High-intracavity-power thin-disk laser for the alignment of molecules

Abstract

We propose a novel approach for strong alignment of gas-phase molecules for experiments at arbitrary repetition rates. A high-intracavity-power continuous-wave laser will provide the necessary ac electric field of $10^{10}$- $10^{11}\text{W}/{\text{cm}}^2$. We demonstrate thin-disk lasers based on Yb:YAG and Yb:Lu${}_2$O${}_3$ in a linear high-finesse resonator providing intracavity power levels in excess of 100~kW at pump power levels on the order of 50~W. The multi-longitudinal-mode operation of this laser avoids spatial-hole burning even in a linear standing-wave resonator. The system will be scaled up as in-vacuum system to allow for the generation of fields of $10^{11}\text{W}/{\text{cm}}^2$. This system will be directly applicable for experiments at modern X-ray light sources, such as synchrotrons or free-electron lasers, which operate at various very high repetition rates. This would allow to record molecular movies through temporally resolved diffractive imaging of fixed-in-space molecules, as well as the spectroscopic investigation of combined X-ray-NIR strong-field effects of atomic and molecular systems.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• X-ray diffractive imaging of controlled gas-phase molecules: Toward imaging of dynamics in the molecular frame
• Chiral Rotational Spectroscopy
• Time-dependent analysis of the mixed-field orientation of molecules without rotational symmetry
• Light-sheet imaging for the recording of transverse absolute density distributions of gas-phase particle-beams from nanoparticle injectors
• Laser-induced alignment of nanoparticles and macromolecules for single-particle-imaging applications