Open AccessMeasurement of pump-induced transient lensing in a cryogenically-cooled high average power Ti:sapphire amplifier
Author(s) -
Thomas A. Planchon,
Wafa Amir,
Colby Childress,
Jeff Squier,
Charles G. Durfee
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.16.018557
Subject(s) - optics , amplifier , materials science , interferometry , sapphire , transient (computer programming) , thermal , laser , physics , optoelectronics , cmos , meteorology , computer science , operating system
The transient thermal lensing in a liquid-nitrogren cooled kilohertz multipass amplifier is quantitatively measured with spatially-resolved Fourier transform spectral interferometry. A pump-probe arrangement allows the observation of a polarization-dependent non-thermal component following the fluorescence timescale: additional cooling would not suppress this residual lensing. We also observe a time-dependent thermal component that has a timescale sufficiently fast to indicate that there is cooling between shots even at a repetition rate of 1 kHz. The value of pump-induced lensing would be underestimated when performing time-averaged measurements of pump-induced phase shifts.