Spectral broadening induced by intense ultra-short pulse in 4H–SiC crystals**Project supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2014AA041402) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51272276 and 51322211).

Abstract

We report the observation of spectral broadening induced by 200 femtosecond laser pulses with the repetition rate of 1 kHz at the wavelength of 532 nm in semi-insulating 4H–SiC single crystals. It is demonstrated that the full width at half maximum of output spectrum increases linearly with the light propagation length and the peak power density, reaching a maximum 870 cm−1 on a crystal of 19 mm long under an incident laser with a peak power density of 60.1 GW/cm2. Such spectral broadening can be well explained by the self-phase modulation model which correlates time-dependent phase change of pulses to intensity-dependent refractive index. The nonlinear refractive index n2 is estimated to be 1.88×10−15 cm2/W. The intensity-dependent refractive index is probably due to both the nonlinear optical polarizability of the bound electrons and the increase of free electrons induced by the two-photon absorption process. Super continuum spectra could arise as crystals are long enough to induce the self-focusing effect. The results show that SiC crystals may find applications in spectral broadening of high power lasers.