Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

This NSERC-RTI application is for the repair of my group's femtosecond (fs) laser system. My team has dealt with three major laser failures in the last two years: one in mid 2017, one in late 2017, and the last one in winter 2019. The first and third failures were related to damage of the laser medium in the oscillator cavity while the second one involved damage of the laser crystal within the laser amplifier; supposedly triggered by the former. For each of these failures, we were able to bring the system back to operation by displacing the damaged crystals in order to obtain fresh spots, procedures that were performed with remote assistance from the laser company owing to our expertise in laser physics and the lack of funds to pay for such a repair. The laser oscillator continues to degrade as evidenced by the slow and constant decrease of power stability measured over the last six months. The unit must be sent to the factory. The repair will involve the replacement of the laser oscillator by a newly developed unit with a higher damage threshold and changing the amplifying crystals and the gratings in the stretcher/compressor to improve the transverse beam quality.******Since this funding request is for the repair of a very costly and specialized fs-laser unit that energizes custom-built instruments, there are no other more cost-effective alternatives or availability of similar equipment in the vicinity. The aforementioned laser failures already affected the research productivity of my team multiple times. There is an immediate need to repair this equipment since a permanent breakdown will impede the completion of MSc and PhD theses.