end mirrors are arranged in a space between the first and second telescope mirrors, i.e., the beam path of each pass of the pulses through the resonator runs from the input coupling portion of the coupler arrangement with multiple reversals via the gain medium, the end mirrors and the telescope mirrors to the output coupling portion of the coupler arrangement. The beam path is fully folded on both sides of the image and the object. Pulse amplification is obtained with each pass of the pulses through the resonator device. Preferably, the pulses run from the input coupling portion to the gain medium, followed by a repeated sequence of reversals, including a reversal to an end mirror of the first group of end mirrors, a reversal to the first telescope mirror, a reversal to the second telescope mirror, a reversal to an end mirror of the second group of end mirrors, another reversal to the second telescope mirror and a reversal back to the gain medium.
According to a second general aspect of the invention, the above objective is solved by a method of amplifying laser pulses, wherein the laser amplifier apparatus according to the first general aspect of the invention or one of its embodiments is used. Amplifying laser pulses comprises the steps of creating at least one seed pulse and at least one pump pulse, preferably sequences of seed pulses and pump pulses, coupling the at least one pump pulse and the at least one seed pulse to the resonator device of the laser amplifier apparatus and synchronously irradiating the gain medium, wherein multiple passages of the seed and pump pulses through the gain medium are provided by the plurality of resonator mirrors of the folded, telescopic resonator beam path with the multi-pass geometry, and coupling at least one output laser pulse amplified in the gain medium out of the resonator device.
The inventors have found that the objective of the invention can be solved by folding the resonator beam path, resulting in particular in the following advantages. Advantageously, contrary to the technique of [4] to [7], the inventive folded resonator beam path provides a compact configuration of the laser amplifier apparatus, which allows an improved cooling efficiency, in particular in cooling the gain medium, and/or an arrangement entirely in vacuum, so that any propagation in air can be avoided. Thus, the cooling of the laser amplifier apparatus, especially the gain medium, can be improved in an advantageous manner. The cooling of the gain medium in particular can be increased due to an improved access to the gain medium in the resonator beam path. Thus, the laser amplifier apparatus can be operated with increased output power and/or repetition rate, while reducing risk of optical damages. Furthermore, the complexity of the optical setup can be reduced and/or the mechanical stability of the laser amplifier apparatus can be improved by providing the folded resonator beam path. The number of passages of the resonator beam path through the gain medium can be increased without substantially increasing the complexity of configuration, so that the output power compared e. g with the technique of [4] to [7] can be increased. Folding of the resonator beam path additionally provides the compact configuration which can be adapted to spatial requirements in a routine application, e.g., in a manufacturing process in an improved manner.
Advantageously, a high-energy-pulsed high-average-power diffraction-limited laser amplifier is created with the invention, that contrary to conventional techniques is capable of improved handling of both of high power and high energy. With the inventive laser amplifier apparatus, output laser pulses can be generated, which have an energy equal to or above 500 mJ, in particular equal to or above 1 J at a repetition rate of at least 1 Hz, in particular at least 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5 kHz. Advantageously, these pulses have been demonstrated in practice passively after initial operation and without the need for further adjustments. Even higher repetition rates up to 1 kHz can be obtained, in particular with further adjustments. Thus, the laser amplifier apparatus is capable of producing output laser pulses with substantially increased average power in the kilowatt range and peak power in the gigawatt range. The invention enables the amplification of e.g., joule-level gigawatt laser pulses while avoiding optical damage; simultaneously operating at kHz repetition rates steadily and durably for an unlimited period of time with only standard laboratory electrical power and cooling infrastructure provided.
According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the gain medium is a composite disk gain element comprising a doped laser active part bonded to a non-doped part, wherein the disk gain element is shaped with a plane surface facing to the folded resonator beam path, a backplane surface and a curved, preferably parabolic, surface that is formed for deflecting spontaneous emission out of the gain element volume. The backplane surface preferably is a highly reflective surface. Advantageously, by reducing the circulation of spontaneous emissions inside the gain element volume, the composite disk gain element improves the efficiency of the amplification process and improves the beam profile of the amplified output laser pulses.
