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Hein Teunissen Graduation committee: prof. dr. K.-J. Boller dr. ir. F.A Van Goor dr. ir. H.L. Offerhaus University of Twente Department of Science and Technology Laser Physics and Nonlinear Optics group Enschede, Oktober 12, 2007
Multipass amplifier for Terawatt Ti:sapphire laser system Theory, construction and characterization
Author: Hein J. Teunissen Graduation committee: prof. dr. K.-J. Boller dr. ir. F.A Van Goor dr. ir. H.L. Offerhaus University of Twente Department of Science and Technology Laser Physics and Nonlinear Optics group Enschede, Oktober 12, 2007
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Summary
This report describes the design, construction and characterization of a multipass amplifier for a Terawatt, femtosecond titanium:sapphire laser system. This laser is to fulfill an important role in the Laser Wakefield Accelerator setup that is under construction at the University of Twente. The principle- and the goal of laser wakefield acceleration is described in chapter 1 and the role of the laser is clarified. In chapter 2, the laser system itself is elaborated to see the position of the mentioned amplifier in the total system. Chapter 3 describes the theory of laser pulse amplification. Effects like gain saturation and gain narrowing are discussed, together with the effects of amplification on laser pulse shape. Chapter 4 gives an outline of important aspects in the design and construction of the amplifier. The techniques used in the setup to optimize the performance of the amplifier are described and a schematic drawing of the final setup is given. The final chapter of this report characterizes the performance of the setup as described in chapter 4. This characterization comprises measurements on energy-, spectral propertiesand propagation of the output pulse. This chapter also presents a simulation used to compare the performance of the amplifier to the theory as given in chapter 3. A summary of the performance of the amplifier is given in the Conclusions section.
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Table of contents
1. Introduction to Laser Wakefield Acceleration
- Particle accelerators - Laser wakefield acceleration
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Acknowledgements
Before we go into the details of the project, I would like to say that I had a really pleasant time working on it. Looking back, it took quite long, altogether, to come to this point, but it was a really nice time. Nonetheless, I am happy that the project is completed now and I would like to express my gratitude to some people in specific that have helped me in so many ways. I would like to thank Professor Boller for giving me the opportunity to perform my graduation project in his group. Also because it is not just some project; I got to learn that the realisation of the Terawatt laser system is very important for the research group. So thanks for the confidence! For the same reason, I would like to thank Fred van Goor. But I also want to thank him for being my supervisor for the last 19 (!) months working on the laser. And, even more, Fred co-supervised my internship at Philips Lighting in Eindhoven in the months before I started in the group. So, thank you Fred! I have learned a lot in this period. Then there are two PhD students, Arie Irman and Rolf Loch, who have helped me in a very direct and practical way; in the lab, aligning stuff and with good ideas in very helpful discussions. I really could not have done without this help and also not without their enthusiasm. I would also like to thank Dimitri Geskus for his work on the laser. My project directly builds upon his work and he really helped me getting started in the lab. Thanks guys! But its not only because of the people I just mentioned that I had a pleasant time in the group. I always thought the office was a much nicer place than the lab, because of the nice company of Martijn, Olivier, Mark and Cees. Also the lunch breaks were always fun with the other (PhD-) students and we had a few great outings with the group. So, in the end, it comes down to: thanks to everyone in the Laser Physics group!
