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Time-correlated Single Photon Counting
Ultrafast laser spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique that uses ultrashort pulse lasers for the study of dynamics on extremely short time scales ( attoseconds to nanoseconds). Different methods are used to examine the dynamics of charge carriers, atoms, and molecules. Many different procedures have been developed spanning different time scales and photon energy ranges; some common methods are listed below. Attosecond-to-picosecond spectroscopy Dynamics on the as to fs time scale are in general too fast to be measured electronically. Most measurements are done by employing a sequence of ultrashort light pulses to initiate a process and record its dynamics. The temporal width (duration) of the light pulses has to be on the same scale as the dynamics that are to be measured or even shorter. Light sources Titanium-sapphire laser Ti-sapphire lasers are tunable lasers that emit red and near-infrared light (700 nm- 1100 nm).Ti-sapphire laser oscillators use Ti doped-sapphi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter waves and acoustic waves can also be considered forms of radiative energy, and recently gravitational waves have been associated with a spectral signature in the context of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) In simpler terms, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Historically, spectroscopy originated as the study of the wavelength dependence of the absorption by gas phase matter of visible light dispersed by a prism. Spectroscopy, primarily in the electromagnetic spectrum, is a fundamental exploratory tool in the fields of astronomy, chemistry, materials science, and physics, allowing the composition, physical structure and e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bremsstrahlung
''Bremsstrahlung'' (), from "to brake" and "radiation"; i.e., "braking radiation" or "deceleration radiation", is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typically an electron by an atomic nucleus. The moving particle loses kinetic energy, which is converted into radiation (i.e., photons), thus satisfying the law of conservation of energy. The term is also used to refer to the process of producing the radiation. ''Bremsstrahlung'' has a continuous spectrum, which becomes more intense and whose peak intensity shifts toward higher frequencies as the change of the energy of the decelerated particles increases. Broadly speaking, ''bremsstrahlung'' or braking radiation is any radiation produced due to the deceleration (negative acceleration) of a charged particle, which includes synchrotron radiation (i.e., photon emission by a relativistic particle), cyclotron radiation (i.e. photon emission by a non ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reserve, and Case Institute of Technology, founded in 1880 through the endowment of Leonard Case Jr., formally federated. Case Western Reserve University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, in 2019 the university had research and development (R&D) expenditures of $439 million, ranking it 20th among private institutions and 58th in the nation. The university has eight schools that offer more than 100 undergraduate programs and about 160 graduate and professional options. Seventeen Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Case Western Reserve's faculty and alumni or one of its two predecessors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Modulator
An optical modulator is a device which is used to modulate a beam of light. The beam may be carried over free space, or propagated through an optical waveguide ( optical fibre). Depending on the parameter of a light beam which is manipulated, modulators may be categorized into amplitude modulators, phase modulators, polarization modulators etc. Often the easiest way to obtain modulation of intensity of a light beam, is to modulate the current driving the light source, e.g. a laser diode. This sort of modulation is called ''direct modulation'', as opposed to the external modulation performed by a light modulator. For this reason light modulators are, e.g. in fiber optic communications, called ''external light modulators''. With laser diodes where narrow linewidth is required, direct modulation is avoided due to a high bandwidth "chirping" effect when applying and removing the current to the laser. Optical modulators are used with superconductors which work properly only at low tem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chirp
A chirp is a signal in which the frequency increases (''up-chirp'') or decreases (''down-chirp'') with time. In some sources, the term ''chirp'' is used interchangeably with sweep signal. It is commonly applied to sonar, radar, and laser systems, and to other applications, such as in spread-spectrum communications (see chirp spread spectrum). This signal type is biologically inspired and occurs as a phenomenon due to dispersion (a non-linear dependence between frequency and the propagation speed of the wave components). It is usually compensated for by using a matched filter, which can be part of the propagation channel. Depending on the specific performance measure, however, there are better techniques both for radar and communication. Since it was used in radar and space, it has been adopted also for communication standards. For automotive radar applications, it is usually called linear frequency modulated waveform (LFMW). In spread-spectrum usage, surface acoustic wave (SAW) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chirped Pulse Amplification
