Provided is a method of generating a squeezed quantum illumination light source, including generating a dual mode squeezed light source including a signal mode and an idler mode, obtaining a degree of additional squeezing for the dual mode squeezed light source based on object information, determining a squeezing angle and a degree of operation that satisfy the degree of additional squeezing for each of the signal mode and the idler mode, and squeezing the dual mode squeezed light source based on the squeezing angle and the degree of operation, and provided is a quantum radar device using the squeezed quantum illumination light source.

A laser apparatus includes an optic dispersion compensator. In another aspect, an optic (40, 45) uses phase wrapping to compress or stretch a laser pulse. A further aspect includes an apparatus and method for binary-phase compression of stretched laser pulses. In yet another aspect, a single monolithic transmissive or reflective optic (40, 45) provides compression or stretching of a laser pulse using a sinusoidal pattern for introducing binary steps. Another aspect provides a stretching or compressing optic (40, 45) for retarding a phase of multiple frequency regions of a laser pulse by a factor of 2? or less. Still another aspect employs a volume grating or multi-layer mirror including phase wrapping to obtain discontinuous phase jumps in a laser pulse compressor (45) or stretcher (40). Methods of using or making the laser apparatus are also provided.

A laser system for the generation of ultrashort optical pulses of light including an oscillator emitting low power and negatively chirped optical pulses with a spectral bandwidth W1, a dispersive connecting segment to maintain the sign of the chirp of the pulses of the oscillator, an optical amplifier for amplifying the optical light pulses and a negative group velocity dispersion segment for compensating phase contributions of the whole propagation process. During the propagation from the output of the oscillator to the end of the optical amplifier, the chirp of the light pulses will change once from negative to positive chirp. After a final compression stage ultrashort optical pulses can be generated.

A method and a system for generating intense, ultrashort pulses of XUV and soft X-ray radiation via high-order harmonic generation (HHG), the method comprising selecting a nonlinear solid target and a laser source; separating a beam from the laser source into a first laser beam and a second laser beam; focusing the first laser beam onto the nonlinear solid target, thereby generating a laser ablated plume; and compressing and frequency-doubling the second laser beam and directing a resulting second compressed and frequency-doubled laser beam to the laser ablated plume, thereby yielding high-order harmonic generation of radiation of photon energies in a range between 12 eV and 36 eV. A high-order harmonic source of radiation, comprising a nonlinear solid target; a laser source; a beam splitter separating a beam from the laser source into a first beam line and a second beam line; the first beam line comprising a first focusing unit directing a first, uncompressed, laser beam onto the nonlinear solid target, to generate a laser ablated plume; and the second beam line directing a second, compressed and frequency-doubled laser beam, to the laser ablated plume, yielding high-order harmonic generation of radiation of photon energies in a range between 12 eV and 36 eV.

A laser system may include one or more seed lasers to generate a pulsed seed beam including one or more laser pulses, a pulse pattern generator to generate an intermediate patterned burst-mode beam from at least one laser pulse from the pulsed seed beam, where the pulse pattern generator includes splits the at least one laser pulse from the pulsed seed beam along two or more delay paths and combines light along the two or more delay paths to a common optical path, and where the intermediate patterned burst-mode beam includes laser pulses with a selected pattern of inter-pulse spacings associated with the two or more delay paths. The laser system may further include power amplifiers to amplify the intermediate patterned burst-mode beam to form an amplified patterned burst-mode beam, where the amplified patterned burst-mode beam includes amplified laser pulses with the selected pattern of inter-pulse spacings.

A pulse width expansion apparatus according to an aspect of the present disclosure includes a polarization beam splitter and a transfer optical system. The transfer optical system includes ¼-wavelength and reflection mirror pairs. The ¼-wavelength mirror pair include first and second ¼-wavelength mirrors. The first ¼-wavelength mirror provides ¼-wavelength phase shift and reflects a pulse laser beam. The second ¼-wavelength mirror provides ¼-wavelength phase shift and reflects the pulse laser beam reflected by the first ¼-wavelength mirror. The reflection mirror pair are disposed on an optical path before and after or between the ¼-wavelength mirror pair. The transfer optical system transfers an image of an input pulse laser beam on the polarization beam splitter to the optical path between the ¼-wavelength mirror pair at one-to-one magnification as a first transfer image and transfers the first transfer image to the polarization beam splitter at one-to-one magnification as a second transfer image.

A laser system includes a signal source configured to generate input pulses, a diffraction grating module configured to stretch and split the input pulses into a plurality of spectral channels, a set of phase control devices, each phase control device being configured for spectral phase control of a respective spectral channel of the plurality of spectral channels, a power amplifier array of amplifier modules, each amplifier module of the power amplifier array being configured to amplify a respective spectral channel of the plurality of spectral channels, a spectral combiner configured to spectrally combine the plurality of spectral channels via diffraction grating-based pulse compression, and a feedback controller coupled to the spectral combiner to provide feedback to the set of phase control devices for pulse shaping.

A method of optimizing the coupling to an optical fiber, including: generating a femtosecond laser pulse; directing a focus of the laser pulse to a longitudinal depth in the region beneath the endface of the optical fiber to generate microvoids; adjusting the intensity of the laser pulse at different depths, such that a refractive index profile is created in the region beneath the endface of the optical fiber.

A system for multimodal nonlinear optical imaging is provided. Each mode uses a high NA objective to cause total internal reflection excitation at a sample-substrate interface. The system has a femtosecond oscillator to generate pulses used for two beams. The objective receives at least one beam, redirects the received at least one beam through a dielectric substrate to cause the TIR and produces corresponding evanescent waves in a portion of the sample adjacent to the sample-substrate interface, and collects a backward-propagating beam of pulses of responsive light. The portion of the sample illuminated by the evanescent waves emits responsive light. Different modes or combinations of the distinct modalities may be selected to access complementary chemical and structural information for various chemical species near the sample-substrate interface. Each mode may have mode-specific control such as selective beam blocking, power ratios and filtering.

Provided is a laser device in which: a laser medium doped with ytterbium emits light upon absorption of excitation light; the light emitted by the laser medium is amplified to obtain output light; and the output light is outputted in the form of a plurality of pulses. In the laser device, a spatial filter is disposed in the optical path of the light emitted by the laser medium or is disposed in the optical path of the output light outputted from an optical resonator, the spatial filter being configured to filter out a portion of the light or of the output light around the optical axis.