Monday, February 8, 1999
4:00 PM (refreshments 3:45)
Edgerton Hall, Room 34-101
EECS Colloquium
Abstract
The invention of ultra-broadband solid-state laser materials in the last few years has it made possible to generate pulses of less than 10 femtoseconds in duration. In this context, the basic concepts of short pulse generation are reviewed. The resonant processes occurring in the laser cavity can be easily understood by unfolding the cavity into a pulse propagation problem. Therefore, the main processes in femtosecond lasers are equally important for long distance optical communications and vice versa.
It is shown that the dynamics of today's sub-10 fs lasers are closely linked to the existence of dispersion managed solitons discovered in optical communications. Exploiting these dynamics and using new schemes for dispersion compensation lead to the shortest pulses ever generated directly from a laser, as short as 5.5 fs, equivalent to only two optical cycles. The spectra of these pulses are so broad that a new mirror technology with increased bandwidth and dispersive properties had to be developed. There is a wide range of applications for such ultra-broadband laser sources. High resolution optical coherence tomography with sub-cellular resolution is demonstrated.
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Modified: Jan 29, 1999|
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