Experimental Facilities

LUPO maintains four ultrafast optics laboratories totalling 200 m² of lab-space. Each laboratory has a specific target:

  • One laboratory is dedicated to fundamental high-energy ultrafast optics.
  • One is dedicated to industrial ultrafast light sources at high average power and repetition rate.
  • One to the application of bright deep-ultraviolet light to healthcare technology.
  • One to ultrafast science applications of advanced light sources.

We currently have five primary laser sources:

  • A Ti:Sapphire oscillator, regenerative amplifier and multi-pass amplifier chain producing 20 mJ, 35 fs, 800 nm pulses at 100 Hz repetition rate. Combined with a TOPAS optical parametric amplifier (Light Conversion) producing 35 fs pulses with multi-mJ energies and idler wavelengths as long as 2500 nm.
  • A Light Conversion CARBIDE laser, delivering 80 W, 2 mJ, 350 fs pulses, with repetition rates up to 1 MHz at lower energy.
  • An Amplitude Tangor laser, operating at up to 100 W and 0.5 mJ energy with 500 fs pulses. This system can be scaled in repetition rate up to 40 MHz.
  • A Light Conversion PHAROS producing 200 fs and up to 0.2 mJ of energy, along with 4th and 5th harmonic conversion.
  • A high-energy Light Conversion PHAROS producing up to 5 mJ of energy, with added ORPHEUS-ONE-HE optical parametric amplifier to access the infrared.

Our experimental philosophy tends towards building our own devices and systems rather than buying commercial products. Some examples of instrumentation we have built include:

  • State-of-the-art FROG and XFROG devices, including SHG, SFG and SD devices covering the UV to infrared, a ptychographic PG-FROG capable of simultaneous measurement from the deep UV (200 nm) to infrared (the broadest spectral bandwidth ever achieved), and in-vacuum TG FROG devices capable of measuring sub-2-femtosecond deep ultraviolet pulses.
  • In-vacuum TIPTOE devices capable of measuring sub-femtosecond self-compressed solitons.
  • Camera-based vacuum ultraviolet spectrometers covering from 50 nm to 200 nm.
  • A camera-based extreme ultraviolet and x-ray spectrometer covering 0.5 nm to 300 nm in four wavelength ranges with in-situ grating change.
  • A scanning vacuum ultraviolet spectrometer with absolute energy calibration for flux measurements.
  • Pulse compression systems ranging from sub-microjoule to multi-millijoule pulse energies, with compression factors exceeding 30.
  • Stretched hollow capillary fibre setups with over 4 m capillary lengths including vacuum in- and out-coupling and double-ended pressure gradients.
  • High pressure gas cells and hollow fibre setups which can work from high vacuum up to 200 bar pressure.
  • Active laser beam stabilization system
  • Pump-probe delay lines for two-colour spectroscopy experiments, along with high energy SHG and THG setups