Investigation into mid-infrared pulse shaping using an optical parametric oscillator

Abstract

This thesis reports experimental indirect spectral transfer of shaped pulses from the near to mid-infrared via the use of an optical parametric oscillator. It was shown that good spectral fidelity of transfer can be achieved by making suitable adjustments to the OPO. The issues affecting the transfer process are discussed and experimental results are compared with existing theory. The shaping of the nearinfrared pulses was performed using a zero dispersion pulse shaper and a computer controlled spatial light modulator. A suitable search algorithm was written and, with the use of appropriate computer hardware, allowed a closed-feedback loop to be implemented. The computer controlled hardware was demonstrated to be able to autonomously optimise simple experiments in the mid-infrared and optimise the threshold of an optical parametric oscillator.

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Identifiers

ORCID for David Shepherd: orcid.org/0000-0002-4561-8184

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