According to a further preferred embodiment of the invention, the doped laser active part and the non-doped part have mutually different crystalline orientations relative to the optical axis of the resonator device. The doped and undoped parts are bonded with the predetermined crystalline orientation between crystal axes. The crystalline orientations of the doped laser active part and the non-doped part are preferably selected such that a depolarization of the laser pulses circulating in the resonator device is reduced or completely suppressed. Advantageously, the depolarization reducing effect of crystal orientation further increases the efficiency of pulse amplification in the gain medium. The depolarization reducing effect of crystal orientation can be provided on the basis of a numerical simulation of the optical properties of the gain medium materials.
The gain medium of the laser amplifier apparatus comprises a crystalline material. Crystallinity of the gain medium influences the amplification process. Mono-crystalline materials are preferred for increasing the amplification efficiency. However, growing mono-crystalline materials of large size, e.g., greater than 20 mm, is challenging with available laser gain materials which are suitable for optical amplification of laser pulses. The inventors have found that this restriction advantageously can be avoided if, according to a further, particularly preferred embodiment of the invention, the doped laser active part and/or the non-doped part of the composite disk gain element is made of multiple bonded disk sectors, wherein each of the disk sectors is made of a mono-crystalline material having no or negligible crystal defects. The disk sectors are arranged in a plane perpendicular to the plane surface and main extension of the disk shaped gain medium, for forming the doped laser active part or the non-doped part, respectively. For example, the composite disk gain element can comprise at least two, in particular at least three, four or more, disk sectors of the doped laser active part and/or the non-doped part. The sectioning can be transverse to the beam path or longitudinal to the beam path for the purpose of increased gain bandwidth or ease in manufacturing. Each sector comprises a section of the gain medium extending from the central axis to the outer boundary thereof. By the particular use of an increased size gain medium with high crystal quality, the amplification of joule-level gigawatt laser pulses is facilitated while avoiding optical damage. Simultaneously, operating at kHz repetition rates steadily and durably for an unlimited period of time with only standard laboratory electrical power and cooling infrastructure can be obtained.
Preferably, the bonded disk sectors, of the doped laser active part and/or of the non-doped part of the gain medium may have mutually different crystalline orientations in the composite disk element. The bonded disk sectors are bonded with predetermined crystalline orientations between crystal axes. The crystalline orientations of the bonded disk sectors are preferably selected such that a depolarization of the laser pulses circulating in the resonator device is reduced or completely suppressed.
According to another preferred variant of the invention, the composite disk gain element has a spatial orientation such that main extension and in particular the plane surface of the composite disk gain element is arranged perpendicular to a horizontal axis. The composite disk gain element has a plate shape with a main planar extension parallel to the plane surface. As the main planar extension (and the plane surface of the composite disk gain element) is perpendicular to the extension of the resonator device, the laser amplifier apparatus is preferably configured for an operation with a completely horizontal extension of the resonator device (horizontal main axis). This facilitates in an advantageous manner adjustments of the resonator mirrors and the coupling arrangement.
As a further advantage of the invention the laser amplifier apparatus enables the provision of the composite disk gain element with at least one of the following features, which additionally contribute to the solution of the above objective of the invention, in particular with regard to increasing the output power.
Firstly, the composite disk gain element preferably has a diameter (dimension along the plane surface) in a range from 5 mm to 10 cm. Compared with conventional techniques, substantially larger composite disk gain elements can be used, which provide more and larger emitting sections and correspondingly increased output power.
Alternatively or additionally, the curved surface of the composite disk gain element is a section of a parabolic surface. Advantageously, this optimizes a suppression of spontaneous emission loss in the gain medium.
Alternatively or additionally, the curved surface of the composite disk gain element is defined in cylindrical coordinates with origin at the center of the plane surface by z(r)=6.28-1.70*r+0.106*r2, with r≥10 mm and 0≤z(r)≤10 mm. Advantageously, this geometry has been found by Monte-Carlo ray-trace computations to eject 99% of the fluorescence generated in the gain medium.
