S. N. Orlov

Powerful picosecond UV pulses at a wavelength of 193nm are produced using a Nd:YAG laser radiating at a wavelength of 193nm with subsequent nonlinear transformations of the radiation and amplification in an excimer gain medium to an energy of 10 mJ.

We analyzed the features of CARS from polaritons caused by the ability of polaritons to propagate over macroscopic distances in a crystal. The polariton propagation is taken into account by retaining both a driven and a free polariton wave in complete solution of the wave equation for polaritons. It is shown that the polariton propagation can broaden CARS spectra. This broadening originates from the fact that polaritons can escape from the excitation region and the value of the broadening depends on the ratio L_θ/L_p of the dimension L_θ of the excitation region along the coherently excited polariton direction and the mean path of coherent polaritons L_p. We also find that when the phase‐matching Δk_a = 0 for the overall anti‐Stokes generation process is not fulfilled, an additional peak in the spectrum of CARS may appear even when the polariton damping is appreciable. These predictions are corroborated by our experimental investigations of CARS from polaritons in a BeO crystal. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The single shot autocorrelator designed to measure the AF of the ultrashort laser pulses in the temporal range of 30 - 200 fs and in spectral range 730 - 820 nm is described.