No description available.

A low threshold, efficient optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on the material Potassium Titanyl Phosphate (KTP) and pumped by a diode-laser-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YLF laser has been demonstrated and investigated. This all-solid-state device was operated in a non-critical phase match (NCPM) geometry converting the 1 mum pump light to output wavelengths of 1.54 and 3.28 mum, and has potential as an 'eyesafe' laser source with scaling to higher powers. A major contributing factor to the success of this work was the extension of the steady state theory of the singly resonant OPO to include the build-up time effects that are dominant in the pulsed regime. A number of diode pumped lasers were constructed, allowing a comparison to be made between side- and end-pumping geometries, and also between the materials Nd:YAG and Nd:YLF. The end-pumping geometry in conjunction with the higher absorption and longer upper state lifetime in Nd:YLF made it the design of choice for the case of low pump pulse energies (~ 12 mJ at 797 nm). Anamorphic expansion of the laser mode in the plane parallel to the diode laser junction was employed to achieve TEM00 operation of this laser. Subsequent Q-switching with a polariser and LiNbO3 Pockels cell combination produced 2.2 mJ at 1.047 mum in an 18 ns pulse. Investigation of the dynamic loss of the Q-switch (which is due to the elasto-optic effect) allowed improvement of laser performance. The established model for a pulsed singly resonant OPO which describes the case for a plane-plane resonator was inappropriate in this work and so the steady state focused beam theory was extended to include time dependence. Fair agreement was found between the computer model and the experimental results, where the effects of pump and signal focusing, and output coupling were investigated. The high conversion efficiency of 30% for converting the 1 mum pump light to the eyesafe wavelength of 1.54 mum is superior to the present alternative source of the Er:glass laser. Pump energy thresholds of less than 0.5 mJ were obtained, along with internal conversions approaching 50 %. An empirical relation describing pump depletion was derived which showed good agreement with experiment. A high resolution investigation of the spectral properties of the OPO identified the roles of resonant reflection and doubly resonant behaviour on the mode structure of the output. The former suggests a way in which single mode operation could be achieved without the use of additional intracavity elements, or a seeding source.

I den här avhandlingen visas hur lasrar och optiska parametriska oscillatorer (OPO:er) kan styras spektralt med hjälp av volymbraggitter. Volymbraggitter utgörs av ett periodiskt varierande brytningsindex som skrivits i ett fototermorefraktivt glas. Gittret reflekterar därmed en specifik våglängd som bestäms av perioden hos modulationen, och kan tillverkas med smal bandbredd och hög reflektans beroende på modulationens längd och styrka. En teoretisk modell har utvecklats för reflektiva volymbraggitters egenskaper om den infallande strålen har en större vinkelspridning än gittrets vinkeltolerans. Detta kan bl.a. inträffa i en laserkavitet där gittret används vid snett infall, och en teoretisk beskrivning är därför ett viktigt redskap för att kunna designa sådana lasrar. Spektral kontroll av ett antal fasta tillståndslasrar med hjälp av volymbraggitter har i försök påvisats, och lasern har därvid både kunnat avstämmas spektralt samtidigt som en avsmalnad spektral bandbredd erhållits. Lasern kan göras väldigt enkel genom att byta ut en av kavitetsspeglarna mot gittret. Tack vare gittrets goda spektrala urvalsmekanism kan lasern låsas var som helst i förstärkningsspektrumet. De tekniker och lasrar som demonstrerats experimentellt är följande: Lasring i en enda longitudinell mod erhölls både för en diodpumpad ErYb:glas-laser vid 1553 nm med ca 10 mW:s effekt och 90 kHz linjebredd samt för en diodpumpad Nd:GdVO4-laser