Stretcherless, Femtosecond mJ Fiber Amplifier with Coherent Pulse Stacking Navy SBIR FY2016.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2016.1 Topic No.: N161-063 Topic Title: Stretcherless, Femtosecond mJ Fiber Amplifier with Coherent Pulse Stacking Proposal No.: N161-063-0070 Firm: Kapteyn-Murnane Laboratories Inc. 1855 South 57th Court Boulder, Colorado 80301 Contact: Matthew Kirchner Phone: (303) 544-9068 Web Site: http://www.kmlabs.com Abstract: We propose to combine a strecherless fiber amplification technique developed by KMLabs that produces sub-200 fs, 0.1 mJ-class pulses with a coherent pulse stacking technique developed at the University of Michigan to obtain mJ-class, femtosecond output pulses without relying on traditional chirped-pulse-ampltification. The coherent pulse stacking technique coherently adds multiple lower-energy pulses together and has been demonstrated up to enhancement factors of 9x with a clear path to enhancement of greater than 80x. Such a source would provide high energy, ultra short pulse pulses from a fiber laser platform without the disadvantages of bulky diffraction-grating stretcher and compressors. This advancement would further ruggedize high-energy ultrashort pulse laser devices for mobile deployment as well as opening scientific and commercial applications that have traditionally relied on amplification in bulk laser media because of the pulse energy and pulse duration limitations of fiber lasers. Benefits: The successful completion of this project would give KMLabs a market-leading technology for Yb fiber-based sources. KMLabs excels at bringing innovative technical advances to market, and our product are often the highest-performing in their class because of the use of innovative technology. This lasers system, in particular, would have the ability to replace expensive and unreliable bulk crystal laser systems (typically Ti:sapphire) with a fiber-based platform of high reliability and ruggedness. One of the most important commercial applications for this laser would be in wavelength conversion, where the fundamental light is shifted to a different wavelength that is inaccessible with typical laser systems. KMLabs would leverage our phase-matched high harmonic generation IP to turn this laser into a 100-200 nm source with multi-watt output. Such a laser would revolutionize the wafer inspection tools currently used by chip makers. This will help drive production costs down (along with the cost of your cell phone) and increase reliability. Return