High-efficiency Frequency Conversion Research Articles

High-efficiency nonlinear frequency conversion enabled by optimizing the ferroelectric domain structure in x-cut LNOI ridge waveguide

Abstract Photonic devices based on ferroelectric domain engineering in thin film lithium niobate are key components for both classical and quantum information processing. Periodic poling of ridge waveguide can avoid the selective etching effect of lithium niobate, however, the fabrication of high-quality ferroelectric domain is still a challenge. In this work, we optimized the applied electric field distribution, and rectangular inverted domain structure was obtained in the ridge waveguide which is beneficial for efficient nonlinear frequency conversions. Second harmonic confocal microscope, piezoresponse force microscopy, and chemical selective etching were used to characterize the inverted domain in the ridge waveguide. In addition, the performance of nonlinear frequency conversion of the periodically poled nano-waveguide was investigated through second harmonic generation, and the normalized conversion efficiency was measured to be 1,720 % W−1 cm−2, which is close to 60 % that of the theoretical value. The fabrication technique described in this work will pave the way for the development of high-efficiency, low-loss lithium niobate nonlinear photonic devices.

Time-varying coding digital double-layered Huygens' metasurface for high-efficiency harmonic frequency conversion

Time-varying metasurfaces offer an efficient means of controlling nonlinear harmonics by manipulating component geometries and modulating signals. This ability renders them valuable across various fields, such as wireless communication, radar sensing, and biological monitoring. However, most of the energy in time-varying metasurfaces is concentrated in the fundamental wave, as well as scattered at various harmonic orders, which reduces the energy efficiency at the desired harmonic. Existing approaches have employed time-varying coding digital metasurfaces to achieve efficient harmonic conversion but are primarily designed for reflection. Reflection-based designs require a feed source to excite the metasurface, which can cause certain shielding effects and limit their application in specific scenarios. Thus, designing transmissive time-varying coding digital metasurfaces for efficient harmonic conversion is currently an urgent problem that needs to be addressed. To solve this problem, this paper develops a time-varying coding digital double-layered Huygens' metasurface, which achieves efficient conversion of the desired transmitted harmonics. The unit structure of the metasurface consists of a pair of reverse-symmetric split rings located on the upper and lower sides of a dielectric substrate, enabling nearly non-reflective Huygens' resonance. Based on a continuous periodic phase modulation strategy, we achieved efficient conversion of transmitted harmonics by loading a time-varying voltage (phase) modulation signal with a 5-bit resolution bit width onto the designed double-layered Huygens' metasurface. This study presents a solution for designing a transmissive time-varying coding digital metasurface to achieve efficient conversion of harmonics, thereby enhancing the application capabilities of time-varying coding digital metasurfaces.

Broadband Microwave Photonic Mixer with Flexibly Tunable Phase Shift and Supporting Dispersion-Induced Power-Fading-Free Fiber Transmission

A broadband microwave photonic mixer with tunable phase shift and supporting dispersion-induced power-fading-free fiber transmission is proposed and demonstrated based on a dual-polarization dual-parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator (DP-DPMZM). In this scheme, the intermediate-frequency (IF)/radiofrequency (RF) signal and the local oscillation (LO) signal are applied to the four sub-MZMs biased at their minimum transmission points via a power splitter and a 90° hybrid coupler, respectively. Through mutual beating between the IF/RF and the LO modulation sidebands in a high-speed photodetector at the remote site, high-efficiency frequency conversion is achieved. The dispersion-induced power fading over long-distance fiber transmission is eliminated through setting the biased-induced phase difference between the parent-MZMs in the two sub-DPMZMs of the DP-DPMZM to be π/2. In addition, the phase shift of the frequency-converted signal can be continuously tuned over 360° through synchronously adjusting the bias voltages of the parent-MZMs in the two sub-DPMZMs. The proposed scheme is experimentally demonstrated, where a microwave photonic mixer with a 6-dB operation bandwidth of 40 GHz and supporting dispersion-induced power-fading-free transmission over 20 km SMF is realized. Meanwhile, a continuously tunable phase shift over 360° in the frequency range of 0.1 GHz to 29.9 GHz is achieved, where the power variation during phase tuning is smaller than 4 dB.

Telecom-wavelength conversion in a high optical depth cold atomic system.