vid 1066 nm med 0.85 W:s effekt. Lasrarnas våglängd kunde avstämmas över större delen av gittrets bandbredd på ca. 30 GHz. Genom att bygga Nd:GdVO4-lasern med en monolitisk kavitet kunde även en spektralt synnerligen stabil laser erhållas med under 40 MHz bandbredd. Tillämpningar för dessa lasrar finns både inom spektroskopi samt som källor för intrakavitetsfördubbling till synliga våglängder. Genom att använda gittret som inkopplingsspegel går det även att framställa lasrar med en väldigt låg kvantdefekt, som därför får minskad värmeutveckling i lasermediet. Detta medger i sin tur att lasrar med höga medeleffekter kan konstrueras, som kan användas bl.a. för olika former av materialbearbetning. I detta arbete har lasrar med låg kvantdefekt byggts med Yb:KYW som laserkristall; både en laser vid 998 nm på 3.6 W som diodpumpades vid 982 nm och med en bandbredd på 10 GHz, samt en laser vid 990 nm på 70 mW som pumpades av en Ti:safir-laser vid 980 nm. Om volymbraggittret används vid snett infall kan den reflekterade våglängden avstämmas genom att gittret roteras. Denna princip användes i en diodpumpad Yb:KYW-laser till att erhålla en brett avstämbar laservåglängd mellan 996 nm och 1048 nm med en maximal effekt på 3 W och med 10 GHz bandbredd. Genom att placera gittret i en retroreflektor kunde avstämningen göras utan att kaviteten behövde linjeras om. En laser som denna kan exempelvis användas för olika typer av materialkarakterisering och spektroskopi. Med optiska parametriska oscillatorer (OPO:er) kan laserljus omvandlas till nya våglängder. Därmed kan OPO:er användas som koherenta ljuskällor där inga effektiva lasrar existerar. OPO-processen kan göras effektiv om en pulsad pump används, och den genererade våglängden kan enkelt styras med hjälp av periodiskt polade (PP) icke-linjära kristaller, såsom PP-KTiOPO4, som användes i detta arbete. En nackdel med OPO:er är att i allmänhet är den genererade signalen tämligen spektralt bredbandig. Signalens bandbredd kan dock avsmalnas betydligt om ett spektralt filter såsom ett volymbraggitter används. Genom att byta ut en av speglarna i OPO-kaviteten mot gittret kan utformningen av OPO:n göras väldigt enkel. I en OPO med en signalvåglängd på 975 nm kunde en avsmalning av bandbredden till 50 GHz påvisas med hjälp av ett braggitter. Detta motsvarar 20 gångers minskning jämfört med om en konventionell spegel används. Som mest erhölls en pulsenergi på 0.34 mJ i signalen. Genom att rotera gittret kunde våglängden avstämmas 21 THz. För att förenkla avstämningen konstruerades även en OPO med gittret i en retroreflektor, samtidigt som kaviteten var av ringtyp. I denna OPO vid en våglängd på 760 nm och med en pulsenergi i signalen på upp till 0.42 mJ erhölls en bandbredd på 130 GHz och ett avstämningsområde på 2.6 THz. Slutligen har en OPO vid 1 µm konstruerats med ett gitter med en transversellt varierande period, s.k. chirp. Därigenom kan våglängden avstämmas väldigt enkelt genom att bara flytta gittret transversellt. En tillämpning av dessa OPO:er är såsom ljuskällor i olika typer av laserbaserade sensorer, i vilka en specifik och stabil våglängd erfordras. Dessutom kan de smalbandiga OPO:erna användas som första steg i ickelinjära processer i flera steg. Smal bandbredd är då viktig för effektiviteten i den påföljande ickelinjära omvandlingen i nästa steg. / The object of this thesis is to explore the usage of reflective volume Bragg gratings in photo-thermo-refractive glass for spectral control of solid-state lasers and optical parametric oscillators, to build tunable and narrowband coherent light-sources. In order to provide a design tool for use of reflective volume Bragg gratings in laser cavities, a theory was developed that describes the performance of the gratings if the incident beam has finite width with an angular spectrum that is comparable to the grating's angular acceptance bandwidth. Spectral control was demonstrated in a number of cw solid-state lasers, in terms of narrow bandwidth and tunable wavelength, by use of a volume Bragg grating. The