Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Taro Sekikawa.
Pulse-front distortion as a result of broadband frequency doubling (BFD) has been compensated for over a 3-cm beam diameter by use of a telescope image relay system. As a result, distortion-free blue pulses with a peak power of 1.4 TW and a pulse width of 10 fs have been generated with a 10-Hz Ti:sapphire laser by use of this modified BFD configuration.
Nonlinear responses to an optical field are universal in nature but have been difficult to observe in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft X-ray regions owing to a lack of coherent intense light sources. High harmonic generation is a well-known nonlinear optical phenomenon and is now drawing much attention in attosecond pulse generation. For the application of high harmonics to nonlinear optics in the XUV and soft X-ray regime, optical pulses should have both large pulse energy and short pulse duration to achieve a high optical electric field. Here we show the generation of intense isolated pulses from a single harmonic (photon energy 27.9 eV) by using a sub-10-femtosecond blue laser pulse, producing a large dipole moment at the relatively low (ninth) harmonic order nonadiabatically. The XUV pulses with pulse durations of 950 attoseconds and 1.3 femtoseconds were characterized by an autocorrelation technique, based on two-photon above-threshold ionization of helium atoms. Because of the small cross-section for above-threshold ionization, such an autocorrelation measurement of XUV pulses with photon energy larger than the ionization energy of helium has not hitherto been demonstrated. The technique can be extended to the characterization of higher harmonics at shorter wavelengths.
We have successfully observed two-photon above-threshold ionization in rare gas atoms (Ar, Xe, and He) by the fifth harmonic (25 eV photon energy) of a KrF laser. Use of the energy-resolved photoelectron counting system together with our laser, providing strong 25 eV radiation at 40-100 Hz, enabled us to detect the very weak single-color two-photon above-threshold ionization signals. Experimental data are in good agreement with our theoretical calculations newly developed along the line of multichannel quantum defect theory.
Femtosecond extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses were fully characterized for the first time by using a newly developed cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique in the XUV region. This method utilizes laser-assisted two-photon ionization as a nonlinear optical process. Near-infrared pulses characterized by FROG were used as a reference. The amplitude and phase of XUV pulses with a pulse duration of 10 fs were found to be in good agreement with a model analysis, taking into account phase modulation by ionization, self-phase modulation, and the atomic dipole phase.
Blue pulses with durations of 8.5 fs are generated by broadband frequency doubling of subterawatt Ti:sapphire laser systems at 1-5-kHz repetition rates. The average powers are 1.6 W at 5 kHz and 1.9 W at 1 kHz. The peak power is 0.16 TW with a duration of 12 fs at 1 kHz.
The temperature-dependent decay dynamics of innershell holes in CsBr was measured by using high harmonics. The measured lifetime was as short as 1.5 ps at 340 K due to increasing the Auger-allowed final state density in the Urbach exciton tail, whereas it is 1.1 ns at 10 K, determined by radiative recombination. The temperature-dependent Auger lifetime extrapolated to a high temperature corresponds to the fully energy-allowed Auger decay. In the model to be presented, this yields an interatomic Auger decay lifetime of 2.4+3.8/-1.5 fs, in line with a theoretical calculation for NaF.
We have demonstrated the second harmonic of a frequency-tripled Nd:YVO4 laser with 2.5-mW quasi-cw output by using an optically contacted, prism-coupled KBe2BO3F2 crystal. We also achieved the second harmonic with a frequency-doubled single-mode Ti:sapphire laser at 172.5 nm and sum-frequency mixing with a dual-wavelength Ti:sapphire laser at 163.3 nm. These wavelengths are to our knowledge the shortest obtained by use of nonlinear crystals for second-harmonic generation and sum-frequency mixing, respectively.
The temporal profile and phase of the fifth harmonic of a Ti:sapphire laser were fully characterized by two-photon ionization frequency-resolved optical gating technique for the first time. The fifth harmonic was found to have negative chirp and the pulse compression was demonstrated. The negative chirp is well explained by using a zero-range potential model. This technique is scalable to extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and soft x-ray regions by using currently available light sources, making it possible to measure the pulse duration and phase of vacuum ultraviolet, XUV, and soft x-ray pulses.