Abstract
A new scheme is presented for fiber transmission of ultrashort laser pulses. A dispersive device divides the input pulses into spatially separated spectral components which are individually launched in the different channels of a multicore fiber before being recombined at the output by a second dispersive device. The parallel transmission of narrow spectral bands avoids self-phase modulation and could be appropriate to deliver high peak power pulses. Phase management of the spectral bands by an active element offers recovery of the seed pulse duration at the fiber output as well as pulse shaping capabilities. Both are reported in a proof of concept experiment using 190 fs input pulses and a 5 cores polarization maintaining fiber. Extension of the concept to femtosecond pulses amplification is suggested.
Highlights
It is often required for powerful ultrashort laser pulses in the near infrared to be delivered through a flexible optical waveguide
We have proposed a spatially dispersive stretcher-free scheme for fiber delivery of ultrashort laser pulses by means of a multicore fiber
In view of a proof of concept demonstration, a 190 fs laser pulse at 1032 nm has been split in five spectral components which were separately transmitted in different cores of a passive multicore fiber (MF) before being recombined coherently
Summary
It is often required for powerful ultrashort laser pulses in the near infrared to be delivered through a flexible optical waveguide. They are defined by the well known relationships LD = −2πc δτ2/(λ2.D) and LNL = Aeff.λ/(2πn2P) where λ denotes the central wavelength, D the dispersion, δτ the pulse width, Aeff the guided mode effective area, n2 the Kerr nonlinear refractive index and P the peak power. Since the total effective area and the pulse duration in each core are both multiplied by ~N in the case of the MF, the peak power of light coupled in the individual waveguides is at the same time a small fraction (~1/ N2) of that of the input laser pulse, so that the impact of nonlinearity is significantly reduced on a propagation distance LMF. We have carried out a proof of concept experiment which is reported below
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