According to another alternative or additionally, the composite disk gain element is preferably made of Yb:YAG or Yb:LuAG. Particularly preferred, the doped laser active part, e.g., made of Yb:YAG or Yb:LuAG, is doped with Yb. These materials have particular advantages in terms of a high amplification efficiency and a broad range of amplified wavelengths as well as thermo-physical properties helpful in the rejection of waste heat.
Alternatively or additionally, the larger plane surface of the composite disk gain element preferably has an anti-reflective coating, which has advantages for efficient incoupling laser pulses into the composite disk gain element and reducing reflection loss. The backplane surface of the gain element preferably has a highly reflective coating that returns the amplifying beam towards the resonator device.
If according to another preferred feature of the invention, the gain medium is arranged in a central opening of the first telescope mirror, advantages in terms of efficient cooling of the gain medium are obtained. As the telescope mirror represents one of the longitudinal ends of the resonator device, the access to the gain medium with the cooling device is facilitated. Particularly preferred, the cooling device is thermally coupled to the backplane surface of the composite disk gain element. Advantageously, any deteriorating effects of the cooling device on the beam path in the resonator device can be minimized.
According to a further preferred embodiment of the invention, the coupler arrangement comprises the first coupler device which is configured for coupling the at least one pump pulse to the resonator device, wherein the first coupler device comprises at least one incoupling mirror being arranged in the resonator device between the telescopic mirrors with an inclination relative to the optical axis of the resonator device. Advantageously, the at least one incoupling mirror is included in the resonator device without deteriorating the beam path thereof.
Particularly preferred, the at least one incoupling mirror is arranged at the focal section between the first and second telescope mirrors. This position has the advantage that the beam path in the resonator device has a minimum diameter at the focal section, so that sufficient space is provided for positioning and adjusting the incoupling mirror.
Preferably, in the confocal plane between the telescopic mirrors, a pinhole is arranged, which can be used for spatial filtering of the amplified beam. The incoupling mirror or a mirror carrier thereof can be provided with the pinhole (aperture) configured for passing the light field circulating in the resonator device. In the imaging beam path of the resonator device, the aperture represents a pinhole in a Fourier plane relative to the gain medium. Preferably, the focal section between the first and second telescope mirrors can be located in or adjacent to the pinhole. Advantageously, the pinhole acts as a frequency filter and/or allows cleaning of the beam profile of the circulating light field. As an example, the pinhole can have a diameter of 3 mm to 10 mm, preferably from 4 mm to 5 mm.
According to a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, the first coupler device comprises at least two input coupling mirrors being arranged for coupling pump pulses from different directions to the resonator device. Each of the at least two input coupling mirrors is inclined to another radial direction relative to the optical axis of the resonator device. The at least two input coupling mirrors can be carried on a common mirror carrier, preferably including the pinhole.
Providing at least two input coupling mirrors advantageously allows incoupling of pump pulses from multiple laser sources, thus further increasing the output power of the inventive laser amplifier apparatus. Furthermore, the multiple input coupling mirrors allow a simple adaptation of the laser amplifier apparatus to the power requirements of a particular application thereof. An input coupling mirror which is not used for incoupling laser pulses can be combined with a curved auxiliary mirror arranged for imaging pump pulse portions reflected by the gain medium back to the gain medium.
According to another optional feature of the invention, the first coupler device is coupled with a main cooling system. Advantageously, coupling with the main cooling system avoids an overheating of the first coupler device by the at least one pump pulse.
According to a further preferred embodiment of the invention, the coupler arrangement comprises the second coupler device configured for coupling the at least one seed pulse to the resonator device and for coupling the at least one output laser pulse out of the resonator device, wherein the second coupler device comprises one of the resonator mirrors of the second group of end mirrors and a polarizing beam splitter, like a polarizing beam splitter prism or plate. Advantageously, one of the resonator mirrors fulfils a double function as it is additionally used as an output coupling mirror.
As a further advantage of the folded resonator design of the inventive laser amplifier apparatus, resulting in a compact configuration, a housing can be provided according to a further particularly preferred embodiment of the invention. The housing, preferably an evacuable container, accommodates at least the gain medium and the resonator device as well as at least parts of the coupler arrangement and the main cooling system. The housing has a pressure tight housing wall with a pump interface for connection with a vacuum pump and optionally with transparent window sections as pulse in-coupling and out-coupling ports and/or viewing ports.
