Peter Moulton on the Ti:Sapphire laser
Summary
TLDRPeter Moulton, Vice President and CTO of Q Peak Inc., discusses the evolution of solid-state lasers, focusing on the development of titanium sapphire lasers. He recounts his early work at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on tunable solid-state lasers and the breakthrough with titanium-doped sapphire in 1982. The technology's commercialization in the late 1980s revolutionized the scientific laser community, replacing dye lasers and enabling ultrafast laser applications in biology and chemistry. Moulton also touches on the Nobel Prize-winning chirped pulse amplification and its role in creating high-energy, ultra-short pulse lasers, which have significant scientific and commercial impacts.
Takeaways
- 🎓 Peter Moulton is the VP and CTO of Q Peak Incorporated, a small R&D organization focused on laser research and development.
- 🏢 Q Peak is part of Physical Sciences Incorporated, a larger company with a national presence, specializing in advanced solid-state lasers and non-linear optical systems.
- 🔬 Moulton's career began at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1970, where he worked on tunable solid-state lasers, including an unsuccessful thesis on semiconductor lasers.
- 💡 His research led to the discovery of titanium-doped sapphire as a viable material for lasers, which had a broad gain line and different properties from the initial ruby lasers.
- 🌟 In 1982, Moulton successfully demonstrated the laser operation of titanium sapphire, which later became a commercial product replacing dye lasers in the scientific community.
- 🏥 The titanium sapphire laser found applications in various fields, including testing erbium fiber amplifiers and basic science research.
- 🔍 The laser's ability to generate ultra-short pulses was a significant breakthrough, enabling the study of fast molecular dynamics and earning a Nobel Prize in Physics.
- 🌈 Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) technology, developed by Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland, allowed for the amplification of these short pulses to high energies without damaging the laser system.
- 🚀 The combination of titanium sapphire and CPA technology led to the creation of lasers capable of producing terawatt to petawatt peak powers in compact systems.
- 💸 The titanium sapphire laser has had a substantial economic impact, with an estimated product sales of around $600 million, and has been crucial for the scientific laser industry.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Q Peak Incorporated?
-Q Peak Incorporated focuses on laser research and development, specifically on advanced solid-state lasers, non-linear optical systems, and product development.
How long has Q Peak Incorporated been in operation?
-Q Peak Incorporated has been in operation for 25 years, starting as part of the research division of Schwartz Electro-Optics in 1985.
What was Peter Moulton's role at MIT Lincoln Laboratory?
-Peter Moulton worked on his thesis and developed tunable solid-state lasers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory from the early 1970s until he left to start his company in 1985.
What was the subject of Peter Moulton's thesis at MIT?
-Peter Moulton's thesis was an attempt to create a tunable solid-state laser in a semiconductor.
What was the breakthrough material that Peter Moulton discovered for laser development?
-Peter Moulton discovered that titanium doped sapphire (Ti:Al2O3) was an effective material for laser development, particularly in the 1.8 to 2 micron region.
What was significant about the titanium dopant in sapphire?
-The titanium dopant in sapphire was significant because it had a very broad gain line, making it one of the broadest lines of any known laser material, especially in solid-state materials.
When and where was the successful demonstration of the titanium sapphire laser first announced?
-The successful demonstration of the titanium sapphire laser was first announced at the Quantum Electronics Conference in Munich in 1982.
How did the titanium sapphire laser impact the scientific community?
-The titanium sapphire laser replaced the dye laser as the mainstay of the scientific tunable laser community, starting around 1988 and 89, and rapidly became accepted for various scientific applications.
What was the significance of the mode-locking discovery in titanium sapphire lasers?
-The mode-locking discovery allowed titanium sapphire lasers to generate extremely short pulses, approaching the fundamental limit of the material, which was crucial for studying fast events in biology and chemistry.
What is Chirped Pulse Amplification and how does it relate to titanium sapphire lasers?
-Chirped Pulse Amplification is a technique that allows for the stretching of very short pulses to high energies without damaging the laser system's optics. When combined with titanium sapphire lasers, it enabled the generation of terawatt to petawatt peak power pulses in compact systems.
What is the economic impact of the titanium sapphire laser according to Peter Moulton?
-The titanium sapphire laser has had a substantial economic impact, with accumulated product sales estimated around 0.6 billion dollars, sustaining the scientific laser industry for several years.
