Abstract
All-optical data processing continues to attract significant interest as a way to overcome the electronic signal processing bottleneck of fiber telecommunication networks. Nonlinear optical devices such as limiters and saturable absorbers rely on intensity-dependent attenuation of light. However, making such devices using intensity-dependent multiphoton dissipation processes is an issue as these make complete absorption and transmission impossible. Here, we show that nonlinear phase retardation in an optical fiber can control the dissipation of coherent light waves interacting on a thin plasmonic absorber from total absorption to perfect transmission. The fiber’s instantaneous Kerr nonlinearity and the femtosecond coherent absorption time scale make this approach ultrafast. We report proof-of-principle demonstrations of all-optical intensity discrimination, power limiting, pulse restoration, pulse splitting, and signal transfer between carrier wavelengths within a fiber circuit. Our results indicate that nonlinear control of coherent absorption can imitate and outperform saturable and multiphoton absorption in terms of bandwidth and contrast.
Highlights
Since 1926, when nonlinear optics began to develop with the observation of nonlinear absorption in uranium-doped glass,1 saturable absorption and multiphoton absorption have become the basis of applications from laser physics to signal processing, microfabrication, and imaging
This, in principle, allows nonlinear control of dissipation within an ideal absorber from perfect transmission to perfect absorption. After introducing this nonlinear absorption mechanism for continuous wave (CW) light under ideal conditions (Fig. 1), we demonstrate it in a fiber-based Sagnaclike interferometer, where self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) in a nonlinear optical fiber yield intensity-dependent phase shifts and a 70-nm-thick plasmonic metamaterial fabricated on the core of a cleaved optical fiber acts as the absorber
We have demonstrated nonlinear coherent absorption in a fiber-based interferometer, where intensity-dependent phase shifts occur in an optical fiber with Kerr nonlinearity and absorption occurs in a fiberized plasmonic metamaterial absorber
Summary
Since 1926, when nonlinear optics began to develop with the observation of nonlinear absorption in uranium-doped glass, saturable absorption and multiphoton absorption have become the basis of applications from laser physics to signal processing, microfabrication, and imaging. We introduce nonlinear coherent perfect absorption, which exploits an intensity-dependent optical phase shift to control the absorption of light waves with strong phase correlation interacting with a thin absorber. This, in principle, allows nonlinear control of dissipation within an ideal absorber from perfect transmission to perfect absorption After introducing this nonlinear absorption mechanism for continuous wave (CW) light under ideal conditions (Fig. 1), we demonstrate it in a fiber-based Sagnaclike interferometer, where self-phase modulation (SPM) and cross-phase modulation (XPM) in a nonlinear optical fiber yield intensity-dependent phase shifts and a 70-nm-thick plasmonic metamaterial fabricated on the core of a cleaved optical fiber acts as the absorber. We observe intensity discrimination and optical limiting (Fig. 2), narrowing and splitting of few-picosecond optical pulses (Fig. 3), and signal transfer between different carrier wavelengths (Fig. 4)
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