This thesis outlines the high intensity tabletop attosecond extreme ultraviolet laser source at the Institute for the Frontier of Attosecond Science and Technology Laboratory. First, a unique Ti:Sapphire chirped pulse amplifier laser system that delivers 14 fs pulses with 300 mJ energy at a 10 Hz repetition rate was designed and built. The broadband spectrum extending from 700 nm to 900 nm was obtained by seeding a two stage Ti:Sapphire chirped pulse power amplifier with mJ-level white light pulses from a gas filled hollow core fiber. It is the highest energy level ever achieved by a broadband pulse in a chirped pulse amplifier up to the current date. Second, using this laser as a driving laser source, the generalized double optical gating method is employed to generate isolated attosecond pulses. Detailed gate width analysis of the ellipticity dependent pulse were performed. Calculation of electron light interaction dynamics on the atomic level was carried out to demonstrate the mechanism of isolated pulse generation. Third, a complete diagnostic apparatus was built to extract and analyze the generated attosecond pulse in spectral domain. The result confirms that an extreme ultraviolet super continuum supporting 230 as isolated attosecond pulses at 35 eV was generated using the generalized double optical gating technique. The extreme ultraviolet pulse energy was ∼100 nJ at the exit of the argon gas target.

The focus of this dissertation is the study of measuring light not by energy transfer as is done with a standard photodetector such as a photographic film or charged coupled device, but rather by the forces which the light exerts on matter. In this manner we are able to replace or complement standard photodetector-based light detection techniques. One key attribute of force detection is that it permits the measurement of light over a very large range of frequencies including those which are difficult to access with standard photodetectors, such as the far IR and THz. The dissertation addresses the specific phenomena associated with optically induced force (OIF) detection in the near-field where light can be detected with high spatial resolution close to material interfaces. This is accomplished using a scanning probe microscope (SPM), which has the advantage of already having a sensitive force detector integrated into the system. The two microscopies we focus on here are atomic force microscopy (AFM) and nearfield scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). By detecting surface-induced forces or force gradients applied to a very small size probe (~ 20 nm diameter), AFM measures the force acting on the probe as a function of the tip-sample separation or extracts topography information. Typical NSOM utilizes either a small aperture (~ 50 150  nm diameter) to collect and/or radiate light in a small volume or a small scatterer (~ 20 nm diameter) in order to scatter light in a very small volume. This light is then measured with an avalanche photodiode or a photomultiplier tube. These two modalities may be combined in order to simultaneously map the local intensity distribution and topography of a sample of interest. A critical assumption made when performing iv such a measurement is that the distance regulation, which is based on surface induced forces, and the intensity distribution are independent. In other words, it is assumed that the presence of optical fields does not influence the AFM operation. However, it is well known that light exerts forces on the matter with which it interacts. This light-induced force may affect the atomic force microscope tip-sample distance regulation mechanism or, by modifying the tip, it may also indirectly influence the distance between the probe and the surface. This dissertation will present evidence that the effect of optically induced forces is strong enough to be observed when performing typical NSOM measurements. This effect is first studied on common experimental situations to show where and how these forces manifest themselves. Afterward, several new measurement approaches are demonstrated, which take advantage of this additional information to either complement or replace standard NSOM detection. For example, the force acting on the probe can be detected while simultaneously extracting the tip-sample separation, a measurement characteristic which is typically difficult to obtain. Moreover, the standard field collection with an aperture NSOM and the measurement of optically induced forces can be operated simultaneously. Thus, complementary information about the field intensity and its gradient can be, for the first time, collected with a single probe. Finally, a new scanning probe modality, multi-frequency NSOM (MF-NSOM), will be demonstrated. In this approach, the tuning fork is driven electrically at one frequency to perform a standard tip-sample distance regulation to follow the sample topography and optically driven at another frequency to measure the optically induced force. This novel technique provides a viable alternative to standard NSOM scanning and should be of particular interest in the long wavelength regime, e.g. far IR and THz.