design could be made very simple by replacing one of the cavity mirrors with the grating. Thanks to the grating's strong spectral selectivity, the lasers could be locked anywhere in the gain spectrum, while the laser bandwidth was substantially narrowed. In particular, the following lasers were demonstrated: Single-longitudinal-mode lasing in ErYb:glass at 1553 nm with 90 kHz linewidth and in Nd:GdVO4 at 1066 nm with a linewidth below 40 MHz. Very low quantum defect in Yb:KYW lasers, diode-pumped at 982 nm and lasing at 998 nm with 10 GHz bandwidth, as well as Ti:sapphire-pumped at 980 nm and lasing at 990 nm. An Yb:KYW laser that was widely tunable from 996 nm to 1048 nm with 10 GHz bandwidth. In nanosecond pulsed optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) based on periodically poled KTiOPO4, narrowband operation and a tunable wavelength were demonstrated with a volume Bragg grating as a cavity mirror. At a signal wavelength of 975 nm, the bandwidth was 50 GHz, a reduction by 20 times compared to using a conventional mirror. A tuning range of 21 THz was also demonstrated. In another OPO at a signal wavelength of 760 nm, a ring-cavity design was demonstrated to provide convenient tuning. A tuning range of 2.6 THz and a bandwidth of 130 GHz was shown. Also, narrowband operation and tuning in an OPO around 1 µm was demonstrated by use of a transversely chirped Bragg grating. / QC 20100813

A compressão nas flutuações da diferença de intensidades dos feixes sinal e complementar gerados por um OPO acima do limiar foi medida já há algum tempo e constituiu um dos principais interesses nestes sistemas. Emaranhamento entre esses feixes, entretanto, ainda não foi experimentalmente demonstrado em circunstâncias normais de operação acima do limiar (feixes não-degenerados em frequência). Usando um critério de não-separabilidade entre sistemas contínuos, buscamos verificar se a variância de um par de operadores tipo EPR, a diferençaa de intensidades e a soma das fases de sinal e complementar, pode violar uma desigualdade suficiente para caracterizar emaranhamento. Após um estudo teórico, verificamos que isto pode de fato ocorrer numa região de parâmetros experimentalmente acessível. A medida não foi realizada até hoje devido à dificuldade em se medir quadratura fase, o que, neste caso, exigiria o uso de osciladores locais em frequências distintas. Motivados por isso, propomos uma montagem experimental que utiliza cavidades óticas para projetar ruído de fase em ruído de intensidade, tornando dessa forma acessível a medida de anticorrelação de fase entre sinal e complementar. Realizamos nossa proposta em caráter preliminar, obtendo resultados encorajadores, embora não conclusivos, que indicam a existência de emaranhamento. / Squeezing in the intensity difference of signal and idler beams generated by an OPO operating above threshold was observed some time ago and presented one of the major attraction of this system. Entanglement between the macroscopic fields, however, has not yet been demonstrated in normal operation conditions above threshold (non-degenerate beams). Using a non-separability criterion for continuous variables, we investigate whether the variances of a pair of EPR-like operators, difference of intensities and sum of phases of signal and idler, can violate a Bell-type inequality and hence characterize entanglement. After a theoretical study, we verified that entanglement can occur in an experimentally accessible region of parameters. This measurement was not performed to date owing to the difficulty of measuring the phase quadratures, which usually requires the use of local oscillators with slightly different frequencies. Motivated by this, we propose an experimental setup that uses optical cavities to rotate the noise ellipse of each beam, projecting phase noise into intensity noise, thus allowing the experimental access to the phase quadratures. We preliminarly implemented our proposal and obtained promising although not conclusive results, that indicate entanglement.

