Modeling and Control of Optical Pulse Amplifiers for Ultra-Short Laser Pulses

Over the last several decades, the systematic generation, detection, and manipulation of light opened a novel and rapidly growing field of research now commonly known as photonics. One particular task in photonic applications is the amplification of light pulses, especially for ultra-short high-energy pulses as used in various applications ranging from crystallography to ablation-based material processing. While modern pulse amplifiers already rely on computerized control methods and programmable actuators, the use of automatic control methods is comparatively scarce compared to other physical domains. One major reason - apart from the relative novelty of the field itself - might be the usually very complex mathematical models combined with a high degree of uncertainty in both model quality and parameters. Many quantities are inaccessible to direct measurement or can only be measured with highly sophisticated equipment. As a result, existing automatic control schemes typically employ simple model-free concepts. The main goal of this work is thus to take a look at optical pulse amplifiers from a dedicated control engineering perspective and develop novel control concepts that are increasing the expected performance or allow operations that have not been possible before.