Continuum Generation Research Articles

Simple fiber-based solution for coherent multidimensional spectroscopy in the visible regime.

We report on a setup for coherent multidimensional spectroscopy based on visible continuum generation obtained by propagating 130 fs, <600 μJ pulses centered at 800 nm in a 2.5 m long hollow-core fiber. We find that with these modest input pulse requirements, the fiber can produce a stable, high brightness continuum spanning the 520-900 nm region, moreover in a single propagation step. The fiber exhibits 80% transmission, and the continuum features excellent spatial mode quality. In addition, spectral phase measurements suggest the possibility of a significantly self-compressed output in the visible, which simplifies aspects of the 2D spectrometer. The applicability of this simple, low-requirement source for 2D spectroscopy is demonstrated by performing a control experiment on the molecular dye Nile Blue.

Coherent ultra-violet to near-infrared generation in silica ridge waveguides

Short duration, intense pulses of light can experience dramatic spectral broadening when propagating through lengths of optical fibre. This continuum generation process is caused by a combination of nonlinear optical effects including the formation of dispersive waves. Optical analogues of Cherenkov radiation, these waves allow a pulse to radiate power into a distant spectral region. In this work, efficient and coherent dispersive wave generation of visible to ultraviolet light is demonstrated in silica waveguides on a silicon chip. Unlike fibre broadeners, the arrays provide a wide range of emission wavelength choices on a single, compact chip. This new capability is used to simplify offset frequency measurements of a mode-locked frequency comb. The arrays can also enable mode-locked lasers to attain unprecedented tunable spectral reach for spectroscopy, bioimaging, tomography and metrology.

Experimental and numerical study of tuneable supercontinuum generation in new kind of highly birefringent photonic crystal fiber

We report on a new kind of highly birefringent and highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber with a row of sub-micron air hole in the fiber core. The diameters of air holes in fiber core and cladding are 0.2 μm and 6.6 μ$m respectively. The parameters of birefringence, nonlinear and dispersion coefficient of the fiber are simulated by finite element method. It is found that the birefringence of the fiber can exist at the wavelengths up to 1550 nm, which is one order of magnitude higher than that of the traditional polarization-maintaining fiber. The zero-dispersion wavelengths of the fast axis and slow axis are 1050 nm and 1080 nm respectively. This fiber has a clear advantage over conventional fiber in continuum generation. Firstly, the polarization state of the pulse traveling in the fiber can be sustained along the fiber length and the extinction ratio is more than 20 dB. In addition, the pulses travel at different group velocities along the two polarization directions, which provide a convenient way of tuning the properties of the generated supercontinuum. Using this fiber as a nonlinear medium, an efficient generation of a tunable supercontinuum is demonstrated by pumping with 15 ps pulses of 1040 nm laser radiation, which is located in the normal dispersion region. A half-wave plate is used to vary the input polarization of the light pulse launched into the fiber, and the polarization of output supercontinuum is adjusted by a Glan prism at the same time. It is experimentally found that the polarization of pulse has a significant influence on the generation of the supercontinuum. When the linear polarization of the input pulse matches with the direction of the main axis of the fiber, the supercontinuum can be broadened over wavelength range of 800-1500 nm, and the extinction ratio is 21.2 dB. The polarization direction of the output SC is found to coincide with the pump pulse. When the angle between the polarization of the input pulse and the fast axis is increased to 45 degrees, the output supercontinuum is circularly polarized and becomes narrowest, extending from 900 to 1300 nm. So we can realize the wide tuning of a supercontinuum by only changing the polarization direction of the incident pulse. Under the circumstances, the pulse in optical fiber can be broken into two components along the main axis respectively. If the input polarization direction is away from both principal axis directions, the power along the main axis and the contribution of cross phase modulation are reduced because of the walk-off effect, so the width of the supercontinuum will become narrower. It is suggested that this type of high birefringence photonic crystal fiber could be effectively applied to the generation of the tunable supercontinuum.

Light bullets formation accompanied by odd harmonics generation under Mid-IR femtosecond filamentation in LiF

The formation of light bullets in mid-IR femtosecond filamentation is investigated numerically by means of the unidirectional pulse propagation equation (UPPE). A general approach for light bullets formation is presented for condensed media under anomalous GVD. The main parameters of the light bullets are evaluated. The features of super continuum and odd harmonic generation accompanying the light bullets formation are analyzed.

