Panoramic-reconstruction temporal imaging for seamless measurements of slowly-evolved femtosecond pulse dynamics

Bowen Li,Kenneth K Y Wong,Yongnan Li,Shu-Wei Huang,Chee Wei Wong

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-00093-7

Abstract

Single-shot real-time characterization of optical waveforms with sub-picosecond resolution is essential for investigating various ultrafast optical dynamics. However, the finite temporal recording length of current techniques hinders comprehensive understanding of many intriguing ultrafast optical phenomena that evolve over a timescale much longer than their fine temporal details. Inspired by the space-time duality and by stitching of multiple microscopic images to achieve a larger field of view in the spatial domain, here a panoramic-reconstruction temporal imaging (PARTI) system is devised to scale up the temporal recording length without sacrificing the resolution. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, the PARTI system is applied to study the dynamic waveforms of slowly evolved dissipative Kerr solitons in an ultrahigh-Q microresonator. Two 1.5-ns-long comprehensive evolution portraits are reconstructed with 740 fs resolution and dissipative Kerr soliton transition dynamics, in which a multiplet soliton state evolves into a stable singlet soliton state, are depicted.

Highlights

Single-shot real-time characterization of optical waveforms with sub-picosecond resolution is essential for investigating various ultrafast optical dynamics
The time-bandwidth product (TBWP, the ratio between the recording length and the temporal resolution) of the state-of-the-art temporal imaging systems has not exceeded 45026. Such situation hinders the applications of temporal imaging systems to study many important optical nonlinear dynamics, where fine temporal details and long evolution information are necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena
An optical metrology system that combines the feats of fine temporal resolution and long measurement window is desired in the study of optical turbulence and laminar-turbulent transition in fibre lasers[40, 41], which leads to a better understanding of coherence breakdown in lasers and laser operation in far-from-equilibrium regimes

Summary

Introduction

Single-shot real-time characterization of optical waveforms with sub-picosecond resolution is essential for investigating various ultrafast optical dynamics. Just like there is always a limitation on the field-of-view in any spatial imaging systems, the single-shot recording length of temporal imaging systems has been hitherto limited to

Methods

Results

Conclusion