Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DUVlight (Development of a compact, user-friendly and cost effective source for the generation of powerful and broad ultrashort pulses in the deep-UV)
Período documentado: 2018-01-01 hasta 2019-06-30
We developed a compact and portable set-up, based on an original design, able to generate very broadband (70-100 nm at 300 nm) and powerful (J to mJ per pulse) ultrashort UV pulses (270-370nm and pulse lengths of few fs to 100s fs), based on frequency doubling of broadband ultrafast visible pulses. There is no such a source commercially available and the schemes proposed in scientific literature require an advanced level of competence in optics and laser physics and are not cost-effective and unsuitable for industrial and medical applications. Compared with other schemes, our device guarantees an aberration-free propagation with minimal dispersion and an easy installation and maintenance. We conceived and tested different implementations. The best design, chosen according to performance, practicality and cost-effectiveness was identified and chosen to build an industrial-grade demonstrator. It is a compact, portable and cost-effective device, with minimal maintenance and a user-friendly design. The device was recently launched on the market and is now commercialized by 8photonics (https://8photonics.com/(se abrirá en una nueva ventana)) with the name “femto-DUVALight”.
About the socioeconomic impact, the development of sources of tuneable and very broadband femtosecond pulses in the visible and near infrared has allowed establishing a countless number of applications and techniques that have tremendously impacted on society and economics as in medical domain (medical device fabrication, cardiovascular stent manufacturing, laser eye surgery), bio-imaging (multiphoton microscopy, multimodal imaging, coherent anti-Stokes and stimulated Raman microscopies, super-resolution microscopies), advanced micromachining (pulsed laser assisted nano-material fabrication, thin films micromachining, two-photon polymerization, precision micromachining), new tools for scientific research (multidimensional coherent spectroscopies, coherent control, femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopies, etc). The lack of broad and powerful sources in the deep-UV and UV range is hindering a full development of these applications and the extension to important materials as for instance wild-gap semiconductors and insulators (e.g. most of the metal oxides as TiO2 or ZnO and relative nanomaterials), the majority of biological molecules, bio-inspired supramolecular devices or DNA based nano-devices because most of the amino-acids, all the nucleotide bases and several cyclic compounds are transparent to Vis radiation. The implementation of our device has finally filled this gap.
About the socioeconomic impact, the development of sources of tuneable and very broadband femtosecond pulses in the visible and near infrared has allowed establishing a countless number of applications and techniques that have tremendously impacted on society and economics as in medical domain (medical device fabrication, cardiovascular stent manufacturing, laser eye surgery), bio-imaging (multiphoton microscopy, multimodal imaging, coherent anti-Stokes and stimulated Raman microscopies, super-resolution microscopies), advanced micromachining (pulsed laser assisted nano-material fabrication, thin films micromachining, two-photon polymerization, precision micromachining), new tools for scientific research (multidimensional coherent spectroscopies, coherent control, femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopies, etc). The lack of broad and powerful sources in the deep-UV and UV range is hindering a full development of these applications and the extension to important materials as for instance wild-gap semiconductors and insulators (e.g. most of the metal oxides as TiO2 or ZnO and relative nanomaterials), the majority of biological molecules, bio-inspired supramolecular devices or DNA based nano-devices because most of the amino-acids, all the nucleotide bases and several cyclic compounds are transparent to Vis radiation. The implementation of our device has finally filled this gap.