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Figure 1.1: Linear accelerator The same principle of acceleration based on resonantly enhanced RF fields in resonators, i.e. usually microwave fields in the named cells, is used in a circular accelerator. However, the bunch is now additionally held on a closed orbit with appropriate magnetic fields. The main advantage of this configuration over the RF-linac is that particles can be accelerated over more than one roundtrip. However, a disadvantage of circular accelerators is the deceleration of the bunch by the emission of synchrotron radiation resulting from the transverse acceleration of the particles to form a closed orbit. In both linear- and circular accelerators, the accelerating field has a maximum value determined by the threshold for dielectric breakdown of the acceleration tube. The world record acceleration field of a single cell is 53.5 MV/m [1]. Because the attainable kinetic energy is the integral over the field, this field limit means that the overall size of such standard RF-accelerators easily reaches several kilometers, making them extremely costly. The Large Hadron Collider located at CERN (Switzerland) will be the highest energy particle accelerator in the world when it starts running in 2008 and will ultimately collide beams of protons at an energy of 14 TeV. It is currently in the final stage of construction
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and is contained in an underground tunnel with a circumference of 27 km. The longest linear accelerator in the world is the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), which is 3 km long and attains electron energy of 50 GeV. A next generation linear accelerator of 40 km length is planned to be constructed between 2015 and 2020, which should attain collision energies of 500 GeV (the International Linear Collider). The investments necessary to realize these machines are enormous and this has led to a search for much more compact accelerators based on a different working principle. Laser wakefield acceleration Laser wakefield acceleration [2] is a completely different way of accelerating charged particles. This technique promises to greatly improve the efficiency of attaining highenergy particles, both in terms of the dimensions of the necessary equipment as well as concerning the overall costs. This promise is based on the observation that fields attainable within a plasma medium induced by a traveling, high-intensity laser pulse are several orders of magnitude higher than in conventional (RF) accelerators. To understand the working principle of a laser wakefield accelerator it is required to look at some properties of plasma, because this forms the accelerating medium. The plasma medium, or plasma channel, used in a laser wakefield accelerator is a capillary filled with hydrogen which is fully ionized by an electric discharge. The plasma thus consists of positively and negatively charged particles (ions and electrons) in equal proportions and is macroscopically neutral under normal (equilibrium) conditions. When an external electric field is applied, a charge separation is induced in the plasma. In the new equilibrium situation, the external field is internally counteracted by this charge separation; no net field is present inside the plasma, because this would automatically redistribute the charged particles. In laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), a high-power laser pulse of extremely short duration induces charge separation. This is due to the so-called ponderomotive force of the laser pulse on the plasma-particles. This force pushes the plasma-electrons away from their original positions whereas heavier particles, such as protons remain much less effected. After the pulse has left, the shifted electrons are attracted back towards the positively charged area from which they were pushed away, but, due to their inertia, they overshoot their position before they return again. This way, the electrons perform several cycles of oscillation around their initial position, before they have lost their kinetic energy through collisions and the plasma returns to its equilibrium situation. The oscillation frequency is known as the plasma frequency. Though the plasma-electrons locally just oscillate around their initial position, the traveling nature of the laser pulse excites such oscillations at consecutive locations and thereby creates a wave of charge separation propagating with the laser pulse group velocity. The region directly behind the pulse is positively charged (reduced density of electrons), followed by a region of negative charge where the electrons have fallen back into the center of this region. This plasma-wave contains very strong electric fields that can be utilized for particle acceleration. Figure 1.2 illustrates the laser pulse and the electric field component of the plasma-wave pointing in the longitudinal direction z (as can be calculated with [3]). These fields E z can reach 10-100 GV/m.
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Figure 1.2: Laser pulse and plasma-wave When a charged test particle is somehow injected in this plasma-wave, it will experience a force in the longitudinal direction Fz = eE z . The goal of LWFA is to accelerate particles to high energies by making them surf the plasma-wave. Injecting particles into the plasma wave can be done in several ways [4]. The setup of the LWFA experiment at the UT is schematically depicted in figure 1.3. Though not illustrated in this figure, the laser system is the most space consuming part of the experimental setup.
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The laser pulse is guided through the plasma channel, in which plasma is created by an electric discharge just before the laser pulse arrives. The aim of the experiment is to capture electrons in the plasma wave by injecting a bunch of electrons in front of the laser pulse [3]. This method has the potential to produce electron bunches with low energy spread. To capture the electrons, the bunch has to be pre-accelerated. This is done by a 5.5 cell photocathode RF linear accelerator (illustrated in figure 1.1). To synchronize the arrival in the plasma channel of the pre-accelerated electron-beam and the laser pulse, the RF source of the linac is serves as a master oscillator. The repetition rate of the laser pulses is synchronized to the linac by slight adjustments of the length of the laser cavity using a Piezo crystal. Calculations show that the LWFA setup at the UT can be expected to produce electron bunches at an energy level of more than 1 GeV. This energy is attained over a plasmachannel length of few centimeters. Laser wakefield accelerators have several potential applications. Short particle bunches with energy on the GeV scale can be used for the efficient generation of femtosecond Xrays and coherent THz- and infrared radiation. In the long run, high-energy RF accelerators may even be entirely replaced when particles can be accelerated in multiple stages using the laser wakefield acceleration technique. Further information on the LWFA experiment at the UT can be found in [5]. A Terawatt femtosecond titanium:sapphire laser system is currently being developed at the Laser Physics and Nonlinear Optics group at the University of Twente. This laser system, which is the central device in the LWFA experiment, is elaborated in the next chapter of this report. Thereafter, the remainder of the report deals with the theory, construction and characterization of the first power amplifier of the laser system.