Preferably, the housing wall fulfils a double function in terms of providing the pressure tight container and carrying parts of the resonator device. In particular, the resonator mirrors can be carried on an inner side of the housing wall, thus improving the resonator stability in an advantageous manner. According to a further advantageous variant, the main cooling system can include a cooling circuit for cooling the housing wall, e.g., with water.
According to a further preferred variant of the invention, the resonator device is free of optical lenses. According to this optional feature, there are no solid or liquid refractive substances in the beam path of the resonator device. Advantageously, this allows further increasing of the circulating power in the resonator device and increasing the output power of the laser amplifier apparatus.
According to the invention, the laser amplifier apparatus can be provided as an amplifier component as such, which can be combined with pump and seed sources in dependency on particular application requirements. Alternatively, the pump and seed sources can be provided as an integrated part of the laser amplifier apparatus, being fixedly connected e.g., with the coupling arrangement and/or with the housing. According to this embodiment of the invention, the laser amplifier apparatus preferably includes a pump source device with at least one pump pulse laser source arranged for creating at least one pump pulse and a seed source device with at least one seed pulse laser source arranged for creating at least one seed pulse.
As a further advantage, the laser amplifier apparatus has a variety of applications in science and industry. As an example of scientific applications, the laser amplifier apparatus can be used as a gigawatt laser amplifier for generating energetic ultrafast laser pulses, like the primary-photons required to produce X-rays. Using the technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA), seed pulses stretched in time to e.g., 0.5 ns duration can be amplified up to about 2-joule energy at kHz repetition rates in the inventive laser amplifier apparatus and then compressed to <10 ps duration using a grating compressor. The resulting 100-Gigawatt class laser pulses can be made to collide with counter propagating MeV electron bunches, thus serving as an optical undulator for spawning ultrafast X-ray pulses by Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS).
Further details and advantages of the invention are described in the following with reference to the attached drawings, which schematically show in:
Features of preferred embodiments of the invention are described in the following with exemplary reference to a laser amplifier apparatus to be used as an ICS source for the production X-rays. The implementation of the invention is not restricted to this particular application. For other applications, the geometry and/or dimensions in particular of the resonator beam path, the gain medium, the coupling arrangement and the main cooling system and the cooling device can be modified.
The first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 are arranged with a mutual distance along the optical axis (z-axis). Each of the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 is a curved, preferably parabolic, mirror, e.g., with a 1-meter radius of curvature or similar, with a predetermined focus on the z-axis. Preferably, a light field circulating in the resonator device can be focused in the focal section to a beam diameter in a range from 0.025 mm to 0.060 mm. The first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 are arranged such their foci have a common position on the z-axis, thus providing a common focal section. Preferably, the focal sections coincide in the middle between the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22. The first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 have a diameter of e.g., 10 cm, and they are made of e.g., suprasil or infrasil or a high grade silica glass not absorbing pump light. The distance between the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 is selected in a range from 0.5 to 1 meter, substantially equal to the radius of curvature.
Each of the first and second groups of end mirrors 23, 24 comprises 8 plane mirrors being arranged on a ring-shaped section surrounding the optical axis, in particular a circle, which extends in a plane perpendicular to the optical axis. Each of the end mirrors 23, 24 has a reflective surface facing to one of the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 and having an inclination relative to the optical axis. In the center of each of the first and second groups of end mirrors 23, 24, sufficient space for passing the light field from the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 to the focal section is provided. The end mirrors 23, 24 have a diameter of e.g., 2.5 to 3.5 cm, and they are made of e.g., fused silica or high grade BK7. The distance between the each of the first and second groups of end mirrors 23, 24 and the respective first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 is e.g., equal to the individual mirror's radius of curvature or the sum of the focal lengths.