There is increasing interest in the generation of very short laser pulses, even down to attosecond (10-18 s) durations. Laser systems with femtosecond pulse durations are needed for these applications. For many of these applications, positioning of the maximum electric field within the pulse envelope can affect the outcome. The peak of the electric field relative to the peak of the pulse is called the Carrier Envelope Phase (CEP). Controlling the position of the electric field becomes more important when pulse duration approaches single-cycle. This thesis focuses on the stabilization of a quasi-single-cycle laser facility. Improvements to this already-established laser facility, HERACLES (High Energy, Repetition rate Adjustable, Carrier-Locked-to-Envelope System) described in this thesis include a stabilized pump line and the improvement in CEP stabilization electronics. HERACLES is built upon an Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) architecture. This architecture uses Optical Parametric Amplification (OPA) as the gain material to increase the output energy of the system. OPA relies on a nonlinear process to generate high gain (106 ) with ultra-wide bandwidth. Instabilities in the OPA driving pump energy can create dynamically fluctuations in the final OPCPA output energy. To reduce these fluctuations two key upgrades were implemented on the pump beam. Both were major improvements in the stability. Firstly, an improved regenerative amplifier design reduced beam pointing fluctuations. Secondly, the addition of a pump monitoring system with feedback-control eliminated long-term power drifts. Both enhanced the OPA pulse-to-pulse and long-term stability. iv To improve the stability in measuring CEP drifts, modification of the feedback electronics was needed. The modification consisted of integrating noise reduction electronics. This novel noise reducer uses a similar process to a super-heterodyne receiver. The noise reducer resulted in 60 dB reduction of out-of-band noise. This led to increased signal quality with cleaner amplification of weaker signals. The enhanced signal quality led to more reliable long-term locking. The synthetically increased signal-to-noise ratio allows locking of the CEP frequency below the typically requirements. This integration allows relaxed constraints on the laser systems. The optics and electronics of a high-power, quasi-single cycle laser facility were improved. This thesis included the stabilization of the pump line and the stabilization of the CEP. This work allows for new long-duration experiments.

High power thulium fiber lasers are useful for a number of applications in both continuous-wave and pulsed operating regimes. The use of thulium as a dopant has recently gained interest due to its large bandwidth, possibility of high efficiency, possibility of high power and long wavelength ~1.8 – 2.1 μm. The longer emission wavelength of Tm-doped fiber lasers compared to Yb- and/or Er-doped fiber lasers creates the possibility for higher peak power operation due to the larger nonlinear thresholds and reduced nonlinear phase accumulation. One primary interest in Tm-doped fiber lasers has been to scale to high average powers; however, the thermal and mechanical constraints of the fiber limit the average power out of a single-fiber aperture. One method to overcome the constraints of a single laser aperture is to spectrally combine the output from multiple lasers operating with different wavelengths into a single beam. In this thesis, results will be presented on the development of three polarized 100 W level laser systems that were wavelength stabilized for SBC. In addition to the development of the laser channels, the beams were combined using bandpass filters to achieve a single near diffraction-limited output. Concurrently, with the development of high average power systems there is an increasing interest in femotosecond pulse generation and amplification using Tm- doped fiber lasers. High peak power sources operating near 2 µm have the potential to be efficient pump sources to generate mid-infrared light through supercontinuum generation or optical parametric oscillators. This thesis focuses on the development of a laser system utilizing chirped pulse amplification (CPA) to achieve record level energies and peak powers for ultrashort pulses in Tm-doped fiber. iv A mode-locked oscillator was built to generate femtosecond pulses operating with pJ energy. Pulses generated in the mode-locked oscillator were limited to low energies and contained spectral modulation due to the mode-locking mechanism, therefore, a Raman-soliton self-frequency shift (Raman-SSFS) amplifier was built to amplify pulses, decrease the pulse duration, and spectrally clean pulses. These pulses were amplified using chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in which, limiting factors for amplification were examined and a high peak power system was built. The primary limiting factors of CPA in fibers include the nonlinear phase accumulation, primarily through self-phase modulation (SPM), and gain narrowing. Gain narrowing was examined by temporally stretching pulses in a highly nonlinear fiber that both stretched the pulse duration and broadened the spectrum. A high peak power CPA system amplified pulses to 1 µJ energy with 300 fs compressed pulses, corresponding to a peak power >3 MW. High peak power pulses were coupled into highly nonlinear fibers to generate supercontinuum

