1000th ORPHEUS OPA
2024 proves to be a year of anniversaries for Light Conversion. The company is not only celebrating 30 years in business, but the beginning of August also marks the shipment of the 1000th ORPHEUS-type optical parametric amplifier (OPA).
Just like Light Conversion’s first OPA TOPAS, designed for titanium sapphire (Ti:sapphire) lasers, the ORPHEUS OPA enables the generation of laser radiation over a wide range of wavelengths for ytterbium (Yb) lasers. The ORPHEUS series of OPAs operate at high repetition rates while maintaining the best properties of the TOPAS series, such as the wide tuning range from deep-UV (190 nm) to mid-IR (16 000 nm) and high output stability. Together, these products supply around 95% of the global demand for optical parametric amplifiers.
ORPHEUS product line developers next to a modern ORPHEUS-OPCPA and one of the first ORPHEUS OPAs.
ORPHEUS at Laser World of Photonics trade show in Munich, 2009.
Evolution of ORPHEUS
Beginning in 2008, ORPHEUS development focused on matching the wide wavelength tuning capabilities already available in the TOPAS line of products. However, soon enough our own PHAROS femtosecond laser, used for pumping the ORPHEUS OPAs, started to present new challenges. The combination of PHAROS and ORPHEUS opened a new market for scientists interested in an ultrafast laser matched with an OPA. Consequently, PHAROS became the stimulus for development. With 1 MHz repetition rates and 20 W output power becoming easily available, 2013 saw the birth of the ORPHEUS-HP, designed to handle it.
Initially, our customers – researchers in chemistry, materials development, and other physical sciences – drove the design of these OPAs. However, our internal R&D, driven by desire for innovation, led to the launch of the first integrated OPA in 2014. The industrial-grade I-OPA could be built into CARBIDE or PHAROS femtosecond lasers, marking a new era of simplicity in wavelength-tunable femtosecond sources. In 2016, the broadband hybrid ORPHEUS-F OPA was launched, combining the advantages of collinear and non-collinear OPA geometries, offering pulse durations down to 25 – 70 fs, and tuning ranges suitable for most spectroscopy and nonlinear microscopy applications.
The direction of development continued towards user-friendliness and adapting to the new grade of even more powerful femtosecond lasers. While some research shifted towards optical chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) projects, feedback from these initiatives resulted in the ORPHEUS-MIR in 2020, producing extremely broad bandwidth and short pulses in the mid-infrared (2500 – 15000 nm) spectrum.
While the year 2021 marked the production of the 500th ORPHEUS device, today we are celebrating the shipment of the 1000th system based on ORPHEUS technology.
Tunable I-OPA-HP attached to CARBIDE-CB3 femtosecond laser.
PHAROS pump laser and ORPHEUS-OPCPA.
Beyond wavelength tuning
It is worth noting that Light Conversion’s OPAs for Yb-based lasers extend beyond the ORPHEUS product line. This technology, coupled with a femtosecond laser, is also integrated into the microscopy-dedicated CRONUS product line, high-intensity OPCPA systems, and complete HARPIA spectroscopy systems.
As the mentioned product groups suggest, ORPHEUS OPAs are widely used in scientific research, constantly finding new niches. The main area of application is in the field of ultrafast spectroscopy – from fundamental research to solar cell or battery development. However, a few years ago, these amplifiers also found use in neuroscience research, allowing imaging of living organisms in real time – a key factor in exploring brain and neuro functions. The convenient choice of wavelengths in the near-infrared range, where biological windows lie, and the flexible choice of pulse energy and pulse duration make the ORPHEUS and CRONUS series well-suited for these studies.
The microenvironment of an intact mouse whisker pad, revealed through multiplex label-free nonlinear microscopy using CRONUS-3P, illuminated at 1300 nm.
Courtesy of Kunzan Liu, Sixian You laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Functional three-photon neuroimaging of zebrafish using OEM OPA in ORPHEUS-F configuration.
Courtesy of Chris Xu and Joe Fetcho groups, Cornell University.
The SYLOS 3 high-intensity laser system, developed by Light Conversion and Ekspla consortium for the ELI-ALPS research institute in Hungary, is also based on ORPHEUS OPAs technology. This system generates laser pulses of 15 TW peak power at 1 kHz repetition rate and 8 fs duration, enabling researchers to collect significantly more data from fundamental to applied science experiments, and fostering the development of promising technologies such as laser-based particle accelerators.
SYLOS 3 – high-intensity laser system.
15 TW, 1 kHz OPCPA for ELI-ALPS (SYLOS 3).
Yb lasers coupled to OPAs have overtaken a significant portion of the time-resolved market. The main advantage of OPAs pumped by Yb lasers is a higher repetition rate, reaching up to a few megahertz. The switch from kilohertz to megahertz repetition rates can significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio or expedite the experiment. For example, a measurement that previously took half a day using a kilohertz repetition rate Ti:sapphire system can now be conducted in less than a minute using a Yb-based system.
To learn more about the specifications and benefits of different models of ORPHEUS OPAs, continue to the Wavelength-Tunable Sources for Yb Lasers section.
