Laser system for output manipulation
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A laser system comprising:
- a laser source operably emitting laser pulses;
a pulse shaper operably shaping the pulses;
a detector operably receiving the shaped pulses, the pulses following a single path between the source and the detector; and
a controller operably causing the shaper to transmit a reference spectral portion of at least one of the pulses through the shaper;
the controller operably causing the shaper to transmit different scanned spectral portions of at least one of the same pulses through a different spectral location in the shaper;
the controller, detector and shaper operably measuring and correcting an undesired distortion in at least some of the pulses by comparing detected values associated with the reference and scanned spectral portion transmissions; and
the reference spectral portion of the laser pulses transmitted through a fixed opening in the pulse shaper, acting as a reference against which scanned spectral portions of the laser pulses, transmitted through at least one moving opening in the pulse shaper, being compared by the controller.
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Abstract
A laser system capable of phase and/or amplitude manipulation of the output pulses is provided. In another aspect, a laser system includes a self-referenced pulse characterization method. A further aspect uses spectral amplitude modulation to isolate spectral bands by scanning one or more transmission slits or openings, and measuring and/or calculating the first derivative of a phase (group delay) across an entire spectrum. A single-beam pulse shaper-based technique for spectrometer-free measurement and compensation of laser pulse phase distortions is also provided in an additional aspect.
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Citations
39 Claims
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1. A laser system comprising:
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a laser source operably emitting laser pulses; a pulse shaper operably shaping the pulses; a detector operably receiving the shaped pulses, the pulses following a single path between the source and the detector; and a controller operably causing the shaper to transmit a reference spectral portion of at least one of the pulses through the shaper; the controller operably causing the shaper to transmit different scanned spectral portions of at least one of the same pulses through a different spectral location in the shaper; the controller, detector and shaper operably measuring and correcting an undesired distortion in at least some of the pulses by comparing detected values associated with the reference and scanned spectral portion transmissions; and the reference spectral portion of the laser pulses transmitted through a fixed opening in the pulse shaper, acting as a reference against which scanned spectral portions of the laser pulses, transmitted through at least one moving opening in the pulse shaper, being compared by the controller. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A laser system comprising:
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a laser operably emitting laser pulses; a pulse shaper operably shaping the pulses; a detector operably receiving the shaped pulses, the detector having a frequency integrated non-linear optical response; and a controller operably causing the shaper to select at least one spectral portion of the pulses through the shaper less than half of the full spectrum; the controller, detector and shaper operably measuring and automatically correcting an undesired phase distortion in at least some of the pulses; and the reference spectral portion of the laser pulses selected by the pulse shaper, acting as a reference against which scanned spectral portions of the laser pulses, selected by at least one moving region of the pulse shaper, being compared by the controller. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A laser system comprising:
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at least one input laser beam; at least one modulator operably selecting at least one portion of a spectrum of the input beam while blocking the rest of the spectrum, this portion being a reference portion; the at least one modulator operably selecting at least one other portion of the spectrum of the input beam while blocking the other spectral regions; and a controller operably causing the modulator to adjust a time delay between at least one of the other transmitted portions of the beam with respect to the reference portion, the controller operably selecting and independently adjusting a time delay of different spectral portions of the beam with respect to the reference portion. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33)
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34. Computer software for a laser system, the software being stored in non-transient memory, and the software comprising:
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a first set of instructions creating pulse shaper selection spectral windows; a second set of instructions causing pulse shaper reduction of spectral portions of at least one laser pulse in the regions other than those selected through the windows; a third set of instructions setting at least one of the windows as a reference; a fourth set of instructions scanning phase values across at least one of the windows; a fifth set of instructions recording values from a detector capable of measuring a nonlinear optical response from an output beam; a sixth set of instructions comparing the detected values as a function of the scanned values; a seventh set of instructions determining the phase that maximizes the response of the detector for a given set of windows; and an eighth set of instructions gathering essentially all of the values and from the values determining the distortion of the at least one pulse; wherein at least one of the instructions compares the scanned values with the reference, correlated in a time domain. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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Specification