Using a cascaded architecture of gas-filled hollow-core fiber (HCF), bare lithium niobate (LN) crystal plate, and a specially designed chirped periodically poled lithium niobate crystal (CPPLN), researchers have demonstrated four-octave-spanning intense ultraviolet-visible-infrared (UV-Vis-IR) full-spectrum laser source with the energy of 0.54 mJ per pulse. The HCF-LN system can produce an intense one-octave bandwidth mid-IR laser pulse as the secondary FW pump input into the CPPLN under a 3.3 mJ 3.9 m mid-IR femtosecond pulse laser pump. At the same time, the CPPLN supports high-efficiency broadband HHG processes to expand the spectral bandwidth into UV-Vis-NIR further.
This synergy mechanism they created has a greater capacity for constructing a superior expansion of the overall UV-Vis-IR supercontinuum spectrum and filling in the spectral gaps among different HHG than the 2nd-NL (nonlinear) effects or the 3rd-NL effects used in earlier works. Consequently, a cascaded HCF-LN-CPPLN optical module has enabled access to a level of strong full-spectrum laser output that was previously unavailable.
The plan to build a powerful UV-Vis-IR full-spectrum femtosecond laser source is a significant step toward developing supercontinuum white laser sources with larger bandwidth, higher power energy, higher spectral brightness, and flatter spectral profiles. A full-spectrum femtosecond laser with this much power would be a game-changer for optical spectroscopy and have potential uses in physics, chemistry, biology, materials research, information technology, industrial processes, and environmental monitoring.
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