This paper shows the experimental details of the stabilization scheme that allows full control of the repetition rate and the carrier-envelope offset frequency of a 10 GHz frequency comb based on a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser. Octave-spanning spectra are produced in nonlinear microstructured optical fiber, in spite of the reduced peak power associated with the 10 GHz repetition rate. Improved stability of the broadened spectrum is obtained by temperature-stabilization of the nonlinear optical fiber.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA high-repetition-rate pump-probe experiment is presented, based on the asynchronous sampling approach. The low-α mode at the synchrotron ANKA can be used for a time resolution down to the picosecond limit for the time-domain sampling of the coherent THz emission as well as for hard X-ray pump-probe experiments, which probe structural dynamics in the condensed phase. It is shown that a synchronization of better than 1 ps is achieved, and examples of phonon dynamics of semiconductors are presented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe femtosecond laser-based frequency comb has played a key role in high-precision optical frequency metrology for a decade. Although often referred to as a precise optical frequency ruler, its tick marks are in fact too densely spaced for direct observation and individual use, limiting important applications in spectroscopy, astronomy, and ultrafast electromagnetic waveform control. We report on a femtosecond laser frequency comb with a 10-gigahertz repetition rate that creates a stabilized output spectrum with coverage from 470 to 1130 nanometers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA thermal phase transition has been resolved in gold nanoparticles supported on a surface. By use of asynchronous optical sampling with coupled femtosecond oscillators, the Lamb vibrational modes could be resolved as a function of annealing temperature. At a temperature of 104 degrees C the damping rate and phase changes abruptly, indicating a structural transition in the particle, which is explained as the onset of surface melting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlobal positioning system- (GPS-) referenced optical frequency combs based on mode-locked lasers offer calibrations for length metrology traceable to international length standards through the SI second and the speed of light. The absolute frequency of an iodine-stabilized He-Ne laser [127I2 R(127) 11-5 f component] was measured with a femtosecond comb referenced to a multichannel GPS timing receiver. The expected performance and limitations of GPS-referenced comb measurements are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA femtosecond laser-based optical frequency synthesizer is referenced to an optical standard, and we use it to demonstrate the generation and control of the frequency of electromagnetic fields over 100 terahertz of bandwidth with fractional uncertainties approaching 1 part in 10(19). The reproducibility of this performance is verified by comparison of different types of femtosecond laser-based frequency synthesizers from three laboratories.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe link the output spectra of a Ti:sapphire and a Cr:forsterite femtosecond laser phase coherently to form a continuous frequency comb with a wavelength coverage of 0.57-1.45 microm at power levels of 1 nW to 40 microW per frequency mode.
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