Ultrafast Lasers: A Comprehensive Introduction to Fundamental Principles with Practical Applications

by Ursula Keller

Overview

This textbook presents a comprehensive introduction to ultrafast laser physics with a keen awareness of the needs of graduate students. It is self-contained and ready to use for both ultrafast laser courses and background for experimental investigation in the lab. The book starts with an advanced introduction to linear and nonlinear pulse propagation, details Q-switching and modelocking and goes into detail while explaining ultrashort pulse generation and measurement. Finally, the characterization of the laser signals is illustrated, and a broad range of applications presented. A multitude of worked examples and problems with solutions help to deepen the reader's understanding.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030825348
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	03/09/2023
Series:	Graduate Texts in Physics
Edition description:	1st ed. 2021
Pages:	800
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ursula Keller, a tenured professor of physics at ETH Zurich since 1993, leads the Ultrafast Laser Physics group, and currently also serves as a director of the Swiss multi-institute NCCR MUST excellence program in ultrafast science since 2010. Born 1959 in Zug, Switzerland, she received the Physics "Diplom" from ETH Zurich in 1984 and the Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University, USA in 1989. She was a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey from 1989 to 1993. She was a “Visiting Miller Professor” at UC Berkeley in 2006 and a visiting professor at the Lund Institute of Technologies in 2001. She has been a co-founder and board member for Time-Bandwidth Products since 1995 and for GigaTera from 2000 to 2003, a venture capital funded telecom company during the “bubble phase” which was acquired by Time-Bandwidth in 2003. Time-Bandwidth Products was acquired by JDSU in 2014.

Her research interests are exploring and pushing the frontiers in ultrafast science and technology. She invented the semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) which enabled passive modelocking of diode-pumped solid-state lasers and established ultrafast solid-state lasers for science and industrial applications. She pushed the frontier of few-cycle pulse generation and full electric field control at petahertz frequencies. Pioneered frequency comb stabilization from modelocked lasers, which was also noted by the Nobel committee for Physics in 2005. In time-resolved attosecond metrology she invented the atlock which measured the electron tunneling delay time and observed the dynamical Franz-Keldysh effect in condensed matter for the first time.

Awards include the SPIE Gold Medal (2020) – SPIE’s highest honor, OSA Frederic Ives Medal/Jarus W. Quinn Prize (2020) – OSA’s highest award for overall distinction in optics, IEEE Edison Medal (2019), European Inventor Award for lifetime achievement(2018), IEEE Photonics Award (2018), ERC advanced grants (2012 and 2018), OSA Charles H. Townes Award (2015), LIA Arthur L. Schawlow Award (2013), EPS Senior Prize (2011), OSA Fraunhofer/Burley Prize (2008), Leibinger Innovation Prize (2004), and Zeiss Research Award (1998). OSA, SPIE, IEEE, EPS and IAPLE Fellow, member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, German Academy Leopoldina and Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences. She supervised and graduated 87 Ph.D. students, publishsub480 journal publications.

Table of Contents

Linear pulse propagation in dispersive media.- linear pulse propagation.- dispersion compensation.- nonlinear pulse propagation.- relaxation oscillations in lasers.- Q-switching.- active modelocking.- passive modelocking: generation of ultrashort laser pulses.- pulse duration measurements.- noise characterization of pulsed laser signals.- applications of short-pulse lasers.- appendices.- index.