We experimentally investigate the frequency down-conversion through the four-wave mixing (FWM) process in a cold 85Rb atomic ensemble, with a diamond-level configuration. An atomic cloud with a high optical depth (OD) of 190 is prepared to achieve a high efficiency frequency conversion. Here, we convert a signal pulse field (795 nm) attenuated to a single-photon level, into a telecom light at 1529.3 nm within near C-band range and the frequency-conversion efficiency can reach up to 32%. We find that the OD is an essential factor affecting conversion efficiency and the efficiency may exceed 32% with an improvement in the OD. Moreover, we note the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected telecom field is higher than 10 while the mean signal count is larger than 0.2. Our work may be combined with quantum memories based on cold 85Rb ensemble at 795 nm and serve for long-distance quantum networks.

Transfer of Orbital Angular Momentum of Light Using Autler-Townes Splitting

We propose a scheme to exchange optical vortices beyond electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) but based on four-wave mixing (FWM) in a five-level atomic system consisting of two Λ subsystems linked via a weak driving field. When the laser fields are strong enough, the quantum interference responsible for the EIT in each Λ subsystem is washed out, giving rise to the Autler-Townes splitting (ATS). When only one of the control fields carries an optical vortex, it is shown that the generated FWM field obtains the vorticity of the vortex control. We distinguish between three different regimes, i.e., a pure EIT, a joint EIT-ATS, and a dual-ATS, where the optical angular momentum (OAM) translation can take place. Elaborating on the distinction between three regimes through numerical analysis, we find that the maximum energy conversion efficiency is obtained in the joint EIT-ATS and dual-ATS regimes. The latter is more favorable as the absorption losses vanish as the beam propagates into the atomic cloud. The results may find applications in the implementation of high-efficient frequency and OAM conversion devices for quantum information processing.

Efficient and High-Purity Sound Frequency Conversion with a Passive Linear Metasurface.

Despite the significance for wave physics and potential applications, high-efficiency frequency conversion of low-frequency waves cannot be achieved with conventional nonlinearity-based mechanisms with poor mode purity, conversion efficiency, and real-time reconfigurability of the generated harmonic waves in both optics and acoustics. Rotational Doppler effect provides an intuitive paradigm to shifting the frequency in a linear system which, however, needs a spiral-phase change upon the wave propagation. Here a rotating passive linear vortex metasurface is numerically and experimentally presented with close-to-unity mode purity (>93%) and high conversion efficiency (>65%) in audible sound frequency as low as 3000Hz. The topological charge of the transmitted sound is almost immune from the rotational speed and transmissivity, demonstrating the mechanical robustness and stability in adjusting the high-performance frequency conversion in situ. These features enable the researchers to cascade multiple vortex metasurfaces to further enlarge and diversify the extent of sound frequency conversion, which are experimentally verified. This strategy takes a step further toward the freewheeling sound manipulation at acoustic frequency domain, and may have far-researching impacts in various acoustic communications, signal processing, and contactless detection.

Influence of thermal lens effect on second harmonic process in semi-monolithic cavity scheme

Second harmonic generation (SHG) is an effective way to generate short wavelength laser with high power. The SHG is accompanied with the absorptions of fundamental waves and harmonic waves, which converts a fraction of the two waves deposit energy into heat, causing a temperature gradient along the radial direction of the periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) crystal. The inhomogeneous temperature distribution causes thermal lensing in the crystal. The thermal lensing effect will deform the spatial mode of the SHG cavity and result in the mode-mismatching of the fundamental wave to the SHG cavity, and therefore the conversion efficiency of SHG process is reduced. Moreover, with the increase of injected fundamental wave power, the influence caused by thermal lens becomes more and more serious. In order to obtain a high-efficiency frequency conversion, it is necessary to take the measure to minimize the effect caused by thermal lensing. In this paper, we report on a high efficiency generation of green laser at 532 nm by external cavity SHG process with a semi-monolithic standing cavity. The influences of thermal lens effect on the optimal conversion efficiency in different semi-monolithic cavities are theoretically analyzed. The variations of conversion efficiency with the pump power in “plane-concave” semi-monolithic cavity based on parallel crystal and also in “concave-concave” semi-monolithic cavity based on concave crystal are quantitatively analyzed. In experiments, two types of cavity structures are built to measure the variation of frequency doubling conversion efficiency with pump power. For the “plane-concave” semi-monolithic cavity, the maximum green laser power of 747 mW is obtained and the corresponding conversion efficiency reaches 93.4%±3%, with 800 mW infrared laser injected. For the “concave-concave” semi-monolithic cavity, the maximum green laser power of 529 mW is obtained and the corresponding conversion efficiency is 88.2% ± 3%, with 600 mW infrared laser injected. The results show that the thermal lens affects the optimal conversion efficiency more seriously in “concave-concave” semi-monolithic cavity than in “plane-concave” semi-monolithic cavity. Furthermore, the influence of thermal lens effect turns higher and higher with the increase of the loss in the cavity. It is obvious that the “plane-concave” semi-monolithic cavity is more suitable for the SHG process and has many potential applications in quantum optics and cold atom physics and provides a guidance for future research on high-efficiency SHG process.