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The laser system under construction at the UT consists of a number of stages, which will first be mentioned shortly. The separate stages will then be elaborated to some detail in the next few pages. The first stage of the laser system is the oscillator, which is a Kerr-lens modelocked Ti:Sa laser (K&M labs). The crystal in the oscillator is pumped at a wavelength of 532 nm by a cw frequency-doubled Nd:YVO 4 laser (Spectra Physics Millennia V). The oscillator produces short pulses of about 25 fs with a central wavelength of 800 nm, at a repetition rate of 81.25 MHz. (This repetition rate is chosen such that the pulses can be synchronized to the electron bunches of the linac; the RF source of the linac operates at a frequency of 1.3GHz, which is the 16th harmonic of 81.25 MHz). The output beam of the oscillator has a Gaussian-shaped transverse intensity distribution; the geometry of the cavity is such that it only sustains the fundamental transverse mode. The pulse energy of a single oscillator pulse is about 1 nJ. These pulses are to be amplified, but before that can be done the pulses need to be stretched in time to lower the peak power levels in the amplifiers. This is done in an ffner stretcher [7], which increases the pulse duration from the initial 25 fs to about 500 ps. After the stretcher, the pulses are amplified in three stages. The first amplifier is a regenerative amplifier, the second and final amplifiers are 4-pass amplifiers. Four Qswitched, frequency-doubled Nd:YAG lasers are used to pump the Ti:Sa crystals in the amplifier chain (Spectra Physics Quanta-Ray GCR-290 and GCR-270 for the regenerative amplifier and the first 4-pass amplifier, and two Thales SAGA 230/10 lasers for the final 4-pass amplifier). The repetition rate of the pulses in the amplifiers is 10 Hz. After the last amplifier, the pulses have their maximum energy content, but not yet their maximum peak power level. The pulses are now passed through a grating compressor to obtain a time-duration of about 30 to 50 fs. Calculations show that the pulses after the compressor can be expected to have an energy-content of about 1 J, which results in a peak power level of about 25 TW.
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The first grating in the compressor sents the different frequency components in the input into different directions and the second grating makes the split beams parallel again. A retro reflector sends the beams back through the setup so that the frequency components overlap again, but have travelled different distances. The stretcher does basically the same thing as the compressor. In the stretcher however, an imaging telescope between the two gratings establishes a negative distance between the gratings (the telescope images the first grating behind the second grating). The effect of this is that the separation in time of the frequency components is now inverted in comparison to the compressor (with the same positive distance between the gratings). The setup of the ffner stretcher is slightly different; it uses two spherical mirrors to form the telescope and only one grating is used in the setup (the beam hits the grating four times). The setup of the ffner stretcher is illustrated in figure 2.4.
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Figure 2.6: Composition of laser output spectrum If the cavity modes are free to oscillate independently, the laser operates in continuous wave (cw) mode. If the modes however have a fixed phase relationship between one another, the laser is mode-locked. In this case, interference between the longitudinal
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modes results in a pulsed output signal of the laser. The pulses are separated in time an interval = 2 L / c , which is the time it takes for a pulse to make a cavity roundtrip. The time duration t of each pulse depends on a number of factors, but primarily on the number of locked modes n, or, equivalently, on the modelocked bandwidth n ; a larger modelocked bandwidth results in shorter pulses. However, t also depends on the temporal pulse-shape produced in the laser (which follows from the exact phase- and amplitude relationship between the longitudinal modes). The product of minimum attainable pulse duration and modelocked bandwidth is known as the time-bandwidth product, which has a specific value for a particular temporal pulse-shape. For a Gaussian temporal-shape this product is 0.44, so the shortest-possible duration of a pulse with 0.44 Gaussian temporal shape is: t = . n For a modelocked Ti:sapphire laser with a full 128 THz modelocked bandwidth, the shortest attainable pulse (bandwidth-limited pulse) with a Gaussian temporal shape would thus be 3.4 fs. In practice however, the pulse duration is limited by a number of other factors such as the overall dispersion of the cavity. Modelocking techniques can be divided into active- and passive modelocking. In active modelocking methods, an external signal is used to modulate the light in the cavity. Passive modelocking is achieved by placing an element in the laser cavity, which causes self-modulation of the light. Information on different modelocking techniques can be found in reference [9]. The Ti:sapphire oscillator at the UT is modelocked passively by exploitation of the optical Kerr effect, also known as Kerr-lens modelocking. The Kerr effect describes the dependency of a materials refractive index n on the applied optical field intensity I. It can be described as: n( I ) = n0 + n2 I , where n0 is the low intensity refractive index and n2 is the second-order nonlinear refractive index (which is usually positive). Hence, in a Kerr medium, high intensity light (normally) experiences higher index of refraction than lower intensity light. This is also the case for titanium:sapphire. As a result, a beam with high power and Gaussian transverse intensity distribution passing the Ti:Sa crystal will be focused, because the central part of the beam experiences higher refractive index than the beam edges. This means that any higher-intensity pulses present in the cavity (which may arise from random interference effects between the longitudinal cavity modes) experience stronger focusing passing the Ti:Sa crystal than lower intensity light. By this mechanism, selective losses can be induced to the cw mode of operation, which leads to an encouragement of the higher intensity pulses. The longitudinal cavity modes eventually obtain a fixed phase relation, resulting in a purely pulsed output of the oscillator. Kerrlens modelocking can for instance be achieved by placing an aperture in the cavity.