Thulium based fiber lasers represent a promising alternative for pulse energy scaling and high peak power generation with ytterbium based systems at 1µm. Advantages of thulium arise from the operation at longer wavelengths and a large gain bandwidth (1.8-2.1µm). Nonlinear effects, such as self phase modulation, stimulated Raman scattering and stimulated Brillouin scattering generally limit peak power scaling in fiber lasers. The longer wavelength of thulium fiber lasers and large mode field areas can significantly increase the nonlinear thresholds. Compared to 1µm systems, thulium fiber lasers enable single mode guidance for two times larger mode field diameter in step index fibers. Similar behavior is expected for index guiding thulium doped photonic crystal fibers. In this work a novel thulium doped rod type photonic crystal fiber design with large mode field diameter ( > 50µm) was first characterized in CW-lasing configuration and then utilized as final amplifier in a two stage master oscillator power amplifier. The system generated MW-level peak power at 6.5ns pulse duration and 1kHz repetition rate. This world record performance exemplifies the potential of thulium fiber lasers to supersede ytterbium based systems for very high peak power generation in the future. As part of this work a computer model for the transient simulation of pulsed amplification in thulium based fiber lasers was developed. The simulations are in good agreement with the experimental results. The computer model can be used for efficient optimization of future thulium based fiber amplifier designs.

The invention of chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) in 1985 led to a tremendous increase in obtainable laser pulse peak intensities. Since then, several table-top, Ti:sapphire-based CPA systems exceeding the 100 TW-level with more than 10 W average power have been developed and several systems are now commercially available. Over the last decade, the complementary technology of optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) has improved in its performance to a competitive level. OPCPA allows direct amplification of an almost-octave spanning bandwidth supporting few-cycle pulse durations at center wavelengths ranging from the visible to the mid-IR. The current record in peak power from a table-top OPCPA is 16 TW and the current record average power is 22 W. High energy, few-cycle pulses with stabilized carrierenvelope phase (CEP) are desired for applications such as high-harmonic generation (HHG) enabling attoscience and the generation keV-photon bursts. This dissertation conceptually, numerically and experimentally describes essential aspects of few-cycle OPCPA, and the associated pump beam generation. The main part of the conducted research was directed towards the few-cycle OPCPA facility developed in the Laser Plasma Laboratory at CREOL (University of Central Florida, USA) termed HERACLES. This facility was designed to generate few-cycle pulses in the visible with mJ-level pulse energy, W-level average power and more than 100 GW peak power. Major parts of the implementation of the HERACLES facility are presented. The pump generation beam of the HERACLES system has been improved in terms of pulse energy, average power and stability over the last years. It is based on diode-pumped, solid-state amplifiers with picosecond duration and experimental investigations are presented in detail. A iii robust system has been implemented producing mJ-level pulse energies with ~100 ps pulse duration at kHz repetition rates. Scaling of this system to high power (>30 W) and high peak power (50-MW-level) as well as ultra-high pulse energy (>160 mJ) is presented. The latter investigation resulted in the design of an ultra-high energy system for OPCPA pumping. Following this, a new OPCPA facility was designed termed PhaSTHEUS, which is anticipated to reach ultra-high intensities. Another research effort was conducted at CELIA (Univeristé de Bordeaux 1, France) and aimed towards a previously unexplored operational regime of OPCPA with ultra-high repetition rates (10 MHz) and high average power. A supercontinuum seed beam generation has been established with an output ranging from 1.3 to 1.9 µm and few ps duration. The pump beam generation has been implemented based on rod-type fiber amplifiers producing more than 37 W average power and 370 kW peak power. The utility of this system as an OPCPA pump laser is presented along with the OPA design. The discussed systems operate in radically different regimes in terms of peak power, average power, and repetition rate. The anticipated OPCPA systems with few-cycle duration enable a wide range of novel experimental studies in attoscience, ultrafast materials processing, filamentation, LIBS and coherent control

The thulium fiber laser has gained interest due to its long emission wavelength, large bandwidth (~1.8 – 2.1 µm), high efficiencies (~60 %), and high output power levels both in cw as well as pulsed regimes. Applications like remote sensing, machining, medical tissue ablation, and mid-infrared generation benefit from high peak power thulium laser sources. Pulsed thulium fiber laser systems are advancing rapidly towards higher peak power levels and are becoming the preferred sources for these applications. This dissertation work describes the development of novel nanosecond pulsed thulium fiber laser systems with record high peak power levels targeting mid-infrared generation. The peak power scaling in thulium fiber lasers requires new fiber designs with larger mode field area (MFA) than commercially available step index large mode area (SI-LMA) fibers. Two different prototypes of thulium doped photonic crystal fibers (PCF) were investigated for high peak power generation. The first prototype is a flexible-PCF with MFA twice as large as SILMA fiber and the second prototype is a PCF-rod with six times larger MFA. A robust single stage master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) source based on flexible-PCF was developed. This source provided narrow linewidth, tunable wavelength, variable pulse duration, high peak power, and high energy nanosecond pulses. The PCF-rod was implemented as a second stage power amplifier. This system generated a record level of ~1 MW peak power output with 6.4 ns pulse-duration at 1 kHz repetition rate. This thulium doped PCF based MOPA system is a state of the art laser source providing high quality nanosecond pulses. iv The single stage MOPA system was successfully implemented to pump a zinc germanium phosphide (ZGP) crystal in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) cavity to generate 3 - 5 µm wavelengths. The MOPA source was also used to demonstrate backside machining in silicon wafer. The PCF based laser system demonstrated an order of magnitude increase in the peak power achievable in nanosecond thulium doped fiber laser systems, and further scaling appears possible. The increase in peak power will enable additional capabilities for mid-infrared generation and associated applications.