Group Delay measurements of ultrabroadband pulses generated in highly nonlinear fibers

Ultra broadband supercontinuum pulses are commonly used as a source of different wavelengths from a wide spectral bandwidth or as a source of very short pulses. However the processes responsible for wide spectral broadening are still under investigation. In this paper we examine the temporal and spectral characteristics of the pulses broadened upon propagation in the highly nonlinear photonics crystal fibers with different dispersion profiles. Generated supercontinuum pulses were experimentally characterized using cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating technique. Full Text: PDF ReferencesM. Bradler, P. Baum, and E. Riedle, "Femtosecond continuum generation in bulk laser host materials with sub-?J pump pulses", Appl. Phys. B 97, 561 (2009). CrossRef T. M. Kardas, B. Ratajska-Gadomska, W. Gadomski, A. Lapini, and R. Righini, "The role of stimulated Raman scattering in supercontinuum generation in bulk diamond", Opt. Express 21, 24201 (2013). CrossRef A. Brodeur and S. L. Chin, "Band-Gap Dependence of the Ultrafast White-Light Continuum", Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4406 (1998). CrossRef R. R. Alfano, ed., The Supercontinuum Laser Source: Fundamentals with Updated References, 2nd ed (Springer, 2006). DirectLink A. L. Gaeta, Phys. "Catastrophic Collapse of Ultrashort Pulses", Rev. Lett. 84, 3582 (2000). CrossRef J. M. Dudley, G. Genty, and S. Coen, "Supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber", Rev. Mod. Phys. 78, 1135 (2006). CrossRef M. Klimczak, B. Siwicki, P. Skibinski, D. Pysz, R. Stepien, A. Heidt, C. Radzewicz, and R. Buczynski, "Coherent supercontinuum generation up to 2.3 ?m in all-solid soft-glass photonic crystal fibers with flat all-normal dispersion", Opt. Express 22, 18824 (2014). CrossRef D. J. Kane and R. Trebino, "Characterization of arbitrary femtosecond pulses using frequency-resolved optical gating", IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 29, 571 (1993). CrossRef J. Dudley, X. Gu, L. Xu, M. Kimmel, E. Zeek, P. O'Shea, R. Trebino, S. Coen, and R. Windeler, "Cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating analysis of broadband continuum generation in photonic crystal fiber: simulations and experiments", Opt. Express 10, 1215 (2002). CrossRef N. Nishizawa and T. Goto, "Experimental analysis of ultrashort pulse propagation in optical fibers around zero-dispersion region using cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating", Opt. Express 8, 328 (2001). CrossRef X. Gu, L. Xu, M. Kimmel, E. Zeek, P. O'Shea, A. P. Shreenath, R. Trebino, and R. S. Windeler, "Frequency-resolved optical gating and single-shot spectral measurements reveal fine structure in microstructure-fiber continuum", Opt. Lett. 27, 1174 (2002). CrossRef S. Roy, S. K. Bhadra, and G. P. Agrawal, "Effects of higher-order dispersion on resonant dispersive waves emitted by solitons", Opt. Lett. 34, 2072?2074 (2009). CrossRef S. Bose, S. Roy, R. Chattopadhyay, M. Pal, and S. K. Bhadra, "Experimental and theoretical study of red-shifted solitonic resonant radiation in photonic crystal fibers and generation of radiation seeded Raman soliton", J. Opt. 17, 105506 (2015). CrossRef T. Roger, M. F. Saleh, S. Roy, F. Biancalana, C. Li, and D. Faccio, "High-energy, shock-front-assisted resonant radiation in the normal dispersion regime", Phys. Rev. A 88, (2013). CrossRef G. P. Agrawal, Nonlinear Fiber Optics, Fifth edition (Elsevier/Academic Press, 2013). DirectLink J. Szczepanek, T. Kardas, M. Nejbauer, C. Radzewicz, and Y. Stepanenko, "Simple all-PM-fiber laser system seeded by an all-normal-dispersion oscillator mode-locked with a nonlinear optical loop mirror", Proc. SPIE 9728, 972827 (2016). CrossRef C. Iaconis and I. A. Walmsley, "Self-referencing spectral interferometry for measuring ultrashort optical pulses", IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 35, 501 (1999). CrossRef L. E. Hooper, P. J. Mosley, A. C. Muir, W. J. Wadsworth, and J. C. Knight, "Coherent supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber with all-normal group velocity dispersion", Opt. Express 19, 4902 (2011). CrossRef J. Szczepanek, T. M. Kardas, and Y. Stepanenko, "Sub-160-fs pulses dechriped to its Fourier transform limit generated from the all-normal dispersion fiber oscillator", Optical Society of America Frontiers in Optics conference, FTu3C?2 (2016). CrossRef G. Genty, M. Lehtonen, and H. Ludvigsen, "Effect of cross-phase modulation on supercontinuum generated in microstructured fibers with sub-30 fs pulses", Opt. Express 12, 4614 (2004). CrossRef S. Roy, S. K. Bhadra, K. Saitoh, M. Koshiba, and G. P. Agrawal, "Dynamics of Raman soliton during supercontinuum generation near the zero-dispersion wavelength of optical fibers", Opt. Express 19, 10443 (2011). CrossRef Y. Liu, Y. Zhao, J. Lyngso, S. You, W. L. Wilson, H. Tu, and S. A. Boppart, "Suppressing Short-Term Polarization Noise and Related Spectral Decoherence in All-Normal Dispersion Fiber Supercontinuum Generation", J. Light. Technol. 33, 1814 (2015). CrossRef

