Zhang, Zhigang

Professor

Research Interests: Optics, optoelectronics

Office Phone: 86-10-6275 4094

Email: zhgzhang@pku.edu.cn

Zhang, Zhigang is a professor in the Department of Electronics, School of EECS. He received his B.Sc. degree from Beijing University of Technology in 1982, and Ph.D. from Monash University, Australia in 1992 respectively. His research interests include ultrafast optics, nonlinear optics and laser science and applications.

Dr. ZHANG has published more than 100 international journal papers most of them are published in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences, such as Physical Review, Applied Physics Letters, Optics Letters, Optics Express, IEEE J. Quantum Electronics and Applied Optics. He has also published more than 100 international conference summaries in CLEO, ASSL, UFO, etc, including invited talks. He has served in the Technical Program Committee of CLEO, CLEO PR, ALPS, LIC, etc. as well as session chairs. He was appointed as a Cheung Kong Scholar in 1999, and elected to be an OSA Fellow in 2016.

Dr. ZHANG has several research projects including NSFC, 973 programs, 863 projects, etc. His research achievements are summarized as follows:

1. Semiconductor saturable absorbers. Semiconductor saturable absorbers (SESAMs) are the key components for mode locked solid state and fiber lasers. Prof. Zhang’s contribution is the low-loss broadband SESAMs and the high modulation and high damage threshold SESAMs. Those devices significantly improved the performance of the respective lasers.

2. Improved model of pulse stretcher. Pulse stretcher is the key components for chirped pulse amplification. However, the aberration introduced by the spherical mirror prevents the pulse from perfect compression after the amplification. Prof. Zhang developed a simple and analytical model for stretcher calculation including mirror aberration. This method can apply for both Martinez and Offner type stretchers.

3. High repetition rate fiber lasers. High repetition rate femtosecond fiber lasers are the key for optical frequency comb generation, coherent pulse stacking, and high throughput micromachining. However, the fiber laser repetition rate is limited to hundreds of MHz, partially due to the short fiber that results in low nonlinear phase shift and the mode locking can be difficult. Prof. Zhang proposed the principle that the shorter fiber length can help the laser mode locked due to the low dispersion in short fiber. He also proposed the single pass grating pair configuration so that the cavity can be further shortened. Together with other components developed by his colleague, he developed the state of art the highest repetition rate fiber lasers.