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Figure 2.7: Kerr-lens modelocking principle Figure 2.7 pictures the selective focusing effect of the Kerr-medium on a free laser beam. In a laser cavity however, the laser beam adapts to the Kerr-lens effect. This leads to a smaller beam radius inside the Ti:Sa crystal of the stronger focused, higher-intensity pulses. In the oscillator used in the setup at the UT, the role of the aperture illustrated in figure 2.7 is fulfilled by the focus of the pump-beam in the Ti:sapphire crystal (soft aperture). The pulsed mode of operation is thereby favored over the cw mode through better overlap between the pump beam and the pulsed laser beam. The oscillator used at the UT is schematically illustrated in figure 2.8. The prism pair in the resonator compensates for the material dispersion of one roundtrip in the cavity and the output spectrum of the oscillator can be manipulated by means of the tuning slit, whose width and position can be adjusted via computer controlled actuators.
The theory of pulse amplification is the subject of the next chapter, but the basic concept and general setup of laser amplifiers used in CPA systems are described below. Basically, the way to amplify a laser pulse is to let it make additional passes through a medium with a population inversion on a resonant transition. In CPA systems, the amplifiers are usually pumped with pulsed pump-lasers and the gain medium is generally the same as used in the oscillator of the laser system. The energy contained in the gain medium is extracted in a very short time, so the peak-power level of the amplified pulse can greatly exceed the peak-power of the pump-laser(s). The repetition rate of the pulses in the amplifiers is usually limited by the repetition rate of the pump-lasers.
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The energy that can be extracted from the gain medium is of course finite, so after a certain number of passes the pulse energy does not increase any further. This effect is called gain saturation. It is desirable to operate an amplifier in- or just below saturation. In this case, most of the pump power is extracted from the gain medium and saturation has a stabilizing effect on the output pulse-energy. Further, gain saturation can compensate gain narrowing effects. Gain narrowing occurs when the central frequencies of the pulse are amplified more than the spectral wings (which is the case when the active medium of the amplifier is the same as used in the oscillator). But these central frequencies will also start to saturate the amplifier sooner than the spectral wings. When this occurs, additional passes of the (narrowed) pulse through the amplifier now leads to a broadening of the bandwidth, because the spectral wings can be amplified still, because they have not reached the saturation level yet. This effect is called power broadening. There are however several consequences of (near-) saturation operation of the amplifier. For instance, when a beam with a Gaussian-shaped spatial profile is amplified by using top-hat shaped pump beams, the beam center may saturate the amplifier more than the edges of the beam. The output profile may as a result closely resemble the top-hat shape of the pump profiles. When seen in the temporal domain, the leading part of the pulse may experience less saturation than the latter part. When amplifying a positively chirped pulse, the lower frequencies are in this case amplified more than the higher frequencies, leading to a shift of the central frequency. The next chapter will deal with these issues more thoroughly. When high amplification factors are required, a sequence of amplifiers is often used in an amplifier chain. There are two types of laser pulse amplifiers used in CPA systems: a regenerative amplifier and a multi-pass amplifier. Regenerative amplifier In a regenerative amplifier (or regen) the gain medium is contained in a resonator. This type of amplifier is most commonly used as the first stage of amplification after the stretcher, which is also the case in the setup at the UT. A regenerative amplifier is particularly useful for this first step, because it can reach very high gain (as high as 10 6 ) and gives a stable output beam, with shape and direction primarily determined by the regen-resonator. In this setup, a single pulse from the oscillator pulse-train is coupled into the resonator just after the Ti:Sa crystal is pumped. Once the energy is extracted from the medium, the pulse is coupled out. The setup of the regenerative amplifier at the LPNO group is schematically given in figure 2.9.