Tunable frequency matching for efficient four-wave-mixing Bragg scattering in microrings.

We propose and theoretically study a tunable frequency matching method for four-wave-mixing Bragg-scattering frequency conversion in microring resonators. A tunable coupling between the clockwise and counterclockwise propagating modes in the resonators was designed to introduce adjustable mode splitting, thus compensating for the frequency mismatching under different wavelengths. Using a silicon nitride ring resonator as an example, we showed that the tuning bandwidth approaches 35 number of FSRs. Numerical simulations further revealed that the phase-matching strategy is valid under different wavelength combinations and is robust to variations in waveguide geometry and fabrication. These results suggest promising applications in high-efficiency frequency conversion, integrated nonlinear photonics, and quantum optics.

Efficient Frequency Conversion in a Degenerate χ^{(2)} Microresonator.

Microresonators on a photonic chip could enhance nonlinear optics effects and thus are promising for realizing scalable high-efficiency frequency conversion devices. However, fulfilling phase matching conditions among multiple wavelengths remains a significant challenge. Here, we present a feasible scheme for degenerate sum-frequency conversion that only requires the two-mode phase matching condition. When the drive and the signal are both near resonance to the same telecom mode, an on-chip photon-number conversion efficiency up to 42% is achieved, showing a broad tuning bandwidth over 250GHz. Furthermore, cascaded Pockels and Kerr nonlinear optical effects are observed, enabling the parametric amplification of the optical signal to distinct wavelengths in a single device. The scheme demonstrated in this Letter provides an alternative approach to realizing high-efficiency frequency conversion and is promising for future studies on communications, atom clocks, sensing, and imaging.

Widely tunable ultra-narrow-linewidth dissipative soliton generation at the telecom band

Ultra-narrow-linewidth mode-locked lasers with wide wavelength tunability can be versatile light sources for a variety of newly emergent applications. However, it is very challenging to achieve the stable mode locking of substantially long, anomalously dispersive fiber laser cavities employing a narrowband spectral filter at the telecom band. Here, we show that a nearly dispersion-insensitive dissipative mode-locking regime can be accessed through a subtle counterbalance among significantly narrowband spectral filtering, sufficiently deep saturable absorption, and moderately strong in-fiber Kerr nonlinearity. This achieves ultra-narrow-linewidth (a few gigahertz) nearly transform-limited self-starting stable dissipative soliton generation at low repetition rates (a few megahertz) without cavity dispersion management over a broad tuning range of wavelengths covering the entire telecom C-band. This unique laser may have immediate application as an idealized pump source for high-efficiency nonlinear frequency conversion and nonclassical light generation in dispersion-engineered tightly light-confining microphotonic/nanophotonic systems.

A 51.3 W, sub-kHz-linewidth linearly polarized all-fiber laser at 1560 nm

We demonstrate a continuous-wave high output power and narrow linewidth all-fiber master oscillator power amplifier laser at 1560 nm. The laser output power is 51.3 W with 36.38% optical-to-optical conversion efficiency and a linewidth of 0.865 kHz. The measured signal-to-noise ratio is 49 dB, and the polarization extinction ratio is greater than 20 dB. The laser can be used for high-efficiency nonlinear frequency conversion.

Bio-inspired surface aberration mitigation technique for high-frequency conversion efficiency of large-aperture nonlinear optics.

Low-frequency conversion efficiency severely limits the 3ω ultraviolet energy density at the target of inertial confinement fusion facilities. Here, we present a bio-inspired surface aberration mitigation (SAM) technique that could significantly reduce the crystal surface aberration and realize high frequency conversion efficiency over a clear aperture of 400 mm × 400 mm. Numerical models are utilized to optimize and verify the mechanical properties and physical performance of the SAM technique. In addition, the influences of various operation conditions on surface aberration, angle-detuning magnitude, and frequency conversion efficiency are illustrated. Finally, the process stability and online feasibility of this new approach are validated by the established offline characterization system and in situ imaging system.