Chirped pulse amplification (CPA) is a technique for amplifying an ultrashort laser pulse up to the petawatt level, with the laser pulse being stretched out temporally and spectrally, then amplified, and then compressed again. The stretching and compression uses devices that ensure that the different color components of the pulse travel different distances. CPA for lasers was introduced by Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou at the University of Rochester in the mid-1980s, work for which they received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018. CPA is the current state-of-the-art technique used by most of the highest-power lasers in the world. Background Before the introduction of CPA in the mid-1980s, the peak power of laser pulses was limited because a laser pulse at intensities of gigawatts per square centimeter causes serious damage to the gain medium through nonlinear processes such as self-focusing. For example, some of the most powerful compressed CPA laser beams, even in an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulse Shaping
In electronics and telecommunications, pulse shaping is the process of changing the waveform of transmitted pulses to optimize the signal for its intended purpose or the communication channel. This is often done by limiting the bandwidth of the transmission and filtering the pulses to control intersymbol interference. Pulse shaping is particularly important in RF communication for fitting the signal within a certain frequency band and is typically applied after line coding and modulation. Need for pulse shaping Transmitting a signal at high modulation rate through a band-limited channel can create intersymbol interference. The reason for this are Fourier correspondences (see Fourier transform). A bandlimited signal corresponds to an infinite time signal, that causes neighbouring pulses to overlap. As the modulation rate increases, the signal's bandwidth increases. As soon as the spectrum of the signal is a sharp rectangular, this leads to a sinc shape in the time domain. This happe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spectral Phase Interferometry For Direct Electric-field Reconstruction
In ultrafast optics, spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER) is an ultrashort pulse measurement technique originally developed by Chris Iaconis and Ian Walmsley. The basics SPIDER is an interferometric ultrashort pulse measurement technique in the frequency domain based on spectral shearing interferometry. Spectral shearing interferometry is similar in concept to lateral shearing interferometry, except the shearing is performed in the frequency domain. The spectral shear is typically generated by sum-frequency mixing the test pulse with two different quasi-monochromatic frequencies (usually derived by chirping a copy of the pulse itself), although it can also be achieved by spectral filtering or even with linear electro-optic modulators for picosecond pulses. The interference between the two upconverted pulses allows the spectral phase at one frequency to be referenced to the spectral phase at a different frequency, separated by the spectral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frequency-resolved Optical Gating
Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) is a general method for measuring the spectral phase of ultrashort laser pulses, which range from sub femtosecond to about a nanosecond in length. Invented in 1991 by Rick Trebino and Daniel J. Kane, FROG was the first technique to solve this problem, which is difficult because, ordinarily, to measure an event in time, a shorter event is required with which to measure it. For example, to measure a soap bubble popping requires a strobe light with a shorter duration to freeze the action. Because ultrashort laser pulses are the shortest events ever created, before FROG, it was thought by many that their complete measurement in time was not possible. FROG, however, solved the problem by measuring an "auto-spectrogram" of the pulse, in which the pulse gates itself in a nonlinear-optical medium and the resulting gated piece of the pulse is then spectrally resolved as a function of the delay between the two pulses. Retrieval of the pulse from its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optical Autocorrelation
In optics, various autocorrelation functions can be experimentally realized. The field autocorrelation may be used to calculate the spectrum of a source of light, while the intensity autocorrelation and the interferometric autocorrelation are commonly used to ''estimate'' the duration of ultrashort pulses produced by modelocked lasers. The laser pulse duration cannot be easily measured by optoelectronic methods, since the response time of photodiodes and oscilloscopes are at best of the order of 200 femtoseconds, yet laser pulses can be made as short as a few femtoseconds. In the following examples, the autocorrelation signal is generated by the nonlinear process of second-harmonic generation (SHG). Other techniques based on two-photon absorption may also be used in autocorrelation measurements, as well as higher-order nonlinear optical processes such as third-harmonic generation, in which case the mathematical expressions of the signal will be slightly modified, but the basi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picosecond
A picosecond (abbreviated as ps) is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to 10−12 or (one trillionth) of a second. That is one trillionth, or one millionth of one millionth of a second, or 0.000 000 000 001 seconds. A picosecond is to one second as one second is to approximately 31,689 years. Multiple technical approaches achieve imaging within single-digit picoseconds: for example, the streak camera or intensified CCD (ICCD) cameras are able to picture the motion of light. One picosecond is equal to 1000 femtoseconds, or 1/1000 nanoseconds. Because the next SI unit is 1000 times larger, measurements of 10−11 and 10−10 second are typically expressed as tens or hundreds of picoseconds. Some notable measurements in this range include: * 1.0 picoseconds (1.0 ps) – cycle time for electromagnetic frequency 1 terahertz (THz) (1 x 1012 hertz), an inverse unit. This corresponds to a wavelength of 0.3 mm, as can be calculated by m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
