Impact of dispersion on pulse dynamics in chirped-pulse fiber lasers

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We report on a systematic study of an environmentally stable mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser operating in the chirped-pulse regime. The linear cavity chirped-pulse fiber laser is constructed with a saturable absorber mirror as nonlinear mode-locking mechanism and a nonlinearity-free transmission-grating-based stretcher/compressor for dispersion management. Mode-locked operation and pulse dynamics from strong normal to strong anomalous total cavity dispersion in the range of +2.5 to -1.6 ps(2) is experimentally studied. Strongly positively chirped pulses from 4.3 ps (0.01 ps(2)) to 39 ps (2.5 ps(2)) are obtained at normal net-cavity dispersion. In the anomalous dispersion regime, the laser generates average soliton feature negatively chirped pulses with autocorrelation pulse durations from 0.8 ps (-0.07 ps(2)) to 3.9 ps (-1.6 ps(2)). The lowered peak power due to the pulse stretching allows one to increase the double pulse threshold. Based on the numerical simulation, different regimes of mode locking are obtained by varying the intra-cavity dispersion, and the characteristics of average soliton, stretched-pulse, wave-breaking-free and chirped-pulse regimes are discussed

Propagation of Light in Photonic Crystal Fibre Devices

We describe a semi-analytical approach for three-dimensional analysis of photonic crystal fibre devices. The approach relies on modal transmission-line theory. We offer two examples illustrating the utilization of this approach in photonic crystal fibres: the verification of the coupling action in a photonic crystal fibre coupler and the modal reflectivity in a photonic crystal fibre distributed Bragg reflector.Comment: 15 pages including 7 figures. Accepted for J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Op

Discriminant analysis of solar bright points and faculae I. Classification method and center-to-limb distribution

While photospheric magnetic elements appear mainly as Bright Points (BPs) at the disk center and as faculae near the limb, high-resolution images reveal the coexistence of BPs and faculae over a range of heliocentric angles. This is not explained by a "hot wall" effect through vertical flux tubes, and suggests that the transition from BPs to faculae needs to be quantitatively investigated. To achieve this, we made the first recorded attempt to discriminate BPs and faculae, using a statistical classification approach based on Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA). This paper gives a detailed description of our method, and shows its application on high-resolution images of active regions to retrieve a center-to-limb distribution of BPs and faculae. Bright "magnetic" features were detected at various disk positions by a segmentation algorithm using simultaneous G-band and continuum information. By using a selected sample of those features to represent BPs and faculae, suitable photometric parameters were identified in order to carry out LDA. We thus obtained a Center-to-Limb Variation (CLV) of the relative number of BPs and faculae, revealing the predominance of faculae at all disk positions except close to disk center (mu > 0.9). Although the present dataset suffers from limited statistics, our results are consistent with other observations of BPs and faculae at various disk positions. The retrieved CLV indicates that at high resolution, faculae are an essential constituent of active regions all across the solar disk. We speculate that the faculae near disk center as well as the BPs away from disk center are associated with inclined fields

Ground states of two-dimensional ±\pmJ Edwards-Anderson spin glasses

We present an exact algorithm for finding all the ground states of the two-dimensional Edwards-Anderson $\pm J$ spin glass and characterize its performance. We investigate how the ground states change with increasing system size and and with increasing antiferromagnetic bond ratio $x$. We find that that some system properties have very large and strongly non-Gaussian variations between realizations.Comment: 15 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables, uses revtex4 macro

Decellularization of pericardial tissue and its impact on tensile viscoelasticity and glycosaminoglycan content

Bovine pericardium is a collagenous tissue commonly used as a natural biomaterial in the fabrication of cardiovascular devices. For tissue engineering purposes, this xenogeneic biomaterial must be decellularized to remove cellular antigens. With this in mind, three decellularization protocols were compared in terms of their effectiveness to extract cellular materials, their effect on glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content and, finally, their effect on tensile biomechanical behavior. The tissue decellularization was achieved by treatment with t-octyl phenoxy polyethoxy ethanol (Triton X-100), tridecyl polyethoxy ethanol (ATE) and alkaline treatment and subsequent treatment with nucleases (DNase/RNase). The quantified residual DNA content (3.0 ± 0.4%, 4.4 ± 0.6% and 5.6 ± 0.7% for Triton X-100, ATE and alkaline treatment, respectively) and the absence of nuclear structures (hematoxylin and eosin staining) were indicators of effective cell removal. In the same way, it was found that the native tissue GAG content decreased to 61.6 ± 0.6%, 62.7 ± 1.1% and 88.6 ± 0.2% for Triton X-100, ATE and alkaline treatment, respectively. In addition, an alteration in the tissue stress relaxation characteristics was observed after alkaline treatment. We can conclude that the three decellularization agents preserved the collagen structural network, anisotropy and the tensile modulus, tensile strength and maximum strain at failure of native tissue

