Amplifier Seeding

About Amplifier Seeding

To seed an amplifier means to provide a source of low energy, typically high repetition rate, pulses which are injected into an optical amplifier to increase the energy of selected pulses by several orders of magnitude. The repetition rate of the amplified pulses is reduced in favor of the high energy per pulse. In large amplifier chains, the seed oscillator may only be a small, but very important system component right at the starting point of the optical chain, as it is the initial source of photons, playing crucial part in the overall performance of the amplifier system.

High specification lasers are required for this application and Novanta is able to cater to these needs:

• Providing an excellent beam pointing stability of a clean high contrast low noise pulse train with a stable, reproducible spectrum without spatial chirp is one prerequisite for the easy everyday operation of amplifiers.
• Monolithic setup for maximum mechanical stability.
• Prismless cavity based on dispersive compensating mirrors (DCM) enables a most stable optical design offering a high beam pointing stability in the absence of dispersive elements based on angular chirp.
• DCM offers advanced dispersion engineering resulting in the output of clean high contrast broad bandwidth pulses with no spatial chirp, ideally suited for input into an amplifier.
• Ease of use is ensured by full automation and operation via the controller of the seed oscillator, with its mechanism to self-start, monitor, and maintain its mode locking.
• The compact monolithic housing with selected motorized parts inside provides long-term stability as well as the capability for remote service, should it be needed.
• The oscillators are principally field serviceable for 24/7 applications that demand the least amount of down time.
• A history of being supplied on an OEM basis, or into large research facilities serving special demands such as repetition rate stabilization to synchrotrons.