Peer-Review Publications

We present a new method for parametric amplification of soft-X-ray radiation. The laser-driven amplifier is based on parametric stimulated emission and is seeded with high-order-harmonic radiation generated in the same medium. The exponential increase of the soft-X-ray yield with increasing atomic density is experimentally demonstrated for two different sets of laser parameters. A small-signal gain up to 8 × 10^3 is obtained in both experiments at about 40 eV in argon using 350-fs-long laser pulses and with 6-fs-long ones at about 260 eV in helium, respectively. This new scheme reduces the pumping threshold for lasing with a comparable conversion efficiency into the millijoule level, which is about two orders of magnitude smaller compared with the conventional plasma X-ray lasers. With a simple model, we can estimate the necessary experimental conditions for identifying the spectral range and the magnitude of the maximum gain, which are in reasonable agreement with our measurements.

At the Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics, University of Jena, a fully diode pumped ultrahigh peak power laser system—POLARIS—has been realized. Presently, this laser system reaches a peak power of some ten terawatt. The last amplifier, which will boost the output energy to the 100 J level, is nearly completed and will be soon commissioned. The applied technologies and the basic design are reviewed here.

We report on the performance of a 60 kHz repetition rate sub-10 fs, optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier system with 2 W average power and 3 GW peak power. This is to our knowledge the highest average power sub-10 fs kHz-amplifier system reported to date. The amplifier is conceived for applications at free electron laser facilities and is designed such to be scalable in energy and repetition rate.

A pioneering experiment was recently performed at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at GSI. Fully stripped ions of 96 Ru were injected into the storage ring and slowed down to a few MeV per nucleon. The 97 Rh ions from the 96 Ru(p,γ) reaction at a newly developed hydrogen jet target were detected with Double Sided Silicon Strip Detectors (DSSSD) mounted inside a pocket. The experiment and the status of the analysis at a beam energy of 11 MeV per nucleon will be presented.

An optical parametric amplifier that delivers nearly transform limited pulses is presented. The center wavelength of these pulses can be tuned between 993 nm and 1070 nm and, at the same time, the pulse duration is varied between 206 fs and 650 fs. At the shortest pulse duration the pulse energy was increased up to 7.2 microJ at 50 kHz repetition rate. Variation of the wavelength is achieved by applying a tunable cw seed while the pulse duration can be varied via altering the pump pulse duration. This scheme offers superior flexibility and scaling possibilities.

This Letter reports on the optimization of a tabletop nickel-like molybdenum transient collisionally excited soft x-ray laser (SXRL) at 18.9 nm performed by a double-pulse single-beam grazing incidence pumping (DGRIP). This scheme allows for the first time, to our knowledge, the full control of the pump laser parameters including the pre-pulse duration optimally generating the SXRL amplifier under a grazing incidence. The single-beam geometry of the collinear double-pulse propagation guarantees the ideal overlap of the pre-pulse and main pulse from shot to shot resulting in a more efficient and highly stable SXRL output. SXRL energies up to 2.2 µJ are obtained with a total pump energy less than 1 J for several hours at a 10 Hz repetition rate without realignment under once optimized double pumping pulse parameters including energy ratio, time delay, pre-pulse and main pulse durations, and line focus width.

Proposed as satellite-based weapons during the 1980s, X-ray lasing was for a long time only achieved with enormous amounts of pump energy in either nuclear explosions or at kilojoule-class laser installations. During the last few years a tremendous development was achieved, most visible in the realisation of the FEL lasers at DESY and SLAC. As important for a wider applicability is the enormous reduction in pump energy for laser pumped plasma X-ray lasers, which now brings such devices into the range of applications for diagnostics and spectroscopy even in smaller laboratories. Main developments were the transient excitation scheme and the optimized pumping concepts. This paper concentrates on developments at the GSI Helmholtzcenter at Darmstadt aiming towards reliable X-ray laser sources in the range from 50 to several 100 eV. The main driving forces for the laser development at GSI are the possible application for the spectroscopy of Li-like ions in the storage ring ESR and the future storage ring NESR at FAIR, and the interest in novel plasma diagnostics.

The spectral distribution of the 1s2s 1S0→1s2 1S0 two-photon decay of He-like tin was measured using a novel approach at the gas-jet target of the ESR storage ring. Relativistic collisions of Li-like projectiles with low-density gaseous matter have been exploited to selectively populate the desired 1s2s state. Compared to conventional techniques, this approach results in a substantial gain in statistical and systematic accuracy, which allowed us to achieve for the first time a sensitivity to relativistic effects on the two-photon decay spectral shape as well as to discriminate the measured spectrum for Sn from theoretical shapes for different elements along the He-isoelectronic sequence.

We propose a new catalysis mechanism for nonperturbative vacuum electron-positron pair production, by superimposing a plane-wave x-ray probe beam with a strongly focused optical laser pulse, such as is planned at the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) facility. We compute the absorption coefficient arising from vacuum polarization effects for photons below threshold in a strong electric field. This setup should facilitate the (first) observation of this nonperturbative QED effect with planned light sources such as ELI yielding an envisioned intensity of order 10^26 W/cm^2.

