10 years of progress in ultrafast polycrystalline Cr:ZnS(Se) laser technology: from mode-locked laser oscillators to middle-IR dual comb spectrometers.

Cr2+-doped ZnS and ZnSe were introduced as laser materials in 1996 by the research team of William Krupke at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. These materials – providing a direct access the middle-IR range from 1.8 to 3.3 µm – have attracted immediate attention of the ultrafast laser and optical frequency comb community. All pioneering results on ultrafast Cr:ZnS(Se) lasers were achieved using just a handful of ‘good-enough’ single-crystal Cr:ZnSe samples. The progress has been further accelerated by the development of new methods of the fabrication of polycrystalline Cr:ZnS(Se) materials with improved parameters. The first Kerr-lens mode locked polycrystalline laser oscillator with 125 fs pulsewidth and with mW-level average power was implemented at IPG about 10 years ago. We will give an overview of the most recent achievements in the Cr2+-based polycrystalline lasers including multi-Watt super-octave 2-cycle lasers and frequency combs providing access to the whole molecular fingerprint region and enabling massively-parallel high-resolution spectroscopy in real-time.

The seminar will last about 30 minutes and will be followed by Q&A.