Time-resolved spectroscopy instrumentation

FEMTOSECOND LASERS

High-Repetition Rate Dual Femtosecond Amplifier System (Light Conversion):
A new system has just been installed comprising:

2x Pharos amplifiers (second amp. seeded from first) 1030 nm, 130 fs pulses, optimised for 200 kHz and pulse picked). The first amp. simultaneously pumps an Orpheus-2N non-colinear parametric amplifier and an Orpheus-3N non-colinear parametric amplifier and a third beam for white light generation.

The second amp. pumps an Orpheus OPA and an Orpheus TWINS (OPA/DFG) and provides a second white light source. This runs as an independent source, however, in a second mode, the timing of the pulse output from the second amp. can be triggered electronically synchronised to the first amplifier in delay steps of 1/(mode-locked rep. rate) to allow long time-scale pump-probe experiments.

This system will be the source for transient absorption running at 50kHz with excitation from the UV-visible and NIR, and probe wavelengths spanning the visible and NIR (and using Stresing prism-based spectrometers) and infrared (InfraRed Systems) spectrometer. It will also be coupled with ultrafast fluorescence techniques.

High-Repetition Rate Amplified Femtosecond Pulse Ti:Sapphire Laser System (Coherent):
RegA 9050 : 800 nm centre wavelength, 50 fs, 10-250 kHz repetition rate, 900 mW output @ 96 kHz. (Seeded by MIRAseed).  Pumps 2x OPA 9400 : Tuneable range 480 – 700 nm and 940 – 2300 nm.

Cavity Dumped Femtosecond Ti:Sapphire Laser Oscillator
Coherent MIRA 900 : Tuneable range 700-980 nm (can be frequency doubled/tripled to 400nm or 266 nm), <200 fs, 76MHz repetition rate, reduced to 50-5400 kHz with APE PulseSwitch cavity dumper.

Femtosecond Ti:Sapphire Laser Oscillator
Kapteyn-Murnane Labs (KML Collegiate): ~800 nm, <50 fs, 85 MHz repetition rate.

PICOSECOND LASERS

Mode-locked, Diode-pumped, Solid-State Laser
Time-Bandwidth Products CHEETAH-X: 532 nm, > 2W, 82 MHz, 10 ps pulses.

Supercontinuum Fibre Laser
Fianium SC450-PP-HE: ~6 ps, repetition rate 1/5/20 MHz, 460-2000 nm.

Supercontinuum Fibre Laser
NKT SuperK Extreme: tuneable ~450-750nm, variable (kHz-MHz) repetition rate, ~100ps pulses

Supercontinuum Fibre Laser
NKT COMPACT: white light, variable (to ~22 kHz) repetition rate, sub ns pulses

NANOSECOND LASERS

Q-Switched Nd:YAG/Optical Parametric Oscillator
Ekspla NT342B-10-SH : >30mJ@450nm; 410-2600nm, >6 mJ@340nm; 225-409nm;  SFG extension, 3-5 ns pulses, 10Hz.

SPECIALIST DETECTORS

Gated/Intensified CCD Camera
Princeton Instruments PI-MAX2 : Adjustable gate width (10 ns min), 530-800 nm spectral range, 512×512 pixels. Attached to imaging spectrometer for flash-photolysis and fluorescence/phosphorescence spectroscopy.

High repetition rate intensified CCD camera
La Vision PicoStarHR : Adjustable gate width (200 ps min), CCD SPECS

High repetition rate CCD for femtosecond spectroscopy
Entwicklungsbuero Stresing 3030 : 50 kHz, Synchronised Dual Detector System.

Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting
Becker and Hickl Hybrid Photodetector : <20 ps resolution, 380-920 nm.
Becker and Hickl Multi-Channel Detector : 200 ps resolution, 16 Channels,  300-850 nm.