There are many different techniques to display 3D information. However, not many of them are able to provide sufficient depth cues to the observers to sense or feel the images as real three-dimensional objects. Volumetric three-dimensional displays generate images within a real 3D space, so they provide most of the depth cues automatically. This thesis discusses the basic notions required to understand three-dimensional displays. Also discussed are different techniques used to display 3D information and their advantages and disadvantages as well as their current limitations. Several rare-earth doped fluoride crystals that are excited to emit visible light by sequential two photon absorption have been investigated as display medium candidates for static volumetric three dimensional displays. A scalable display medium is suggested to enable large 3D displays. This medium is a dispersion of particles of the rare earth doped fluoride crystals in a refractive index-matched polymer matrix. Detailed experiments are described to prepare such a scalable display medium using a wide variety of polymers. The scattering problem in such a medium was greatly reduced by index-matching the polymer to the crystalline particles. An index-matching condition that optimizes the performance was identified and demonstrated. A potential near-future solution is demonstrated and improvements are suggested.

This thesis proposes research of novel hybrid photonic signal processing systems in the areas of optical communications, test and measurement, RF signal processing and extreme environment optical sensors. It will be shown that use of innovative hybrid techniques allows design of photonic signal processing systems with superior performance parameters and enhanced capabilities. These applications can be divided into domains of analog-digital hybrid signal processing applications and free-space--fiber-coupled hybrid optical sensors. The analog-digital hybrid signal processing applications include a high-performance analog-digital hybrid MEMS variable optical attenuator that can simultaneously provide high dynamic range as well as high resolution attenuation controls; an analog-digital hybrid MEMS beam profiler that allows high-power watt-level laser beam profiling and also provides both submicron-level high resolution and wide area profiling coverage; and all optical transversal RF filters that operate on the principle of broadband optical spectral control using MEMS and/or Acousto-Optic tunable Filters (AOTF) devices which can provide continuous, digital or hybrid signal time delay and weight selection. The hybrid optical sensors presented in the thesis are extreme environment pressure sensors and dual temperature-pressure sensors. The sensors employ hybrid free-space and fiber-coupled techniques for remotely monitoring a system under simultaneous extremely high temperatures and pressures.

Over a wide range of applications, optical systems have utilized conventional optics in order to provide the ability to engineer the properties of incident infra-red fields in terms of the transmitted field spectral, spatial, amplitude, phase, and polarization characteristics. These micro/nano-optical elements that provide specific optical functionality can be categorized into subcategories of refractive, diffractive, multi-layer thin film dichroics, 3-D photonic crystals, and polarization gratings. The feasibility of fabrication, functionality, and level of integration which these elements can be used in an optical system differentiate which elements are more compatible with certain systems than others. With enabling technologies emerging allowing for a wider range of options when it comes to lithographic nano/micro-patterning, dielectric growth, and transfer etching capabilities, optical elements that combine functionalities of conventional optical elements can be realized. Within this one class of optical elements, it is possible to design and fabricate components capable of tailoring the spectral, spatial, amplitude, phase, and polarization characteristics of desired fields at different locations within an optical system. Optical transmission filters, polarization converting elements, and spectrally selective reflecting components have been investigated over the course of this dissertation and have been coined  MOSSE,' which is an acronym for micro-optic-spectral-spatial-elements. Each component is developed and fabricated on a wafer scale where the thin film deposition, lithographic exposure, and transfer etching stages are decoupled from each other and performed in a sequential format. This facilitates the ability to spatially vary the optical characteristics of the different MOSSE structures across the surface of the wafer itself.