Detailed Description
The principles and features of the present invention are described below with reference to the drawings, the illustrated embodiments are provided for illustration only and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.
As shown in fig. 1, a schematic structural diagram is provided for an embodiment of an ultrafast laser generator of the present invention, in which broken lines represent laser paths, and the ultrafast laser generator includes: the laser beam ultra-fast laser comprises a saturated absorber 1, a laser crystal 2, an electro-optical modulator 3, a polarized reflector 4 and a high reflector 5 which are sequentially arranged on a preset axis, wherein a preset angle is formed between the polarized reflector 4 and the axis, and the electro-optical modulator 3 is used for changing the polarization direction of laser light when laser light output from the high reflector 5 meets preset conditions, so that the laser light is reflected and output from the polarized reflector 4, and ultra-fast laser light is obtained.
The preset axis may be a direction in which the laser light oscillates between the saturated absorber 1 and the high reflecting mirror 5.
It should be understood that, in order to generate laser light, the saturated absorber 1 should be kept parallel to the high mirror 5 so that the laser light oscillates back and forth between the saturated absorber 1 and the high mirror 5, and the initial light generated by the saturated absorber 1 should pass through the laser crystal 2, generating polarized light of high coherence.
It will be appreciated that to produce an ultrafast laser, the reflectivity of the high mirror 5 may be 99.99%.
It should be understood that, in order to generate ultra-fast laser light, most of the laser light should be able to transmit through the polarizing mirror 4 when the laser light oscillates back and forth between the saturated absorber 1 and the high reflecting mirror 5, that is, the reflectivity of the polarizing mirror 4 for the laser light during oscillation should be as small as possible, and the reflectivity should be as large as possible for the laser light after changing the polarization direction, that is, the ratio of the reflectivity of the polarizing mirror 4 for the laser light before and after changing the polarization direction should be as close to 0 as possible: infinity.
For example, assuming that the polarization angle of the laser light during oscillation is a and the polarization angle of the laser light after changing the polarization direction is b, the reflectivity of the polarizing mirror 4 should be close to 0 for the laser light with the polarization angle a; the reflectance of the polarization mirror 4 for the laser light having the polarization angle b should be close to +.
It should be noted that, in order to make the generated ultrafast laser output from between the saturated absorber 1 and the high reflector 5, the polarizing reflector 4 should have a preset angle with the axis, so that the ultrafast laser is emitted, and the preset angle may be set according to actual requirements.
For example, in order to output the ultrafast laser light parallel to a preset axis, the polarizing mirror 4 may be angled at 45 ° to the axis.
It should be noted that, in order to generate the ultrafast laser, after generating the ultrafast laser with a short pulse width and high energy, the ultrafast laser may be output, that is, the preset condition that the laser output from the high reflector 5 should meet may be that the single pulse energy of the laser output from the high reflector 5 reaches a preset energy value, and the preset energy value may be set according to the actual requirement.
The preset condition may be other conditions, for example, heat generated by the laser in a unit time, or the like, and may be the preset condition.
It should be noted that, the electro-optical modulator 3 may include a pockel cell, where the pockel cell may be placed on an oscillation path of the laser, and the laser may pass through the pockel cell during oscillation, and may change a refractive index of an electro-optical crystal in the pockel cell by applying a high voltage to the pockel cell, so as to implement a half wave plate function, thereby changing a polarization direction of the laser.
It will be appreciated that the total loss from the saturated absorber 1 to the high mirror 5 must be less than the gain produced by the laser crystal 2 after it has been pumped by the pump light.
The ultrafast laser generator provided by the embodiment can stably generate ultrafast laser with short pulse width and high energy, and has the advantages of simple structure and small volume.
Some alternative embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to fig. 2, in which broken lines represent laser paths and solid lines represent wired or wireless connections.
Alternatively, in some embodiments, the electro-optic modulator 3 may comprise: the pockels cell 31 and the high voltage signal generator 32, wherein the pockels cell 31 is arranged on an axis and is arranged between the laser crystal 2 and the polarizing mirror 4, the high voltage signal generator 32 is used for transmitting a high voltage signal to the pockels cell 31, and the pockels cell 31 is used for changing the refractive index of the electro-optical crystal in the cell according to the high voltage signal, so that the polarization direction of the laser passing through the pockels cell 31 is changed.
It should be understood that, in the initial state, the high voltage on the pockels cell 31 may be set to 0, and when the pulse energy of the laser light output from the high mirror 5 reaches a predetermined value, the high voltage is generated by the high voltage signal generator 32, and the refractive index of the electro-optic crystal in the pockels cell 31 is changed to realize the half wave plate function.