We report on a compact Gigawatt peak power OPCPA system which is pumped by the second harmonic of an Yb-doped fiber amplifier and seeded by a cavity dumped Ti:Sapphire oscillator. Picosecond pump pulses for the OPCPA are generated by spectral filtering and directly amplified to 1 mJ pulse energy in several fiber amplifiers, without the need of chirped pulse amplification. Since no stretcher and compressor is required, the pump laser is very compact and easy to operate. The two stage optical parametric amplifier delivers 35 fs pulses with 53 microJ pulse energy and 1.1 GW peak power at 40 kHz repetition rate. Additionally, the scaling potential of this approach is discussed.

Many physical processes such as bremsstrahlung, synchrotron radiaton and radiative recombination produce polarized X-rays. However, only a few facilities are able to deliver tunable monoenergetic high quality beams of almost completely polarized X-rays to the user. We used radiative electron capture (REC) into the K-shell of bare xenon to produce tunable and highly linearly polarized X-rays in a storage ring environment (Fig. 1) which we confirmed by a dedicated compton polarimeter.

We present a Q-switched microchip laser emitting 1064-nm pulses as short as 100 ps synchronized to a cavity dumped femtosecond laser emitting 800-nm pulses as short as 80 fs. The synchronization is achieved by presaturating the saturable absorber of the microchip laser with femtosecond pulses even though both lasers emit at widely separated wavelengths. The mean timing jitter is 40 ps and thus considerably shorter than the pulse duration of the microchip laser.

We present the first observation of the 1s 2p^3P_2 → 1s 2s^3S_1 transition in He-like uranium. The experiment was performed at the internal gas-jet target of the ESR storage ring at GSI exploiting a Bragg crystal spectrometer and a germanium solid-state detector. Using the 1s^(2) 2p^2P_(3/2) → 1s^(2) 2s^2S_(1/2) transition in Li-like uranium as reference and the deceleration capabilities of the ESR storage ring, we obtained the first evaluation of the energy of an intra-shell transition for a He-like heavy ion.

Beam lifetimes of stored U^(28+) ions with energies between 10 and 180  MeV/u were measured in the heavy ion synchrotron SIS18 and in the experimental storage ring (ESR) of the GSI accelerator facility. By using the internal gas jet target of the ESR, it was possible to obtain projectile ionization cross sections for collisions with H_2 and N_2 from the lifetime data. The experimental cross sections are compared to theoretical data predicted by the n-body classical-trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) method of Olson et al. and to calculations of Shevelko et al. using the LOSS-R code. In addition, both theoretical approaches are probed by using the resulting cross sections as input parameters for the STRAHLSIM code, which models the beam losses and, consequently, the lifetimes in the heavy ion synchrotron SIS18. Both the cross section measurement and the SIS18 lifetime study indicate that the LOSS-R code cross sections are in better agreement with the experimental results than the n-body CTMC calculations.

We present a simple and robust pulse shaping device based on coherent pulse stacking. The device is embedded in a polarisation maintaining step index fiber. An input pulse is sent through a fiber optical circulator. Up to four pulse replicas are reflected by fiber Bragg gratings and interfere at the output. Temperature control allows tuning of the relative pulse phases of the sub-pulses. Additionally fine tuning of the sub-pulse amplitudes is demonstrated. We experimentally generated 235 ps and 416 ps long flattop pulses with rising and falling edges shorter than 100 ps. In contrast to other pulse shaping techniques the presented setup is robust, alignment free, provides excellent beam quality and is also suitable for pulse durations up to several nanoseconds.

Low temperature superconducting quantum interference devices (LTS SQUIDs) are used to make precision measurements of electromagnetic fields in applications ranging from biomedicine to high energy physics. We have previously described an LTS SQUID-based device for nuclear physics which employs the Cryogenic Current Comparator principle (CCC). The CCC consists of a high-performance LTS DC SQUID system, a toroidal pick-up coil, and a meander-shaped superconducting niobium shield. Theoretical investigations show that as external noise decreases, improvements in performance depend on the properties of the ferromagnetic core material embedded in the pick-up coil. Here we present the temperature- and frequency-dependence of several candidate ferromagnetic and nanocrystalline materials. We discuss these results in light of the optimization of the CCC sensor performance.

Recent advances in the development of 2D microstrip detectors open up new possibilities for hard x-ray spectroscopy, in particular for polarization studies. These detectors make ideal Compton polarimeters, which enable us to study precisely the polarization of hard x-rays. Here, we present recent results from measurements of Radiative Electron Capture into the K-shell of highly-charged uranium ions. The experiments were performed with a novel 2D Si(Li) Compton polarimeter at the Experimental Storage Ring at GSI. Stored and cooled beams of U^(91+) and U^(92+) ions, with kinetic energies of 43 MeV/u and 96 MeV/u respectively, were crossed with a hydrogen gasjet. The preliminary data analysis shows x-rays from the K-REC process, emitted perpendicularly to the ion beam, to be strongly linearly polarized.

