Compact, widely tunable ultrashort burst pulse generator using four mirrors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compact, four-mirror burst laser pulse generator capable of producing widely tunable ultrashort pulse bursts with controlled timing, energy, and number of pulses, suitable for advanced laser applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel, simple four-mirror design that enables broad tuning of pulse intervals, pulse energies, and pulse count within a burst, improving upon conventional systems.

Findings

Generated six pulses with femtosecond to nanosecond intervals

Pulse timing and energies matched theoretical predictions

System is compact and easy to control

Abstract

Ultrashort burst laser pulses serve as powerful tools for precise laser processing, broadband ultrafast spectroscopy, and high-speed laser-scanning microscopy. However, the performance of conventional burst pulse generators is limited by constraints in the pulse time interval variability, pulse energy variability, pulse number variability, and overall system complexity. Here, we present a compact burst pulse generator that offers a broad tuning range for pulse time intervals, along with control over the number of pulses and pulse energies within the burst. It consists of four mirrors, two of which are parallel to each other, and outputs pulses that are equally spaced both temporally and spatially. We demonstrated the generation of a burst laser pulse by shaping a single ultrashort laser pulse into six pulses with time intervals ranging from femtoseconds to nanoseconds. The pulse time intervals and energies were consistent with theoretical results.