High speed laser drilling of metals using a high repetition rate, high average power ultrafast fiber CPA system

We present an experimental study on the drilling of metal targets with ultrashort laser pulses at high repetition rates (from 50 kHz up to 975 kHz) and high average powers (up to 68 Watts), using an ytterbium-doped fiber CPA system. The number of pulses to drill through steel and copper sheets with thicknesses up to 1 mm have been measured as a function of the repetition rate and the pulse energy. Two distinctive effects, influencing the drilling efficiency at high repetition rates, have been experimentally found and studied: particle shielding and heat accumulation. While the shielding of subsequent pulses due to the ejected particles leads to a reduced ablation efficiency, this effect is counteracted by heat accumulation. The experimental data are in good qualitative agreement with simulations of the heat accumulation effect and previous studies on the particle emission. However, for materials with a high thermal conductivity as copper, both effects are negligible for the investigated processing parameters. Therefore, the full power of the fiber CPA system can be exploited, which allows to trepan high-quality holes in 0.5mm-thick copper samples with breakthrough times as low as 75 ms. © 2008 Optical Society of America

Using combined diagnostic test results to hindcast trends of infection from cross-sectional data

Infectious disease surveillance is key to limiting the consequences from infectious pathogens and maintaining animal and public health. Following the detection of a disease outbreak, a response in proportion to the severity of the outbreak is required. It is thus critical to obtain accurate information concerning the origin of the outbreak and its forward trajectory. However, there is often a lack of situational awareness that may lead to over- or under-reaction. There is a widening range of tests available for detecting pathogens, with typically different temporal characteristics, e.g. in terms of when peak test response occurs relative to time of exposure. We have developed a statistical framework that combines response level data from multiple diagnostic tests and is able to ‘hindcast’ (infer the historical trend of) an infectious disease epidemic. Assuming diagnostic test data from a cross-sectional sample of individuals infected with a pathogen during an outbreak, we use a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach to estimate time of exposure, and the overall epidemic trend in the population prior to the time of sampling. We evaluate the performance of this statistical framework on simulated data from epidemic trend curves and show that we can recover the parameter values of those trends. We also apply the framework to epidemic trend curves taken from two historical outbreaks: a bluetongue outbreak in cattle, and a whooping cough outbreak in humans. Together, these results show that hindcasting can estimate the time since infection for individuals and provide accurate estimates of epidemic trends, and can be used to distinguish whether an outbreak is increasing or past its peak. We conclude that if temporal characteristics of diagnostics are known, it is possible to recover epidemic trends of both human and animal pathogens from cross-sectional data collected at a single point in time

Lasers and optics: Looking towards third generation gravitational wave detectors

Third generation terrestrial interferometric gravitational wave detectors will likely require significant advances in laser and optical technologies to reduce two of the main limiting noise sources: thermal noise due to mirror coatings and quantum noise arising from a combination of shot noise and radiation pressure noise. Increases in laser power and possible changes of the operational wavelength require new high power laser sources and new electro-optic modulators and Faraday isolators. Squeezed light can be used to further reduce the quantum noise while nano-structured optical components can be used to reduce or eliminate mirror coating thermal noise as well as to implement all-reflective interferometer configurations to avoid thermal effects in mirror substrates. This paper is intended to give an overview on the current state-of-the-art and future trends in these areas of ongoing research and development.NSF/PHY0555453NSF/PHY0757968NSF/PHY0653582DFG/SFB/407DFG/SFB/TR7DFG/EXC/QUES

Real-time and Sub-wavelength Ultrafast Coherent Diffraction Imaging in the Extreme Ultraviolet

Coherent Diffraction Imaging is a technique to study matter with nanometer-scale spatial resolution based on coherent illumination of the sample with hard X-ray, soft X-ray or extreme ultraviolet light delivered from synchrotrons or more recently X-ray Free-Electron Lasers. This robust technique simultaneously allows quantitative amplitude and phase contrast imaging. Laser-driven high harmonic generation XUV-sources allow table-top realizations. However, the low conversion efficiency of lab-based sources imposes either a large scale laser system or long exposure times, preventing many applications. Here we present a lensless imaging experiment combining a high numerical aperture (NA=0.8) setup with a high average power fibre laser driven high harmonic source. The high flux and narrow-band harmonic line at 33.2 nm enables either sub-wavelength spatial resolution close to the Abbe limit (Delta r=0.8 lambda) for long exposure time, or sub-70 nm imaging in less than one second. The unprecedented high spatial resolution, compactness of the setup together with the real-time capability paves the way for a plethora of applications in fundamental and life sciences