Outlines
🔬 Innovations in Laser Technology
Peter Moulton, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Q Peak Incorporated, discusses the evolution of laser technology over the past 50 years. He started his career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1970, focusing on tunable solid-state lasers. His initial research on semiconductor lasers was unsuccessful, but he later found success with transition metal-doped crystals, particularly titanium-doped sapphire. This material, with its broad gain line, revolutionized the field by enabling the development of ultrafast lasers. Moulton's work led to the commercialization of titanium sapphire lasers, which replaced dye lasers and became essential tools in scientific research and various applications, including testing erbium fiber amplifiers and studying molecular dynamics. The paragraph also touches on the discovery of mode-locking techniques that allowed for the generation of extremely short pulses, which earned a Nobel Prize in Physics.
🌟 The Impact of Chirped Pulse Amplification
The second paragraph delves into the development of chirped pulse amplification technology by Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland at the University of Rochester. This innovation allowed for the amplification of very short pulses to high energies without damaging the optical components, by stretching the pulses spectrally. When combined with the titanium sapphire laser, it enabled the creation of lasers capable of producing terawatt to petawatt peak powers in compact systems. These high-power pulses are used for fundamental physics research and the generation of high harmonics, with the ultimate goal of developing practical X-ray sources. The paragraph highlights the significant scientific and commercial success of the titanium sapphire laser, which has had a substantial economic impact, with an estimated product sales value of around 0.6 billion dollars. It also mentions the decision by MIT not to patent the technology, which allowed for its widespread adoption and development by multiple companies, benefiting the scientific community as a whole.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Laser
💡Solid State Lasers
💡Non-linear Optical Systems
💡Tunable Lasers
💡Transition Metal Doped Crystals
💡Titanium Doped Sapphire
💡Mode Locking
💡Chirped Pulse Amplification
💡Femtosecond Pulses
💡Ultrafast Lasers
💡Economic Impact
Highlights
Spie presents a series honoring 50 years of laser achievements.
Peter Moulton, Vice President and CTO of Q Peak, discusses his company's focus on solid-state lasers and non-linear optical systems.
Q Peak is part of Physical Sciences Incorporated, a larger company with a nationwide presence.
Moulton's career began at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in 1970, working on tunable solid-state lasers.
His initial thesis on tunable solid-state lasers in semiconductors was unsuccessful.
Research led to the discovery of titanium-doped sapphire as a viable laser material.
Titanium-doped sapphire has the broadest gain line of any known laser material.
Moulton's work on titanium sapphire led to a breakthrough in laser technology in 1982.
The titanium sapphire laser replaced dye lasers as the scientific community's mainstay for tunable lasers.
The laser's development was rapid, with commercial quantities available by 1988-89.
Initial applications included testing erbium fiber amplifiers and basic science research.
Researchers at the University of St. Andrews discovered mode-locking of the titanium sapphire laser, enabling ultra-short pulse generation.
The technology advanced to generate 10 femtosecond pulses, making ultra-fast lasers more accessible.
Short pulses were used to study molecular dynamics and interactions, leading to a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Chirped pulse amplification was developed to amplify short pulses to high energies without damaging optics.
The combination of chirped pulse amplification and titanium sapphire material enabled the creation of high peak power lasers.
These high peak power lasers are used to study fundamental physics and generate high harmonics into the ultraviolet.
The titanium sapphire laser has had a significant scientific and commercial impact, with over $600 million in product sales.
MIT decided not to patent the technology, which allowed for broad development and adoption by the community.