Tellurite based circular photonic crystal fiber with high nonlinearity and low confinement loss

Photonic Crystal Fibers (PCFs) generate great interest in the field of optical fiber technology because of its ability to tailor different optical characteristics such as birefringence, dispersion, mode area, nonlinearity etc. High index non silica based glass fibers have high nonlinearity and low loss in mid-infrared wavelength transmission. Out of this, tellurite glass is a highly suitable fiber material for infrared nonlinear applications because of its high nonlinear coefficient compared to other non-silica glasses. Typically in Photonic Crystal Fibers, air holes are arranged in hexagonal or octagonal structure.In the present investigation, a circular lattice PCF is designed with tellurite core and various optical properties such as confinement loss, effective mode area, dispersion and nonlinear coefficient are analyzed using COMSOL MultiPhysics. The proposed fiber gives very high nonlinearity with a maximum of 12,100W−1km−1 at 0.45μm, ultra high negative dispersion and very low confinement loss for a wide range of wavelengths. High nonlinearity is suitable for super continuum generation. This fiber can also be used as a dispersion compensation fiber.

Stokes solitons in optical microcavities

Solitons are wavepackets that resist dispersion through a self-induced potential well. They are studied in many fields, but are especially well known in optics on account of the relative ease of their formation and control in optical fiber waveguides. Besides their many interesting properties, solitons are important to optical continuum generation, in mode-locked lasers and have been considered as a natural way to convey data over great distances. Recently, solitons have been realized in microcavities thereby bringing the power of microfabrication methods to future applications. This work reports a soliton not previously observed in optical systems, the Stokes soliton. The Stokes soliton forms and regenerates by optimizing its Raman interaction in space and time within an optical-potential well shared with another soliton. The Stokes and the initial soliton belong to distinct transverse mode families and benefit from a form of soliton trapping that is new to microcavities and soliton lasers in general. The discovery of a new optical soliton can impact work in other areas of photonics including nonlinear optics and spectroscopy.

Detecting Infrared Radiation Beyond the Bandoffset With Intersubband Transitions

InGaAs/InAlAs quantum well (QW) infrared photodetector structures have been investigated to reach operation energies larger than the heterostructure bandoffset. The structures are composed of superlattices having a central QW with a thickness different from the others, behaving as a defect within the periodic structure. The central QW gives rise to localized states in the continuum, allowing absorption and current generation for the radiation of energies beyond the bandoffset. The detection of radiation as large as 587 meV (2.11 $\mu \text{m}$ ) has been achieved with intrinsic intersubband transition from the ground state to the second localized excited state in the continuum, as manifested by absorption and photocurrent measurements. Theoretical calculations fully agree with the experimental data, strongly supporting the analysis of the results.

Polarization gating of high harmonic generation in the water window

We implement the polarization gating (PG) technique with a two-cycle, 1.7 μm driving field to generate an attosecond supercontinuum extending to the water window spectral region. The ellipticity dependence of the high harmonic yield over a photon energy range much broader than previous work is measured and compared with a semi-classical model. When PG is applied, the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) is swept to study its influence on the continuum generation. PG with one-cycle (5.7 fs) and two-cycle (11.3 fs) delay are tested, and both give continuous spectra spanning from 50 to 450 eV under certain CEP values, strongly indicating the generation of isolated attosecond pulses in the water window region.

Cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating of white-light continuum (500–900 nm) generated in bulk media by 1053 nm laser pulses

We have efficiently characterized the white-light continuum (WLC) generation covering 500–900 nm in a bulk sapphire plate using 280 fs pulse duration, 1053 nm center-wavelength seed laser pulses. We have acquired the well-optimized smoother region of the WLC spectrum successfully by using an FGS-900 color glass filter (Edmund Optics, Inc.). We have suppressed the spectral components below 500 nm and over 900 nm including an intense 1053 nm residual seed laser peak of the WLC spectrum. The experimental artifacts have been avoided by suppressing the intense 1053 nm seed laser. We employed the sum frequency generation cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating (SFG-XFROG) technique for characterization. The XFROG measurement was carried out by introducing the crystal dithering method up to 10° in 2° intervals to obtain the phase matching effectively over the filtered and smoother region of the WLC spectrum. This well-optimized WLC region covering 500–900 nm has significant importance for use as a seed pulse in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system.

Spaceborne laser filamentation for atmospheric remote sensing

AbstractA proof‐of‐concept of space‐borne laser filamentation for atmospheric remote sensing is presented. The remote generation of laser filaments from an Earth‐orbiting satellite is shown by numerical simulations to be theoretically possible for a large range of laser parameters. The model includes a realistic representation of the stratified atmosphere and accounts for multi‐species ionization and the dependence of air density upon the molecule type and altitude profile. The remote generation of a white light continuum extending from 350 nm to 1.1 μm within the filament is demonstrated, and hereby proposed as an atmospheric in‐situ light source for monitoring greenhouse gases and pollutants on a global scale by light detection and ranging (lidar) techniques. Scaling laws are also derived for estimating the filament altitude as a function of peak pulse power (3 GW‐3 TW), beam radii (10‐200 cm) and for three different curvatures (300, 390, 500 km) for femtosecond infrared (800 nm) pulses. We find that operating conditions for remote supercontinuum generation are already available with current ground‐based mobile laser technology and within reach of future space laser systems. image

Broadband dispersion-engineered microresonator on a chip

Control of dispersion in fibre optical waveguides is of critical importance to optical fibre communications systems and more recently for continuum generation from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared. The wavelength at which the group velocity dispersion crosses zero can be set by varying fibre core diameter or index step. Moreover, sophisticated methods to manipulate higher-order dispersion so as shape and even flatten dispersion over wide bandwidths are possible using multi-cladding fibre. Here we introduce design and fabrication techniques that allow analogous dispersion control in chip-integrated optical microresonators, and thereby demonstrate higher-order, wide-bandwidth dispersion control over an octave of spectrum. Importantly, the fabrication method we employ for dispersion control simultaneously permits optical Q factors above 100 million, which is critical for efficient operation of nonlinear optical oscillators. Dispersion control in high Q systems has taken on greater importance in recent years with increased interest in chip-integrable optical frequency combs.

Nonlinear bubble nucleation and growth following filament and white-light continuum generation induced by a single-shot femtosecond laser pulse into dielectrics based on consideration of the time scale

Bubble nucleation and growth following plasma channeling (filament) and white-light continuum in liquid irradiated by a single-shot fs-pulse were experimentally investigated with close observation of the time scale. Making full use of a new confocal system and time-resolved visualization techniques, we obtained evidence suggestive of a major/minor role of the non-linear/thermal effects during the fs-pulse-induced bubble's fountainhead (10−13 s) and growth (10−7 s), which was never observed with the use of the ns-pulse (i.e., optic cavitation). In this context, the fs-pulse-induced bubble is not an ordinary optic cavitation but rather is nonlinear-optic cavitation. We present the intrinsic differences in the dominant-time domain of the fs-pulse and ns-pulse excitation, and intriguingly, a mere hundred femtoseconds' excitation predetermines the size of the bubble appearing several microseconds after irradiation. That is, the nucleation happens temporally beyond a six-order-of-magnitude difference.

Passively CEP-stabilized frontend for few cycle terawatt OPCPA system

We report the recent results on development of a CEP-stable 1 kHz repetition rate TW-class OPCPA system driven by femtosecond Yb:KGW and picosecond Nd:YAG pump sources. Seed pulses with spectra spanning over an octave are produced in a continuum generator pumped by CEP-stable pulses from a difference frequency generator operated at 1.3–1.6 μm. After amplification in NOPA, pulses with energy up to 70 μJ and spectra supporting durations of 5 fs are obtained. Sub-70 mrad CEP jitter at the output of system frontend is demonstrated.

