Nonlinear Temporal Compression Research Articles

Nonlinear post-compression of a hybrid vortex mode in a gas-filled capillary.

We demonstrate nonlinear temporal compression of a vortex beam by propagation in a gas-filled capillary. Starting from an ytterbium-based laser delivering 700 μJ 640 fs pulses at a 100 kHz repetition rate, the vortex beam is generated using a spiral phase plate and coupled to a capillary where it excites a set of four modes that have an overlap integral of 97% with a Laguerre-Gauss LG10 mode. Nonlinear propagation of this hybrid, orbital angular momentum (OAM)-carrying mode results in temporal compression down to 74 fs at the output. Beam and pulse characterizations are carried out to determine the spatial profile and temporal duration of compressed pulses. This result in multimode nonlinear optics paves the way towards the generation of OAM-carrying few-cycle pulses, isolated attosecond XUV pulses, and tunable UV pulses through resonant dispersive wave emission.

20 GHz fiber-integrated femtosecond pulse and supercontinuum generation with a resonant electro-optic frequency comb

Frequency combs with mode spacing of 10–20 GHz are critical for increasingly important applications such as astronomical spectrograph calibration, high-speed dual-comb spectroscopy, and low-noise microwave generation. While electro-optic modulators and microresonators can provide narrowband comb sources at this repetition rate, a significant remaining challenge is a means to produce pulses with sufficient peak power to initiate nonlinear supercontinuum generation spanning hundreds of terahertz (THz) as required for self-referencing. Here, we provide a simple, robust, and universal solution to this problem using off-the-shelf polarization-maintaining amplification and nonlinear fiber components. This fiber-integrated approach for nonlinear temporal compression and supercontinuum generation is demonstrated with a resonant electro-optic frequency comb at 1550 nm. We show how to readily achieve pulses shorter than 60 fs at a repetition rate of 20 GHz. The same technique can be applied to picosecond pulses at 10 GHz to demonstrate temporal compression by 9× and achieve 50 fs pulses with a peak power of 5.5 kW. These compressed pulses enable flat supercontinuum generation spanning more than 600 nm after propagation through multi-segment dispersion-tailored anomalous-dispersion highly nonlinear fibers or tantala waveguides. The same 10 GHz source can readily achieve an octave-spanning spectrum for self-referencing in dispersion-engineered silicon nitride waveguides. This simple all-fiber approach to nonlinear spectral broadening fills a critical gap for transforming any narrowband 10–20 GHz frequency comb into a broadband spectrum for a wide range of applications that benefit from the high pulse rate and require access to the individual comb modes.

Benefits of cascaded nonlinear dynamics in hybrid fibers for low-noise supercontinuum generation.

The recent development of fiber supercontinuum (SC) sources with ultra-low noise levels has been instrumental in advancing the state-of-the-art in a wide range of research topics. However, simultaneously satisfying the application demands of maximizing spectral bandwidth and minimizing noise is a major challenge that so far has been addressed with compromise, found by fine-tuning the characteristics of a single nonlinear fiber transforming the injected laser pulses into a broadband SC. In this work, we investigate a hybrid approach that splits the nonlinear dynamics into two discrete fibers optimized for nonlinear temporal compression and spectral broadening, respectively. This introduces new design degrees of freedom, making it possible to select the best fiber for each stage of the SC generation process. With experiments and simulations we study the benefits of this hybrid approach for three common and commercially available highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) designs, focusing on flatness, bandwidth and relative intensity noise of the generated SC. In our results, hybrid all-normal dispersion (ANDi) HNLF stand out as they combine the broad spectral bandwidths associated with soliton dynamics with extremely low noise and smooth spectra known from normal dispersion nonlinearities. Hybrid ANDi HNLF are a simple and low-cost route for implementing ultra-low noise SC sources and scaling their repetition rate for various applications such as biophotonic imaging, coherent optical communications, or ultrafast photonics.