The first coupler device 31 comprises at least one plane or curved incoupling mirror 32, which has a reflective surface with an inclination, e.g., about 45°, relative to the optical axis such that the pump pulses 3 being directed from an axial side to the resonator device 10, e.g., with an angle of 90° to the optical axis, are deflected to the gain medium 10. The at least one incoupling mirror 32 is arranged such that the reflective surface thereof has a distance from the optical axis, so that the light field travelling between the first and second telescope mirrors 21, 22 can pass the at least one incoupling mirror 32. Preferably, the at least one incoupling mirror 32 is arranged on an incoupling mirror carrier 31A (see
With preferred applications, the first coupler device 31 comprises two incoupling mirrors, including the first mirror 33 (first pump pulse deflector 33, preferably a flat mirror), and the second mirror 32 of pyramidal shape with one of four inclined gold-coated facets 32A, 32B, being arranged for coupling pump pulses 3 from different directions to the resonator device 20, thus allowing in-coupling output of two pump sources to the resonator device 20. Further details of the two incoupling facet mirrors 32A, 32B are described below with reference to
Preferably, each incoupling mirror 32 is combined with a plane or curved first pump pulse deflector 33 directing pump pulses from a pulsed fiber-delivered diode pump source device 60 (not shown in
The first pump deflector 33 is a dielectric coated fused silica or BK7 45-degree laser mirror, e.g., 50 mm in diameter (commercially available), the second pump deflector 35 is a plano concave laser mirror, e.g., 50 mm in diameter (commercially available), the pyramidal incoupling mirror 32 is customized fabricated with cooling channels of oxygen-free copper and four polished gold coated facets 32A, 32B, 34A, 34B in the shape of a pyramid with 70 mm base and 50 mm height at a 44 degree angle to the z-axis and included thru hole along its axis 38 6 mm in diameter to make space for the Fourier plane pinhole.
The second coupler device 36 comprises one of the resonator mirrors, like the end mirror 24 as an outcoupling mirror and a beam splitter plate 37. The beam splitter plate 37 is a polarizing beam splitter passing seed pulses 2 with a center wavelength of 1029.5 nm from a seed pulse source 70, comprising a laser system developed before and described in the background reference [5], to the resonator device 20 and reflecting output pulses 1 with a center wavelength of 1029.5 nm to an application site, like e.g., an interaction area in an experiment or a workpiece to be irradiated.
The housing 50 has a housing wall 51, which is made of aluminum with built in cooling passages and precision machined reference surfaces for the placement of optics and positioning internal hardware. Furthermore, the housing wall 51 includes transparent vacuum sealed windows for transmitting the pump, seed and output pulses and for monitoring purposes. Further details of the housing are shown in
In the resonator device 20, the resonator mirrors 21, 22, 23 and 24 span a folded, telescopic resonator beam path 25 with a multi-pass geometry including the gain medium 10. Firstly, the pump pulses 3 travel via the first coupling device 31 and the seed pulses 2 travel via the second coupling device 36 to the gain medium 10. The pump pulses 3 are absorbed in the gain medium 10 and store energy in metastable states of Yb3+ during the pumping period lasting a few hundred microseconds, a corresponding seed pulse 2 arriving at the end of the pumping period extracts partially the stored energy by the process of stimulated emission. The amplified pulses travel via the first group of end mirrors 23 where they are reflected back to the first telescopic mirror 21, reflected again to the second telescopic mirror 22 and subsequently to the second group of end mirrors 24 and the opposite direction back to the gain medium 10 for another amplification. After 16 passages through the gain medium 10, the end mirror 24 is reached, which simultaneously provides the outcoupling mirror, for a deflection to the beam splitter plate 37. The resonator mirrors 21 to 24 are configured such that emitting sections of the gain medium 10 are imaged in themselves.