Widely and Continuously Tunable Continuum Generation From CW-Pumped Cascaded Fibers

A tunable continuum with multiwatt output power is demonstrated for the first time through the pumping of cascaded fibers by using a continuous-wave (CW) ytterbium fiber laser. The central wavelength of the output continuum can be tuned continuously and monotonically by varying input pump power, with a wide wavelength-tunable range from 1.2 to 1.4 μm and a 3-dB bandwidth of tens of nanometers. Two configurations of the cascaded fibers both display the power-dependent wavelength tunability. The output spectral characteristics are presented, and the generation of the CW-pumped tunable continuum is tentatively attributed to the seed-dependent Raman amplification.

Broadband infrared continuum generation in dispersion shifted tapered fiber

Experimental and theoretical studies of supercontinuum generation in the telecom spectral window are reported for fibers with shifted decreasing anomalous dispersion. Numerical analysis highlights the high average power of the emitted dispersive waves and the good spectral flatness achieved within the control spectral band for the supercontinuum generated in optical fiber tapers. Reduction of the third-order dispersion in optical fiber tapers is shown to cause spectral broadening, which is extended by hundreds of nanometers in comparison with the supercontinuum generated in uniform fibers, even when subpicosecond pulses of moderate powers are used.

High peak power continuum generation by high-order solitons at the mid-infrared wavelength in a photonic crystal fiber

A photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is fabricated from silica material purified by the complexing method of rectification and adsorption in our laboratory. The parameters of pump pulses and fiber length are optimized in the experiment, and the nonlinear optical process of the high-order soliton generation is studied. The high peak power continuums at the mid-infrared wavelength are generated by the overlap among the high-order soliton peaks. Specifically, when a PCF with a length of 60 cm is used, the conversion efficiency η and bandwidth B of the continuum generated can be up to 65% and 358 nm, and the corresponding peak power Ppeak-o and pulse width Wp are 144 kW and 30 fs. It is believed that the high peak power and broadband mid-infrared continuum can be used as short pulse sources, which will find important applications in biophotonics and ultrafast science and technology.

Properties of Optical Soliton in a Three Level Medium with Quintic Nonlinearity

Propagation characteristics of optical soliton in a three level atomic medium are analyzed by treating the material medium quantum mechanically, but the electromagnetic wave classically. Both the cubic and quintic components of the nonlinear polarization of the electromagnetic field are considered along with those generated due to the dipole formation of the material. A numerical simulation is carried out with the help of split-step technique. It is observed that the power of the pulse, distance of propagation and degree of dispersion are intimately related. The role of polarization due to the material is duely compensated by keeping higher order dispersive terms. In this connection we have seen that keeping the higher order dispersive terms, up to the eighth order, which is actually the phenomenon of continuum generation, results in a better form of the pulse. In our paper, we have analyzed the effects in both the cases, that is, including and excluding the quintic terms and in each case we have considered the effects of second-order dispersion (β2) as well as the higher order dispersion terms ( 8 2 j j β =

Time-domain interferometry of surface plasmons at nonlinear continuum hot spots in films of silver nanoparticles.

Nonlinear continuum generation from diffraction-limited hot spots in rough silver films exhibits striking narrow-band intensity resonances in excitation wavelength. Time-domain Fourier spectroscopy uncovers how these resonances arise due to the formation of a "plasmon staircase", a discreteness in the fundamental oscillation of the plasmon excitations responsible for generating the white-light continuum. Whereas multiple scattering from discrete antennas can be invoked to explain hot spot formation in random assemblies of isolated particles, hot spots in films of fused nanoparticles are excited by interfering propagating surface plasmons, launched by scattering from individual nanoparticle antennas. For closed films, discrete propagating plasmons interact coherently over distances of tens of microns to pump the hot spot.

WDM-to-OTDM Conversion Using Supercontinuum Generation in a Highly Nonlinear Fiber

We demonstrated an all-optical wavelength- division-multiplexing (WDM)-to-optical-time-division-multiplex- ing (OTDM) conversion using spectral broadening of super continuum (SC) generation in a highly nonlinear fiber. Four 10-Gb/s WDM channels were injected into time delay blocks for controlling the timing among them, and converted to OTDM channel by the SC-based multiplexing. The SC generation had advantages of eliminated the use of any pump in the WDM- to-OTDM conversion. All OTDM demultiplexed optical signals achieved error-free performance with <2-dB power penalty at BER = 10 �9 compared with the back-to-back signal.