Efficient third harmonic generation of 355 nm picosecond laser pulse

Picosecond laser with high-repetition-rate and high pulse energy is widely favorite in many scientific and industrial applications. Some nonlinear crystals can be used to efficiently convert a near-infrared laser into a green laser or an ultraviolet laser which has a higher photon energy and a smaller focal area. Especially for high-quality and high-speed transparent hard material fabrication, green or ultraviolet picosecond laser has been found to possess unique advantages. In this paper, the experiments on high-efficiency second-harmonic-generation (SHG) and third-harmonic-generation (THG) by using a home-made all-solid-state picosecond laser amplifier and an LBO crystal are reported. The picosecond laser amplifier consists of a seed source, a regenerative amplifier and a two-stage single-pass amplifier. The seed source is a commercial all-solid-state picosecond oscillator with a pulse duration of 8.3 ps and a repetition rate of 68 MHz. The repetition rate is reduced from 68 MHz to 500 kHz by an electro-optic Pockels cell (PC), and the period doubling bifurcation is minimized by reducing the duration of high voltage in PC. Both the regenerative amplifier and the two-stage single-pass amplifier are pumped by three 30-W continuous-wave fiber-coupled laser diodes. After the regenerative amplifier, the seed laser is amplified to 4.86 W with a repetition rate of 500 kHz at 1064 nm. Then the laser power is increased to 23.2 W by a two-stage single-pass amplifier, and the M2 value of the amplified laser in the X direction and in the Y direction are 1.330 and 1.235, respectively. The final pulse duration is 13.4 ps, which is slightly stretched in the amplification chain compared with the seed pulse duration (8.3 ps). For high-efficiency SHG and THG from near-infrared to green and ultraviolet, we carefully study the optical characteristics of some nonlinear crystals, such as LBO, BBO, BIBO, CLBO, etc., and we find that the LBO crystal, which has a high damage threshold, small walk-off and high nonlinear coefficient, is the best choice for both SHG and THG. Then the parameters of the two crystals for SHG and THG are specially designed according to the phase matching condition, the walk-off and the laser parameter. As a result, a 4-mm-long type-I phase matching LBO with cutting angle of <i>θ</i> = 90° and <i>φ</i> = 11.6° is used for SHG, and a 3-mm-long type-II phase matching LBO with cutting angle of <i>θ</i> = 42.2° and <i>φ</i> = 90° is used for THG. Finally, we realize high-efficiency frequency conversion with SHG power of 12.7 W at 532 nm and THG power of 9.25 W at 355 nm. The corresponding optical-optical conversion efficiencies reach 54.7% and 39.6%, respectively.

Spiral bandwidth of four-wave mixing in Rb vapour

Laguerre-Gauss beams, and more generally the orbital angular momentum of light (OAM) provide valuable research tools for optical manipulation, processing, imaging and communication. High-efficiency frequency conversion of OAM is possible via four-wave mixing in rubidium vapour. Conservation of the OAM in the two pump beams determines the total OAM shared by the generated light fields at 420 nm and 5.2 μm—but not its distribution between them. Here we experimentally investigate the spiral bandwidth of the generated light modes as a function of pump OAM. A small pump OAM is transferred almost completely to the 420 nm beam. Increasing the total pump OAM broadens the OAM spectrum of the generated light, indicating OAM entanglement between the generated light fields. This clears the path to high-efficiency OAM entanglement between widely disparate wavelengths.

High power and high SFDR frequency conversion using sum frequency generation in KTP waveguides.

We characterize the intermodulation distortion of high power and efficient frequency conversion of modulated optical signals based on sum frequency generation (SFG) in a periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) waveguide. Unwanted frequency two-tone spurs are generated near the converted signal via a three-step cascaded three-wave mixing process. Computer simulations describing the process are presented along with the experimental measurements. High-conversion efficiencies and large spur-free dynamic range of the converted optical signal are demonstrated.

Antiphase domain tailoring for combination of modal and 4¯ -quasi-phase matching in gallium phosphide microdisks.

We propose a novel phase-matching scheme in GaP whispering-gallery-mode microdisks grown on Si substrate combining modal and 4¯ -quasi-phase-matching for second-harmonic-generation. The technique consists in unlocking parity-forbidden processes by tailoring the antiphase domain distribution in the GaP layer. Our proposal can be used to overcome the limitations of form birefringence phase-matching and 4¯ -quasi-phase-matching using high order whispering-gallery-modes. The high frequency conversion efficiency of this new scheme demonstrates the competitiveness of nonlinear photonic devices monolithically integrated on silicon.