In the illustrated embodiment of
With more details, the p-polarized beam of seed pulses 2 from the seed pulse source 70 enters a vacuum side window and is redirected by a prism mirror of switch-yard (24) parallel to the optical axis z reflecting off the first parabolic mirror 22 towards the spatial filter at the confocal plane to hit the second, preferably identical parabolic mirror 21, and after reflection from another flat mirror 23 projects—passing through the hole in the middle of the second parabolic mirror 21—onto an image plane located at the composite disk 10. The reflected beam double-passes the energized disk before it hits a diametrically opposed flat mirror to follow a symmetrical path through the system, projecting a conjugate image plane between steerable HR-coated 45° prisms in the switchyard. This completes a full 4-f round-trip as the transit plane rotates for a second 4-f round-trip and so on four times, enabling 8-passes in a strict image-relay layout. A flat high-reflective mirror and quarter-wave plate in the switchyard send the beam back through the system, adding 8 more passes with an s-polarized beam. Finally, a polarizing beam splitter 37 separates the amplified beam 1 from the input.
The composite gain medium 10 is coated with an antireflective (AR) multilayer dielectric coating on its larger plane surface 13 and a high-reflective (HR) multilayer dielectric coating on its smaller backplane surface 15. Advantageously, this facilitates a lossless two-pass transit of the amplifying pulses into the gain medium 10.
The doped laser active part 11 comprises crystalline YAG doped with Yb, e.g., Yb3+:YAG with 5% Yb, with a disk thickness d1 of e.g., 2 mm and a diameter D1 at the smaller plane surface 15 of e.g., 20 mm. The non-doped part 12 comprises non-doped crystalline YAG, with a thickness d2 of e.g.,
8 mm and a diameter D2 at the larger plane surface 13 of e.g., 36 mm. The outer curved surface 14 is a parabolic surface. It is defined in cylindrical coordinates with origin at the center of the plane surface 13 by z(r)=6.28-1.70*r+0.106*r2, preferably with r≥10 mm and 0≤z(r)≤10 mm.
The doped laser active part 11 and/or the non-doped part 12 of the composite disk gain element preferably is made of multiple bonded sectors 16 (schematically illustrated with dotted lines) and/or sub-disks (different doped layers, not shown), wherein each of the sectors and/or sub-disks is made of a mono-crystalline material having no or negligible crystal defects. As an example, a preferred configuration is found by including two 1 mm active parts, one made of Yb:LuAG and a second made of Yb:YAG integrated to the gain medium as the laser active part 11. Advantageously, the provision of the sub-disks allows to modify the overall gain profile of the gain medium 10.
The gain medium 10 preferably is manufactured by growing of mono-crystalline materials with one of available growing methods, testing the crystallinity of the grown mono-crystalline materials, selecting sections with no or negligible crystal defects, cutting the selected sections with adapted shapes of disk sectors and/or sub-disks, and bonding and surface finishing of the selected sections as disk sectors 16 and/or sub-disks for providing the composite gain medium 10. Bonding is obtained e.g., by the commercially available method of Adhesive Free Bonding, alternatively, other methods involving contacting the surfaces free of voids under heat and pressure such that they become strongly adhered under van der Waals forces. Accordingly, a large gain medium can be provided with a zero or negligible crystal defect concentration as obtained by available growing methods in limited volume portions.
Preferably, the crystal orientation of the non-doped part 12 is different than the doped laser active part 11 as illustrated in
For instance, the doped laser active part 11 is cut normal to the crystal axis [111], and the non-doped part 12 is cut normal to the crystal axis [112].
The basic principle of operation the laser amplifier apparatus 100 using a composite disk gain medium with a curved outer surface is described in [4], which is introduced to the present specification by reference, in particular with regard to the outer shape design of the gain medium and the pulse amplification therein. Supported by its geometry, the composite gain medium 10 used according to the invention can store a significantly higher amount of optical energy than other disk-shaped gain-elements of comparable aperture. In the present embodiment the above exemplary dimensions allow the storage of 2 to 4 joules before the effects of Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) becomes limiting.
The housing 50 accommodates the resonator device, the gain medium, parts of the cooling system 40 and the cooling device 40A and parts of the coupling arrangement (see e.g.,
Components of the housing 50 are assembled by blocks that come together with built in cooling channels designed to remove the heat generated after the absorption of the excess fluorescence and in keeping an isothermal environment thus avoiding mechanical deformations and instabilities due to unrestrained heating. With more details, the blocks of the housing wall 51 comprise a first telescopic mirror support section 53, a second telescopic mirror support section 54, a first end mirror support section 55, a second end mirror support section 56 and an incoupling mirror support section 57.