Particle and photon polarization phenomena occurring in collisions of relativistic ions with matter have recently attracted particular interest. Investigations of the emitted characteristic x-ray and radiative electron capture radiation has been found to be a versatile tool for probing our present understanding of the dynamics of particles in extreme electromagnetic fields. Owing to the progress in x-ray detector technology, in addition, accurate measurements of the linear polarization for hard x-ray photons as well as the determination of the polarization plane became possible. This new diagnostic tool enables one today to derive information about the polarization of the ion beams from the photon polarization features of the radiative electron capture process.

A dedicated Si(Li) Compton polarimeter combining energy and time resolution with a large detection area of 64 × 64 mm^2 and a two dimensional position resolution of 2 mm has been used for the first time to study the polarization of x‐rays emitted via radiative electron capture (REC) into the K and L‐shell of heavy highly charged ions. First data for the collision system 96.6 MeV/u U^(92+) → H_2 are presented. The angular distribution of the Compton scattered photons inside the detector indicates that both K‐ and L‐REC processes lead to the emission of strongly linearly polarized light.

The two-photon 2E1 transition from the singlet 2s state of heliumlike tin was measured. An alternative experimental approach was adopted in the present investigation where the two-photon emission results from the decay of the 2s state by selective K-shell ionization of Li-like tin ions in relativistic collisions with a low-Z gaseous target, which allowed for a measurement of the undistorted two-photon spectral shape. The measured 2E1 energy distribution was compared with fully relativistic calculations, which predict a Z dependence of the distribution. The preliminary results indicate the best agreement with the relativistic many body calculations for tin, and thus confirm the sensitivity on Z. Detailed data analysis is still in progress.

We report on a significant improvement of the total bandwidth amplified in an optical parametric process. By pumping a parametric amplifier with a broadband pump, we demonstrate amplification of a supercontinuum whose spectrum expands over nearly an octave ranging from less than 600 nm up to 1200 nm. Our amplifier stage is set to provide amplification at degeneracy in the quasi-collinear configuration with a temporally as well as angularly dispersed pump.

We present a high peak power optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) seeded by a cavity dumped Ti:Sapphire oscillator. A frequency doubled high power Ytterbium-doped fiber amplifier is pumping the device. Temporal synchronization of the pump pulses is done via soliton generation in a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber. This soliton is fiber amplified and spectrally filtered in several fiber amplifiers. A simple birefringent pulse shaper generates a flat-top temporal pump pulse profile. Direct amplification of these pulses in large mode area fibers without using a stretcher and compressor provides significantly reduced complexity. For the first time to our knowledge broadband amplification around 800 nm central wavelength is demonstrated in BIB(3)O(6) (BIBO) crystals. The stretched Ti:Sapphire oscillator pulses are amplified up to a pulse energy of 25 microJ. Recompression with a grating compressor yields 50.7 fs pulses with 16.2 microJ pulse energy.

A simple, robust and compact pulse compressor for a high-repetition rate high-peak power fiber chirped pulse amplification system is presented. We use noble-gas-filled hollow fibers for spectral broadening of the optical pulses via self-phase modulation. Subsequent compression with chirped mirrors shortens the pulses by more than a factor of 10. Pulses shorter than 70 fs with pulse energies of the order of 100 µ J have been obtained resulting in a peak power up to 1GW at 30.3kHz. Additionally, nonlinear polarization rotation has been used for temporal pulse cleaning during the nonlinear compression at 30.3kHz and 100kHz, respectively.

A high-average-power Yb-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system is presented. Compressed average power of 325 W at 40 MHz repetition rate corresponding to 8.2 muJ pulse energy is extracted. Compression in a highly efficient dielectric-grating-based compressor yields pulses as short as 375 fs, resulting in 22 MW of peak power.

We review the main challenges and give design guidelines for high-peak-power high-average-power fiber-based chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) systems. It is clearly pointed out that the lowest order fiber nonlinearity (NL), namely the self-phase modulation, limits the scalability of high-energy ultrashort pulse fiber amplifiers. Therefore, a distinguished difference arises between the consequences of accumulated nonlinear phase originating from the pulse envelope and initial weak modulations, resulting in a strong recommendation to operate an amplification system as linearly as possible in order to generate high-contrast pulses. Low-NL rare-earth-doped fibers, such as the recently available designs of photonic crystal fibers, are the key element for successful peak power scaling in fiber laser systems. In this paper, we present a detailed analysis and optimization of the extraction characteristics in connection with the accumulated nonlinear phase in such extreme fiber dimensions. Consequently, millijoule pulse energy femtosecond pulses at repetition rates in the 100 kHz range have already been demonstrated experimentally in a Yb-fiber-based CPA system that has even further scaling potential.