Time-division multiplexing of Mbit/s data-packets within Gbit/s data sequences through nonlinear temporal focusing

In this work, we report on an all-optical, real-time, nonlinear temporal compression technique based on a counter-propagating degenerate four-wave mixing interaction in birefringent optical fibres. As a proof-of-concept, we demonstrate the extreme temporal focusing and interleaving of a 10-Mbit/s data packet into a 10-Gbit/s data sequence, with record temporal compression factors ranging from 3 to 4 orders of magnitude and including non-trivial on-demand time-reversal capabilities. Our approach is scalable to different photonic platforms and offers great promise for ultrafast arbitrary optical waveform generation and related applications, while enabling the compression of THz-bandwidth optical signals from low-cost, low-bandwidth optical waveform generators.

Ultra-broadband THz pulses with electric field amplitude exceeding 100 kV/cm at a 200 kHz repetition rate.

We demonstrate a table-top source delivering ultra-broadband THz pulses with electric field strength exceeding 100 kV/cm at a repetition rate of 200 kHz. The source is based on optical rectification of 23 fs pulses at 1030 nm delivered by a ytterbium-doped fiber laser followed by a nonlinear temporal compression stage. We generate THz pulses with a conversion efficiency of up to 0.11 % with a spectrum extending to 11 THz using a 1 mm thick GaP crystal and a conversion efficiency of 0.016 % with a spectrum extending to 30 THz using a 30 µm thick GaSe crystal. The essential features of the emitted THz pulse spectra are well captured by simulations of the optical rectification process relying on coupled nonlinear equations. Our ultrafast laser-based source uniquely satisfies an important requirement of nonlinear THz experiments, namely the emission of ultra-broadband THz pulses with high electric field amplitudes at high repetition rates, opening a route towards nonlinear time-resolved THz experiments with high signal-to-noise ratios.

Single-stage few-cycle nonlinear compression of milliJoule energy Ti:Sa femtosecond pulses in a multipass cell.

We report on the nonlinear temporal compression of mJ energy pulses from a Ti:Sa chirped pulse amplifier system in a multipass cell filled with argon. The pulses are compressed from 30 fs down to 5.3 fs, corresponding to two optical cycles. The post-compressed beam exhibits excellent spatial quality and homogeneity. These results provide guidelines for optimizing the compressed pulse quality and further scaling of multipass-cell-based post-compression down to the single-cycle regime.

Nonlinear beam matching to gas-filled multipass cells

Gas-filled multipass cells are an appealing alternative to capillaries to implement nonlinear temporal compression of high energy femtosecond lasers. Here, we provide an analytic expression for stationary beam coupling to multipass cells that takes into account nonlinear propagation. This allows a constant beam size on the mirrors and at the cell waist, thereby making the optical design more accurate, for example to avoid optical damage or significant ionization. The analysis is validated using spatio-temporal numerical simulations of the propagation in a near-concentric configuration. This is particularly important for multipass cells that are operated in a highly nonlinear regime, which is the current trend since it allows a lower number of roundtrips, relaxing the constraint on mirror coatings performance.

Modulational-instability-free pulse compression in anti-resonant hollow-core photonic crystal fiber.

Gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is used for efficient nonlinear temporal compression of femtosecond laser pulses, two main schemes being direct soliton-effect self-compression and spectral broadening followed by phase compensation. To obtain stable compressed pulses, it is crucial to avoid decoherence through modulational instability (MI) during spectral broadening. Here, we show that changes in dispersion due to spectral anti-crossings between the fundamental-core mode and core wall resonances in anti-resonant-guiding hollow-core PCF can strongly alter the MI gain spectrum, enabling MI-free pulse compression for optimized fiber designs. The results are important, since MI cannot always be suppressed by pumping in the normal dispersion regime.

Efficient single-cycle pulse compression of an ytterbium fiber laser at 10 MHz repetition rate.