A compressão nas flutuações da diferença de intensidades dos feixes sinal e complementar gerados por um OPO acima do limiar foi medida já há algum tempo e constituiu um dos principais interesses nestes sistemas. Emaranhamento entre esses feixes, entretanto, ainda não foi experimentalmente demonstrado em circunstâncias normais de operação acima do limiar (feixes não-degenerados em frequência). Usando um critério de não-separabilidade entre sistemas contínuos, buscamos verificar se a variância de um par de operadores tipo EPR, a diferençaa de intensidades e a soma das fases de sinal e complementar, pode violar uma desigualdade suficiente para caracterizar emaranhamento. Após um estudo teórico, verificamos que isto pode de fato ocorrer numa região de parâmetros experimentalmente acessível. A medida não foi realizada até hoje devido à dificuldade em se medir quadratura fase, o que, neste caso, exigiria o uso de osciladores locais em frequências distintas. Motivados por isso, propomos uma montagem experimental que utiliza cavidades óticas para projetar ruído de fase em ruído de intensidade, tornando dessa forma acessível a medida de anticorrelação de fase entre sinal e complementar. Realizamos nossa proposta em caráter preliminar, obtendo resultados encorajadores, embora não conclusivos, que indicam a existência de emaranhamento. / Squeezing in the intensity difference of signal and idler beams generated by an OPO operating above threshold was observed some time ago and presented one of the major attraction of this system. Entanglement between the macroscopic fields, however, has not yet been demonstrated in normal operation conditions above threshold (non-degenerate beams). Using a non-separability criterion for continuous variables, we investigate whether the variances of a pair of EPR-like operators, difference of intensities and sum of phases of signal and idler, can violate a Bell-type inequality and hence characterize entanglement. After a theoretical study, we verified that entanglement can occur in an experimentally accessible region of parameters. This measurement was not performed to date owing to the difficulty of measuring the phase quadratures, which usually requires the use of local oscillators with slightly different frequencies. Motivated by this, we propose an experimental setup that uses optical cavities to rotate the noise ellipse of each beam, projecting phase noise into intensity noise, thus allowing the experimental access to the phase quadratures. We preliminarly implemented our proposal and obtained promising although not conclusive results, that indicate entanglement.

This master thesis presents an experimental design of a laser gyroscope based on a stabilized fiber optical parametric oscillator frequency comb and the results of testing of the proposed design. Before going into the experimental details, a background for different types of gyroscopes is discussed. This new laser gyroscope design is made up of only polarization maintaining (PM) fiber and PM fiber components. By using only fiber and fiber components, we were able to minimize size, weight, and alignment issues that are typical in bulk optical designs for OPO's and gyroscopes. The fiber-based OPO produces counter propagating ultrafast pulses that overlap only twice in the cavity, resulting in a beatnote signal when combined outside of the laser cavity. A mode-locked laser is used as a pump source so the lock-in effect (or deadband region) is avoided for the experiment. The drift of this beatnote signal represents the rotation sensitivity of the experimental setup. Issues seen in past iterations, such as stability of mode-locked pump source and beatnote drift overtime due to environmental variables, have been reduced in this experiment. This has been done by comprising the entire pump source of PM components, and by placing the entire setup in an insulating box to minimize acoustic and temperature fluctuations. By creating a frequency comb and locking the laser gyroscope to an optical clock, this experiment can be used for very precise rotation sensing in comparison to other gyro designs currently available.

