Ultrafast Optics and X-Rays Division

Our group is developing novel ultrashort pulse laser technologies that are essential in the production and control of electron and ultrafast optical beams in accelerators and light sources.
These laser technologies are essential for next generation light sources, like seeded X-ray Free-Electron Lasers, and enable completely new laser electron acceleration schemes and ultrafast electron and X-ray sources.
The optical, mid-infrared and THz pulses generated may be as short as a single cycle and are used for time resolved experiments in attosecond science, advanced free-electron lasers or inverse Compton scattering schemes for efficient high energy electron beam and X-ray production.

The group’s research facilities are
at CFEL, DESY, Hamburg and
at the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT.

The research covers the following areas:

Ultrashort Pulse Laser Technology: Octave spanning Ti:sapphire laser cavity generating 5fs carrier-envelope phase stabilized pulse trains Photography by Greg Hren	Femtosecond Laser Frequency Combs: He-Ne-Laser tube in methan-stabilized optical clock Photography by Greg Hren
High-Power and High-Energy Short Pulse Lasers: 300 W cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG laser amplifier Photography by Greg Hren	Attosecond Photonics: Chip-scale femtosecond laser. Photography by Greg Hren