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Figure 2.9: Regenerative amplifier A combination of a Pockels-cell, a quarter-lambda plate and a polarizing beamsplitter is used as a switch for in- and out-coupling of the pulse. The Pockels-cell acts as a variable waveplate, by exploitation of the Pockels-effect (application of an electric field changes the birefringent properties of a certain material, which affects the polarization of transmitted light). The polarization of the pulse at the moment it hits the polarizing beamsplitter (from the right side in figure 2.9) determines whether the pulse is reflected out- or transmitted into the left part of the regen-resonator (the polarizing beamsplitter reflects s- and transmits p-polarized light). The input pulses of the regenerative amplifier are s-polarized (entering figure 2.9 from below). When no voltage is applied over the Pockels-cell, the polarization of the pulse is not altered and passing the quarter-lambda plate twice rotates the polarization to p. This p-polarized pulse is transmitted through the polarizing beamsplitter and enters the resonator. After one roundtrip through the resonator the pulse will be coupled out in the same way, but it is captured in the resonator when, in the mean time, the Pockels-cell is switched to act as a quarter-lambda plate; when the pulse now passes the switch, it traverses four quarter-lambda plates, resulting in a full 180 degrees rotation in the polarization. The pulse now stays inside the resonator, where it can extract the energy stored in the Ti:Sa crystal. After that, the Pockels-cell is switched to act as a half-lambda plate; the pulse is now coupled out. The reason that the Pockels-cell is switched to half-lambda to couple out the pulse instead of just turning it back off is the rather slow response when the cell is switched off compared to the fast response when a voltage is applied. The regenerative amplifier has the asset that the number of passes through the gain medium can be chosen freely, which makes that this type of amplifier is very useful for the first stage of amplification. A weak input pulse will not saturate an amplifier in just a few passes, so the (weak) oscillator pulse must pass through the gain medium many times before it has extracted the available energy. In the case of a regenerative amplifier, this is just a matter of setting the timing when the pulse is coupled out. However, the electro-optical in- and out coupling limits the usability of a regen to preamplifier purposes (output pulse-energies in the millijoule level). This is because the switch induces high losses, which become very important in a later stadium of the amplifier chain (higher pulse-energies). The Pockels-cell material also induces higher order dispersion, which is hard to compensate for and thus limits the attainable final pulse duration. Further, the gain per pass must be sufficiently low to prevent the buildup of amplified spontaneous emission. - 20 -
Multipass amplifier The second- and final amplifiers in the laser system at the UT are multipass amplifiers. This is a setup in which the incoming laser pulse makes a fixed number of passes through the gain medium; it is often just called a 2- pass amplifier or 4-pass amplifier, etcetera. In a multipass amplifier, mirror arrays are used to direct the pulse through the gain medium with slightly different directions. Figure 2.10 pictures a general setup of a 4-pass amplifier. Because of its shape (see figure 2.10), the multipass amplifier is sometimes called a bow-tie amplifier.
Figure 2.10: Schematic setup of a multipass amplifier Multipass amplifiers are usually used as power amplifiers to boost the energy of preamplified pulses. With high enough input-pulse energy, saturation of the amplifier is reached within the chosen number of passes. The gain per pass is generally much higher than in the case of a regenerative amplifier and the pump power is used more efficiently. The attainable number of passes is however limited by the complexity of the resulting setup and the difficulty in aligning the amplifier. The overall gain of a multipass amplifier is therefore much lower than that of a regenerative amplifier. Also, the output beam shape and direction are not corrected by a resonator, with the result that the outputbeam is much affected by the spatial profile of the pump beams. Chapter 4 of this thesis is dedicated to the design- and construction aspects that play a role in setting up the first 4-pass power amplifier of the Ti:Sa laser system. A picture of this amplifier can be seen in figure 2.11. In the next chapter, the theory of pulse amplification is explained.
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