Harnes­sing third-​harmonic ge­nera­ti­on in graphene-​coated op­tics - new de­vices for ul­tra­fast pulse me­a­su­re­ment and fre­quen­cy up­con­ver­si­on - Ul­tra­Graf

Pro­ject sum­ma­ry

Ul­tra­fast la­sers have many im­portant ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons in phy­sics, ma­te­ri­als pro­ces­sing, che­mi­s­try, bio­lo­gy and me­di­ci­ne. Their pul­ses are among the shor­test events ever pro­du­ced, with du­ra­ti­ons reaching the few fem­to­se­cond re­gime (1 fs = 10-15 s). Ne­vert­he­l­ess, the lack of ade­qua­te tem­po­ral me­a­su­re­ment and con­trol tools has ham­pe­red their mi­gra­ti­on out of the la­bo­ra­to­ry and into main­stream ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons. This pro­ject di­rect­ly ad­dres­ses these chal­len­ges by de­ve­lo­ping and de­mons­tra­ting a new and uni­ver­sal ul­tra­fast pulse me­a­su­re­ment and con­trol de­vice, where the dispersion-​scan tech­ni­que is com­bi­ned with the ex­cep­tio­nal­ly broad band­width and high con­ver­si­on ef­fi­ci­en­cy of non­line­ar third-​harmonic ge­nera­ti­on (THG) in gra­phe­ne coa­tings. This tech­no­lo­gy is high­ly per­for­ming, easy to use and ap­p­li­ca­ble to an un­pre­ce­den­ted­ly wide range of laser sys­tems, which should en­able new sci­en­ti­fic, in­dus­tri­al and me­di­cal ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons of ul­tra­fast la­sers and con­tri­bu­te to the growth of the ul­tra­fast mar­ket.