Transcripts
spie presents the advancing the laser
series honoring
50 years of laser achievements
i'm peter moulton i'm currently the vice
president and chief technology officer
of
q peak incorporated it's a small r d
organization doing laser research and
development in bedford massachusetts
we're part of a larger company physical
sciences incorporated based in andover
with
sites all over the country and our main
business is the development of advanced
solid state lasers non-linear optical
systems
and development of products so
it's an organization i started as part
of
the research division of schwartz
electro optics in 1985
so this is our 25th year of operation
and been very exciting taking technology
from 1985 through 2010 and
seeing where it's developed
before that i was at mit lincoln
laboratory
from my days as a graduate student at
mit
starting about 1970 until i left to
start
start the company in about 1985
during the period at mit lincoln
laboratory i worked
on my thesis which was an attempt to try
to make a tunable solid state laser in a
semiconductor
and then after that i worked for about
10 years developing
other types of tunable solid-state
lasers
my thesis didn't work but subsequently i
started working on some other materials
some transition metal doped
crystals nickel and cobalt in the
in the 1.8 to 2 micron region
they all succeeded reasonably well but
they needed cryogenic temperatures for
cooling
and they had other drawbacks one of the
things that i looked at then was to try
to see if there were some other
materials that could work
more effectively and doing going back to
sort of fundamental physics i looked at
the
material or the dopant eye and titanium
and discovered that it worked very
nicely in the crystal hose sapphire
so it was an intriguing material because
the first laser was in fact
ruby which is chromium doped sapphire
al2o3 and the titanium
dopant had totally different properties
from ruby instead of being a narrow line
it was a very broad line in fact
it's about the broadest gain line of any
laser material that's that's known any
certainly any solid state material
and so as a in a chain of about 10 years
of partial successes some failures and
and so forth i finally landed in 1982
on on thai sapphire and succeeded in
demonstrating laser operation getting
an old crystal that had been kicking
around on the campus at mit from our
ceramicist
developed that announced that at the
quantum electronics conference in munich
in 1982 and subsequently worked on
developing that
i left lincoln laboratory in 85 as i
mentioned to start
the company and and my group continued
to work on titanium sapphire laser
development
in the meantime the material got to the
point where it became a commercial
quantity it was it essentially stepped
in and replaced the
the dye laser which had been the
mainstay of the scientific tunable laser
community
and that started about 1988 and 89 and
that became very rapidly accepted we
our my company made some products
spectrophysics coherent did and other
companies and sold a lot of systems they
were
initially used as cw sources
to uh to test things like erbium fiber
amplifiers as well as do basic science
uh subsequent to that in experimental
work
on the thai sapphire laser a group in
scotland the university of san andreas
discovered under certain conditions the
laser could be mode locked
and surprisingly using a technique that
it was later discovered to be
care lens mode locking generate really
short pulses in fact pulses that
approach the fundamental limit of the
material
and over about a 10-year period that
technology was developed to the point
where the ti sapphire was
was generating 10 femtosecond pulses or
so extremely short
and it was a practical source the the
earlier technology had been liquid dye
lasers are very hard to use the ti
sapphire
enabled relatively easily
fabricated and operated ultra fast
lasers and made them available to a wide
variety of users in the
biological and chemical areas
subsequently many people use those short
pulses to characterize
and freeze uh very fast events like
molecular
dynamics uh in one of the nobel prizes
in physics
i might say well was really given
for the work that he did using ultra
fast lasers in thai sapphire in
particular i think
to to understand how molecules move and
how they interact
a side effort uh that later became a
major effort in that
evolution of the time sapphire
technology was
um at the same time that the thai
sapphire
was was being developed to generate
short pulses gerard maru
and his co-workers at rochester came up
with the chirp pulse amplification
technology
which allowed you to take very short
pulses and amplify
them to very high energies the problem
with that
in principle was if you took the short
pulse as it came out of the laser and
amplified it up
the pulse itself would have so much peak
power that would eventually damage all
the optics in the system
and what gerard and donna strickland was
his co-worker pointed
out is if you take the pulse and stretch
it out by using uh the spectral
properties of the material from tens to
hundreds of femtoseconds to
nearly a nanosecond now you can
propagate the pulse through a high
amplifier
high energy amplifier chain and go to
very high energies and that sure pulse
amplification technique
combined with the thai sapphire material
became the basis for making
lasers that could generate terawatts and
then petawatts and then extra watts of
peak power
in a very small and compact system and
so that whole area has developed into a
major
physics development and those high peak
power pulses are used to
again study some very fundamental
physics as well as
generate extremely high harmonics up
into the ultraviolet
the holy grail being the development of
x-ray sources that can be used for
biological and eventually hopefully
practical applications in x-ray analysis
much better than an x-ray source
so the thai sapphire laser is has been a
great success
i hadn't really thought it was going to
be that way we were doing it for other
reasons but
it's become a very substantial success
from a scientific standpoint and nobel
prizes and being able to do great
physics
from a commercial standpoint my
understanding is
it's sustained the scientific laser
industry for a number of years
i think the last time i checked the
accumulated product sales for the thai
sapphire laser around 0.6 billion
dollars
so it's had a substantial economic
impact as well
mit didn't think it was worth patenting
when i when i went to them they had run
out of funds and just
weren't interested so i never benefited
from that sadly but
in some sense the fact that the laser
was made free to the community
probably helped it rather than say if it
had been licensed to one company it may
not have developed the way it did
it was broadly developed by a lot of
companies competing and
that helped build the technology so it
was good for the community
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