<p>This thesis explores the use of nonlinear crystals from theKTiOPO₄(KTP) family with the aim to extend the possibleapplications for laser sources and to gain more knowledge aboutthe material’s benefits and limits. The work focussed onoptical parametric oscillators (OPOs) and optical parametricamplifiers (OPAs), which employ second order nonlinearprocesses. Both devices transfer energy from a laser beam at aparticular wavelength to a different wavelength, which istuneable. In OPOs two new beams at different wavelengths aregenerated, whereas in OPAs an existing weak beam is amplified.The essential part of these devices, which enables theoccurrence of the energy conversion, is a nonlinear crystal. Inthis work the ferroelectric crystals KTP and RbTiOPO₄(RTP) have been utilized.</p><p>By modifying the material’s structure,quasi-phasematching can be obtained, which is a crucialrequirement for achieving efficient energy conversion betweenthe incident and the generated waves. The fabrication ofquasi-phasematched crystals is dependent on the controlledreversion of the material’s spontaneous polarisation,which is accomplished by periodic electric field poling.</p><p>Nanosecond pulses of more than 200 kW were generated in the“eye-safe”region by employing a double pass OPA.Small signal gains exceeding 75 dB were obtained for anessentially diffraction limited beamwithout spectralbroadening of the seed. By subsequent signal coupling intofibres substantial broadening was accomplished. A systematicmeasurement series of several RTP crystals allowed us toaccurately determine the wavelength and temperature dispersionof the refractive index, which are two essential requirementsfor further employment of this material. The OPOs based on RTPwere widely tuneable by controlling the temperature. It wasalso concluded that RTP behaves similar to KTP in parametricdevices, thus being a material, which can sustain high powers,possesses large nonlinear coefficients and can operate in abroad wavelength region.Efficient Raman oscillation concurrent with parametricoscillation was observed and analysed in several KTP samples.This gave further insight into the processes taking placeinside the material when performing as a frequency converter,if the generated idler lies in the absorption band.This thesis also covers the investigation of afemtosecond optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier.Temporally stretched seed pulses were amplified to 85 µJ,resulting in a gain above 60 dB, and subsequent recompressionresulted in 270 fs pulses.</p><p><b>Keywords:</b>nonlinear optics, KTiOPO₄, optical parametric oscillator, optical parametricamplifier, RbTiOPO₄, quasi-phasematching, electric field poling,stimulated Raman scattering.</p>

A compact optical terahertz (THz) source was demonstrated based on an efficient high-repetition-rate doubly resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO) around 2 mu m with two type-II phase-matched KTP crystals in the walk-off compensated configuration. The KTP OPO was intracavity pumped by an acousto-optical (AO) Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser and emitted two tunable wavelengths near degeneracy. The tuning range extended continuously from 2.068 mu m to 2.191 mu m with a maximum output power of 3.29 W at 24 kHz, corresponding to an optical-optical conversion efficiency (from 808 nm to 2 mu m) of 20.69%. The stable pulsed dual-wavelength operation provided an ideal pump source for generating terahertz wave of micro-watt level by the difference frequency generation (DFG) method. A 7.84-mm-long periodically inverted quasi-phase-matched (QPM) GaAs crystal with 6 periods was used to generate a terahertz wave, the maximum voltage of 180 mV at 1.244 THz was acquired by a 4.2-K Si bolometer, corresponding to average output power of 0.6 mu W and DFG conversion efficiency of 4.32x10(-7). The acceptance bandwidth was found to be larger than 0.35 THz (FWHM). As to the 15-mm-long GaSe crystal used in the type-II collinear DFG, a tunable THz source ranging from 0.503 THz to 3.63 THz with the maximum output voltage of 268 mV at 1.65 THz had been achieved, and the corresponding average output power and DFG conversion efficiency were 0.9 mu W and 5.86x10(-7) respectively. This provides a potential practical palm-top tunable THz sources for portable applications.