Optionally, in some embodiments, the electro-optic modulator 3 may further comprise: a controller 33 and a photodetector 34, the photodetector 34 being arranged on an axis for detecting pulse energy of the laser light output from the high mirror 5, the controller 33 being configured to acquire the pulse energy and to drive the high voltage signal generator 32 to generate a high voltage signal when the pulse energy reaches a preset value.
It should be understood that the controller 33 may drive the high voltage signal generator 32 to generate the high voltage signal when the pulse energy of the laser light output from the high mirror 5 reaches a preset value, but the controller 33 may stop driving the high voltage signal generator 32 to generate the high voltage signal when the pulse energy of the laser light output from the high mirror 5 does not reach the preset value. The switching time is directly determined by the rising and falling edge times of the high voltage applied to the electro-optic crystal.
Optionally, in some embodiments, the photodetector 34 may be further configured to detect a pulse time of the laser light output from the high-reflection mirror 5, and the controller 33 is further configured to obtain a time when the high-voltage signal generator 32 is driven to generate the high-voltage signal according to the pulse time and the cavity length of the ultrafast laser generator, and drive the high-voltage signal generator 32 to generate the high-voltage signal at the time.
Optionally, in some embodiments, a seismic isolation platform may also be included.
Optionally, in some embodiments, a cooling device may be further included, which is disposed within the heat sink of the laser crystal 2.
It should be appreciated that the laser crystal 2 needs to be actively cooled, and the cooling device may be a water cooling pipeline, and be disposed in a heat sink of the laser crystal 2, for cooling the laser crystal 2.
Since the multi-path reflecting cavity in the laser generator generally has the function of prolonging the laser cavity length, the resonant cavity in the application is equivalent to the three parts of the saturated absorber 1, the laser crystal 2 and the high reflecting mirror 5. When pump laser is input into the laser crystal 2 from the saturation absorber 1, the lower energy level particles of the laser crystal 2 are pumped to an upper energy level, the population inversion is formed, and an ultrafast laser pulse is output from the high mirror 5. At this time, the single pulse energy of the output laser pulse is obtained by detection by the photodetector 34. When the ultrafast laser generator reaches dynamic equilibrium, the photodetector 34 can detect a stable ultrafast laser pulse output.
Since the reflectivity of the high mirror 5 is large, the laser single pulse energy oscillating in the resonant cavity at this time is much larger than the single pulse energy output from the high mirror 5. Taking a reflectivity of 99.99% as an example, the intracavity laser monopulse energy is ten thousand times the laser monopulse energy output from the high mirror 5. When the single pulse energy monitored by the controller 33 reaches a set expected value, the refractive index of the electro-optic crystal in the pockels cell 31 is changed by controlling the high voltage signal input to the pockels cell 31, so that the half wave plate function is realized, and the laser pulse oscillated in the cavity is completely output from the polarization reflector 4. This means that the single pulse energy of the ultrafast pulses output at this time is several orders of magnitude higher than the pulse energy output from the high mirror 5, while the pulse width remains unchanged.
The output cavity mirrors of the existing ultrafast laser seeds all have fixed reflectivity. In the design of the reflectivity of the output mirror, if the design reflectivity is too low, the pulse width of the generated ultrafast pulse is too large; if the design reflectivity is too high, the output energy is too low. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain a high-energy, short pulse width laser output directly through the ultrafast laser resonator. In the above embodiments, by using the intracavity polarization coupling output method, the contradiction between the short pulse width output and the high energy output is solved, and after appropriate intracavity parameter design is performed, the single pulse ultrafast laser output with the size of more than 50 microjoules can be obtained, and compared with the single pulse output energy of the existing solid ultrafast laser oscillator, the single pulse ultrafast laser output with the size of at least 2 orders of magnitude can be improved.
The reader will appreciate that in the description of this specification, a description of terms "one embodiment," "some embodiments," "examples," "specific examples," or "some examples," etc., means that a particular feature, structure, material, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment or example is included in at least one embodiment or example of the invention. In this specification, schematic representations of the above terms are not necessarily directed to the same embodiment or example. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, materials, or characteristics described may be combined in any suitable manner in any one or more embodiments or examples. Furthermore, the different embodiments or examples described in this specification and the features of the different embodiments or examples may be combined and combined by those skilled in the art without contradiction.
It will be clear to those skilled in the art that, for convenience and brevity of description, specific working procedures of the apparatus and units described above may refer to corresponding procedures in the foregoing method embodiments, which are not described herein again.
The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various equivalent modifications and substitutions can be easily made by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present invention, and these modifications and substitutions are intended to be included in the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the invention is subject to the protection scope of the claims.