Double resonant sum-frequency generation in an external-cavity under high-efficiency frequency conversion

In recent years, more than 90% of the signal laser power can be up-converted based on the high-efficiency double resonant external cavity sum-frequency generation (SFG), especially when the whole system runs under the undepleted pump approximation scheme. Therefore it is difficult to directly achieve an error signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio through the signal laser to lock its frequency to the cavity mode. In this paper a novel method, based on the frequency modulation of signal laser and demodulation of the SFG laser, is used to obtain the error signal to realize the cascade frequency locking between the two fundamental lasers and the external cavity. In this experiment, 1064 nm laser is the pump laser and 1583 nm laser is the signal laser. They are coupled into a ring cavity inside which a 5% MgO-doped PPLN (25 mm1 mm0.5 mm) is used to produce the SFG laser of 636 nm. When the pump laser is resonant with the external cavity, a circulating power of 14.3 W is obtained with its input power of 1.3 W. The reflectivity of the input coupling mirror of signal laser is 10% to restrain the impendence mismatch. The temperature of PPLN is set at 68.5 ℃ to reach the optimum SFG temperature. In order to keep the signal laser resonance inside the external cavity, one needs to lock its frequency to the cavity mode. A 28.5 kHz sinusoidal voltage is used to modulate the frequency of the signal laser so that the frequency of 636 nm laser is modulated simultaneously. Then 5% of the output 636 nm laser power is sent into a Si photodiode detector the signal of which is demodulated at the modulation frequency by a lock-in amplifier. Finally the demodulated signal is feedback to the frequency control port of signal laser. Under these conditions, 73% of 1583 nm signal laser power can be converted into 636 nm laser power when the incident power varies from 10 W to demodulation of the transmitted cavity mode of 1583 nm when the incident signal laser power is below 12 mW. When the signal laser power increases from 50 mW to 295 mW, the conversion efficiency linearly drops to 60%, which is mainly caused by depleting the 1064 nm pump laser power. Finally a 440 mW of 636 nm laser is generated with an incident signal laser power of 295 mW. This scheme can realize a high-efficiency SFG with a low input signal laser power or poor single-pass SFG efficiency.

Self-adjusted all-dielectric metasurfaces for deep ultraviolet femtosecond pulse generation.

The advantage of metasurfaces and nanostructures with a high nonlinear response is that they do not require phase matching, and the generated pulses are short in the time domain without additional pulse compression. However, the fabrication of large-scale planar structures by lithography-based methods is expensive, time consuming, and requires complicated preliminary simulations to obtain the most optimized geometry. Here, we propose a novel strategy for the self-assembled fabrication of large-scale resonant metasurfaces, where incident femtosecond laser pulses adjust the initial silicon films via specific surface deformation to be as resonant as possible for a given wavelength. The self-adjusting approach eliminates the necessity of multistep lithography and designing, because interference between the incident and the scattered parts of each laser pulse "imprints" resonant field distribution within the film. The self-adjusted metasurfaces demonstrate a high damage threshold (≈1012 W cm-2) and efficient frequency conversion from near-IR to deep UV. The conversion efficiency is up to 30-fold higher compared with nonresonant smooth Si films. The resulting metasurfaces allow for the generation of UV femtosecond laser pulses at a wavelength of 270 nm with a high peak and average power (≈105 W and ≈1.5 μW, respectively). The results pave the way to the creation of ultrathin nonlinear metadevices working at high laser intensities for efficient deep UV generation at the nanoscale.

The influence of window thermal conductivity on the temperature distribution of the ADP crystal with large aperture

Motivated by the need of achieving the high frequency conversion efficiency of the laser beam with large diameter in the non-critical phase matching, a temperature control scheme of ADP crystal with large aperture was proposed. In this paper, in order to obtain the influence of the window thermal conductivity on the temperature distribution of ADP crystal, four different window materials, the thermal conductivities of which are different orders of magnitude, were proposed and analyzed by using the finite volume method (FVM) and experiments. The temperature distributions and temperature gradients of ADP crystal in the temperature control scheme with different window materials were discussed, and the optimal fourth harmonic generation (FHG) conversion efficiencies were obtained in different optics regions. Finally, the requirement of the window material thermal conductivity was proposed in order to obtain the high frequency conversion efficiency.

Efficient Three-Process Frequency Conversion Based on Straddling Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage

The high-efficiency three-process frequency conversion is analyzed. By analysis of coupling equations, the optical straddling stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (S-STIRAP) scheme is proposed. Numerical simulation shows that the input power of the first frequency is monotonically converted into the output power of the last frequency, with the intermediate frequencies kept extremely low along the interacting length. We expect that this frequency conversion scheme has application in the frequency conversion between highly disparate frequencies, e.g., mid-IR to visible.