4,305 research outputs found
Modulational-instability-free pulse compression in anti-resonant hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
Gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is used for efficient
nonlinear temporal compression of femtosecond laser pulses, two main schemes
being direct soliton-effect self-compression, and spectral broadening followed
by phase compensation. To obtain stable compressed pulses, it is crucial to
avoid decoherence through modulational instability (MI) during spectral
broadening. Here we show that changes in dispersion due to spectral
anti-crossings between the fundamental core mode and core wall resonances in
anti-resonant-guiding hollow-core PCF can strongly alter the MI gain spectrum,
enabling MI-free pulse compression for optimized fiber designs. In addition,
higher-order dispersion can introduce MI even when the pump pulses lie in the
normal dispersion region
Dominance of backward stimulated Raman scattering in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers
Backward stimulated Raman scattering in gases provides a promising route to
compression and amplification of a Stokes seed-pulse by counter-propagating
against a pump-pulse, as has been already demonstrated in various platforms,
mainly in free-space. However, the dynamics governing this process when seeded
by noise has not yet been investigated in a fully controllable collinear
environment. Here we report the first unambiguous observation of efficient
noise-seeded backward stimulated Raman scattering in a hydrogen-filled
hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. At high gas pressures, when the backward
Raman gain is comparable with, but lower than, the forward gain, we report
quantum conversion efficiencies exceeding 40% to the backward Stokes at 683 nm
from a narrowband 532-nm-pump. The efficiency increases to 65% when the
backward process is seeded by a small amount of back-reflected
forward-generated Stokes light. At high pump powers the backward Stokes signal,
emitted in a clean fundamental mode and spectrally pure, is unexpectedly always
stronger than its forward-propagating counterpart. We attribute this striking
observation to the unique temporal dynamics of the interacting fields, which
cause the Raman coherence (which takes the form of a moving fine-period Bragg
grating) to grow in strength towards the input end of the fiber. A good
understanding of this process, together with the rapid development of novel
anti-resonant-guiding hollow-core fibers, may lead to improved designs of
efficient gas-based Raman lasers and amplifiers operating at wavelengths from
the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared.Comment: 6 pages and 8 figures in the main section. 4 pages and 5 figures in
the supplementary sectio
Linearons: highly non-instantaneous solitons in liquid-core photonic crystal fibers
The nonlinear propagation of light pulses in liquid-filled photonic crystal
fibers is considered. Due to the slow reorientational nonlinearity of some
molecular liquids, the nonlinear modes propagating inside such structures can
be approximated, for pulse durations much shorter than the molecular relaxation
time, by temporally highly-nonlocal solitons, analytical solutions of a linear
Schroedinger equation. The physical relevance of these novel solitary
structures, which may have a broad range of applications, is discussed and
supported by detailed numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Near-ionization-threshold emission in atomic gases driven by intense sub-cycle pulses
We study theoretically the dipole radiation of a hydrogen atom driven by an
intense sub-cycle pulse. The time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation for the
system is solved by ab initio calculation to obtain the dipole response.
Remarkably, a narrowband emission lasting longer than the driving pulse appears
at a frequency just above the ionization threshold. An additional calculation
using the strong field approximation also recovers this emission, which
suggests that it corresponds to the oscillation of nearly-bound electrons that
behave similarly to Rydberg electrons. The predicted phenomenon is unique to
ultrashort driving pulses but not specific to any particular atomic structure.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Nonlinear optics in Xe-filled hollow-core PCF in high pressure and supercritical regimes
Supercritical Xe at 293 K offers a Kerr nonlinearity that can exceed that of
fused silica while being free of Raman scattering. It also has a much higher
optical damage threshold and a transparency window that extends from the UV to
the infrared. We report the observation of nonlinear phenomena, such as
self-phase modulation, in hollow-core photonic crystal fiber filled with
supercritical Xe. In the subcritical regime, intermodal four-wave-mixing
resulted in the generation of UV light in the HE12 mode. The normal dispersion
of the fiber at high pressures means that spectral broadening can clearly
obtained without influence from soliton effects or material damage
Continuously wavelength-tunable high harmonic generation via soliton dynamics
We report generation of high harmonics in a gas-jet pumped by pulses
self-compressed in a He-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber through the
soliton effect. The gas-jet is placed directly at the fiber output. As the
energy increases the ionization-induced soliton blue-shift is transferred to
the high harmonics, leading to a emission bands that are continuously tunable
from 17 to 45 eV
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