Each of the first and second telescopic mirror support sections 53, 54 carry one of the first and second telescopic mirrors 21, 22 (see
Each of the first and second end mirror support section 55, 56 carry one of first and second groups of end mirrors 23, 24 (see
The central incoupling mirror support section 57 carries the incoupling mirror carrier 31A of the incoupling mirrors 32A, 32B on an inner side of the housing wall 51 and the pump pulse deflectors 33 on an outer side of the housing wall 51 (see
The housing 50 is a precision component designed using CAD programs and machined of suitable materials such as aluminum and/or steel. By the above support function, the housing 50 provides reference surfaces that register optical elements at their prescribed positions numerically calculated using ray-tracing programs and within specified tolerances achievable by CNC machining. By the pressure tight materials, the housing 50 creates an evacuated environment improving the efficiency of cryogenic operation, and keeping optical surfaces dust-free and, convenient for the propagation high intensity beams void of non-linear and thermally induced gas turbulence effects. Furthermore, the housing 50 provides internal containment surfaces which can be treated to effectively absorb and diffusely reflect any excess fluorescence generated by the gain medium during operation.
Further details of the first coupler device 31 are shown in
The incoupling mirrors 32A, 32B, 34A and 34B are arranged on the incoupling mirror carrier 31A, which is a pyramid-shape optic block made of e.g., copper and located at the common focal section between the first and second telescopic mirrors 21, 22. The mirror carrier 31A has the through-hole 38 being aligned with optical axis of the resonator device 20 and in coincidence with the beam path between the first and second telescopic mirrors 21, 22. The internal through-hole 38 provides a spatial filter for the multi-pass amplification. The incoupling mirrors 32A, 32B, 34A and 34B are provided by surfaces of the mirror carrier 31A plated with a reflective material, like e.g., gold.
The four gold-plated surfaces serve to direct the optical power from the two 4-kW fiber delivered diode pump sources 61, 62 towards the gain medium 10 (see
The cryogenic chiller block 72 cools the gain-assembly and is capable of rejecting a heat-load of 200 Watts at 90 K from a 38 mm diameter cold finger. The cryogenic chiller block 72 comprises a commercial cryogenic chiller (e.g., manufactured by CryoSpectra GmbH). The gain-assembly is designed to transfer quantum-defect heat evolved in operation of the laser amplifier apparatus while keeping the gain medium peak temperature preferably below 120 K in order to harvest the engineering leverage resulting from enhanced thermo-mechanical, thermo-optical and spectroscopic properties attained by the gain medium below that temperature.
Practical embodiments of the inventive laser amplifier apparatus have been tested with the following results. Laboratory embodiments demonstrated diffraction limited performance of 1 Joule at up to 300 Hz with 20 ns narrow band pulses, up to 1.5 or even 2 Joules at 500 Hz, when using chirped-pulse seed pulses. When combined with the Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) technique, the inventive laser amplifier apparatus produces compressed 1-Joule laser pulses of <5 ps duration, thus providing e.g., an ICS source for use in the production X-rays. With more details, with the seed pulse input of about 50 to 60 mJ the following table summarizes the performance:
While the laser amplifier apparatus has been operated according to the above results with diffraction limited performance that is regularly obtained at up to 1 J per pulse at 300 Hz, extracting up to 2 Joules per pulse is possible as well. Experimental data show that the optical-to-optical efficiency surpasses 50% (output to input energy efficiency). A beam diameter in the near-field of about 18 mm was obtained and exhibits a supergaussian appearance indicative of saturated extraction. The far-field shows a near diffraction-limited spot on top of a dim scatter background. The measured laser output power and pointing have shown a high pointing stability which, even can be improved by enclosing the beam path from a lab environment and an active stabilizer. The average output power stability at repetition rates lower than 300 Hz was found to be ±0.3% and remained flat for up to 3 hours in several tests.
The features of the invention disclosed in the above description, the drawings and the claims can be of significance individually, in combination or sub-combination for the implementation of the invention in its different embodiments.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21174282.0 | May 2021 | EP | regional |