Nesta dissertação, descreveremos as primeiras medidas de ruído quântico em um oscilador paramétrico ótico (OPO) bombeado em 780 nm, construído no nosso laboratório. Esse OPO servirá de fonte de estados não clássicos da luz para interação com átomos de rubídio. Faremos uma revisão da teoria clássica do OPO: o bombeamento de um cristal não linear inserido dentro de uma cavidade ótica, produzindo dois feixes intensos de luz (sinal e complementar) com cores distintas. Calcularemos as expressões para o limiar de oscilação, potências de saída dos feixes convertidos e compararemos as principais diferenças entre OPOs com cristais do tipo I e tipo II. Analisaremos a descrição quântica do OPO, calcularemos os espectros de ruído para as quadraturas do bombeio refletido e para as quadraturas dos feixes gêmeos. Veremos que o OPO gera feixes com correlações quânticas, como o emaranhamento tripartido, entres os três feixes envolvidos no processo não linear. O cristal não linear utilizado no nosso experimento é um PPKTP tipo I. Ajustando a temperatura do cristal, podemos gerar feixes próximos da degenerescência até uma diferença de comprimentos de onda de aproximadamente 350 nm. A compressão de ruído quântico observado na diferença das amplitudes dos feixes sinal e complementar é 44%(-2.5 dB). O próximo passo é a implementação da técnica da rotação da elipse de ruído por cavidades óticas, para medir os ruídos de fase dos três campos . Fazendo a verificação do emaranhamento tripartido e determinando a sua dependência com o ruído de fônons inserido pelo cristal, a caracterização do OPO estará completa. A caracterização deste OPO é um passo importante nos objetivos do LMCAL, que é realizar a troca de informação entre luz e átomos em uma rede quântica. / In this dissertation, we will describe the first measurements of quantum noise in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped at 780 nm, built at our laboratory. This OPO will be the source of nonclassical states of light to interact with rubidium atoms. We will review the classical OPO theory: the pumping of a nonlinear crystal inside a cavity producing two bright light beams (signal and idler) with different colors. We will calculate the power threshold, output power of the converted beams and compare the main differences between type-I and type-II OPO.We will analyze the quantum description of the OPO, and calculate the noise spectrum of the reflected pump quadratures and for the twin beams quadratures. We will observe that the OPO generates beams with quantum correlations, for example, the tripartite entanglement among the three fields involved in the nonlinear phenomena. The nonlinear crystal used in our experiment is a PPKTP type-I. By adjusting the temperature of the crystal, we can generate beams from close to degenerate regime to a difference between them of 350 nm. The squeezing of quantum noise measured in the amplitude quadratures subtraction for signal and idler is 44%(-2.5 dB). The next step is to implement the method of ellipse noise rotation by an optical cavity, to be able to measure phase quadratures of the three different fields. By verifying the tripartite entanglement and determining the phonon noise due to the crystal, our source characterization will be complete. The characterization of this OPO is an important step in LMCAL goals, which is to realize exchange of information between light and atoms in a quantum network.

Realizamos neste trabalho a construção de um Oscilador Paramétrico Ótico triplamente ressonante bombeado por um laser de Titânio Safira sintonizável na faixa entre 730 nm e 800 nm com potencial de extensão. Os feixes emitidos possuem comprimento de onda em torno de 1560 nm que estão na janela de transmissão das fibras óticas, com potência de saída máxima em torno de 420 mW e um limiar de oscilação mínimo de 53(3) mW quando bombeado por 780.126(0.03) nm. Para os feixes gêmeos a finesse da cavidade vale F=155 e as perdas intracavidade 0.05(0.1)%, permitindo, em tese, uma compressão de ruído próxima a 97(6)%. Esse OPO foi construído com o propósito de que o utilizemos como fonte geradora de estados triplamente emaranhados em um sistema de armazenamento e transferência de informação quântica quando em interação com um sistema atômico de rubídio. Medimos a potência de limiar e a eficiência de conversão para cada comprimento de onda do feixe de bombeio utilizado para caracterizar o sistema. / At the present work we conducted the construction of a triply resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator pumped by a Titanium-Sapphire laser, which is tunable between 730 nm to 800 nm. The emitted beams have wavelength around 1560 nm, in the optical fibers transmission window, maximum output of 420 mW and minimum oscillation threshold of 53(3) mW. For the twin beams, the cavity finesse is F=155 mW and the intracavity losses are 0.05(0.10)%, allowing, in principle, a noise compression close to 97(5)%. The present OPO was built having the purpose of being used as source of triply entangled states in a system for quantum information storage and transfer, while interacting with an atomic rubidium system. We measured the power threshold and conversion efficiency for each pump beam wavelength that we used to characterize the system.