We demonstrate amplification of picosecond laser pulses to 40?mJ at a 2?kHz pulse repetition frequency (PRF) from a two-stage cryogenic chirped-pulse Yb:YAG amplifier, composed of a regenerative amplifier (RGA) and a two-pass booster amplifier. The RGA produces 8.2mJ of energy at 2kHz PRF and 13.2mJ at 1kHz PRF with excellent energy stability (approximately 0.3% rms) and beam quality (M(2)<1.1)...

We present a general analysis for the criteria to stop and store light coherently. We show that a light pulse can be stopped in any physical system, provided that (i) the system bandwidth can be compressed to zero; (ii) the system has sufficient degrees of freedom to accommodate the pulse, and the bandwidth compression occurs while the pulse is in the system; and (iii) the bandwidth compression...

Pulse compression based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is a nonlinear optical approach that efficiently converts high-energy nanosecond pulses into the picosecond. Since first observation of SBS pulse compression, different structures for input and output parameters were developed to optimize characteristics in past decades. Here, comprehensive review development status schemes provid...

We propose a simple but powerful scheme for the complete analysis of the frequency chirp of a gain-switched optical pulse using a fringe-resolved interferometric two-photon absorption autocorrelator. A frequency chirp imposed on the gain-switched pulse from a laser diode was retrieved from both the intensity autocorrelation trace and the envelope of the second-harmonic interference fringe patte...

We describe a method of ultrashort-pulse and ultrafast-pulse-train generation through optical parametric amplification of a laser beat wave. Numerical simulation shows that 250-fs laser pulses at 1.55 lm are generated from a beat-wave seeded optical parametric amplifier pumped by a 30-ps laser at 1064 nm. The pulse compression is attributable to sideband generation and parametric amplification ...

We report on the fabrication and characterization of a new device, named IRIS. It is designed to increase the coherent optical bandwidth of a picosecond pulse train for subsequent pulse compression. The IRIS device consists of a concatenated array of semiconductor optical amplifiers and saturable absorbers. It is realized in the InP/InGaAsP material system for the 1550 nm range. Measurements on...