Over the past years, ultrafast lasers with average powers in the 100 W range have become a mature technology, with a multitude of applications in science and technology. Nonlinear temporal compression of these lasers to few- or even single-cycle duration is often essential, yet still hard to achieve, in particular at high repetition rates. Here we report a two-stage system for compressing pulses from a 1030 nm ytterbium fiber laser to single-cycle durations with 5 µJ output pulse energy at 9.6 MHz repetition rate. In the first stage, the laser pulses are compressed from 340 to 25 fs by spectral broadening in a krypton-filled single-ring photonic crystal fiber (SR-PCF), subsequent phase compensation being achieved with chirped mirrors. In the second stage, the pulses are further compressed to single-cycle duration by soliton-effect self-compression in a neon-filled SR-PCF. We estimate a pulse duration of ∼3.4 fs at the fiber output by numerically back-propagating the measured pulses. Finally, we directly measured a pulse duration of 3.8 fs (1.25 optical cycles) after compensating (using chirped mirrors) the dispersion introduced by the optical elements after the fiber, more than 50% of the total pulse energy being in the main peak. The system can produce compressed pulses with peak powers >0.6 GW and a total transmission exceeding 66%.

Broadband mid-infrared coverage (2-17 μm) with few-cycle pulses via cascaded parametric processes.

A myriad of existing and emerging applications could benefit from coherent and broadband mid-infrared (MIR) light. Yet, existing tabletop sources are often complex or sensitive to interferometric optical misalignment. Here we demonstrate a significantly simplified scheme of broadband MIR generation by cascading the intra-pulse difference-frequency generation process in a specific nonlinear crystal. This allows pulses generated directly from mode-locked lasers to be used without further nonlinear temporal compression. The system, together with the driving beam, can provide an ultra-broadband coherent radiation coverage ranging from 2 to 17μm with femtosecond pulse durations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of cascaded DFG in the MIR range, which brings emerging time-domain spectroscopic techniques closer to real-world applications.

Nonlinear pulse compression based on a gas-filled multipass cell.

We demonstrate nonlinear temporal compression of a high-energy Yb-doped fiber laser source in a multipass cell filled with argon. The 160μJ 275fs input pulses are compressed down to 135μJ 33fs at the output, corresponding to an overall transmission of 85%. We also analyze the output beam, revealing essentially no space-time couplings. We believe this technique can be scalable to higher pulse energies and shorter pulse durations, enabling access to a wider parameter range for a large variety of ultrafast laser sources.

Nonlinear temporal compression in multipass cells: theory

The use of multipass cells as a way to spatially homogenize self-phase modulation and distribute its accumulation over the propagation distance is analyzed in detail, with the aim to perform nonlinear temporal compression. In addition to the insertion of nonlinear media at specific locations in the cell, as already demonstrated, we also propose to fill the cell with a noble gas, as is done in hollow capillary-based setups. This makes the accumulation of B-integral continuous rather than discrete. In this case, analytical estimates for the B-integral per round trip and scaling rules are provided as a function of cavity geometry and gas parameters. Then, three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed to assess the spatiotemporal couplings in the output beam in various conditions. This model is checked against experimental data presented in the literature, and used to predict our proposed scheme performance. We believe that these techniques constitute a promising way to allow temporal compression at energy levels beyond 10 mJ, where capillary-based setups are difficult to implement.

Analysis of Limitations in Divided-Pulse Nonlinear Compression and Amplification

We analyze quantitatively physical effects that limit the coherent combining efficiency in highly nonlinear divided-pulse fiber-based setups such as parabolic amplifiers or nonlinear temporal compression experiment. The impact of differential dispersion and non-equal replicas power is assessed using numerical simulations and compared with experimental demonstrations. We also point out optimization strategies to minimize the impact of these effects on the performance of ultrafast fiber sources.

Energy scaling of a nonlinear compression setup using passive coherent combining

Passive spatial and temporal coherent combining schemes are implemented to scale the output energy of a nonlinear temporal compression setup. By generating 32 replicas of the incident femtosecond pulses, the output of a high-energy fiber chirped-pulse amplifier can be compressed using self-phase modulation in a large-mode-area rod-type fiber at peak-power levels well beyond the self-focusing power. We demonstrate the generation of 71 fs 7.5 μJ pulses at 100 kHz repetition rate, corresponding to a peak power of 86 MW.

Laser wakefield electron acceleration on Texas petawatt facility: Towards multi-GeV electron energy in a single self-guided stage

Laser wakefield acceleration experiments with the 150 fs Texas Petawatt laser will be carried out in the unique regime with the shortest pulse duration among available petawatt facilities. Simulations via the time-averaged, fully relativistic, quasi-static 3D axi-symmetric particle-in-cell (PIC) code WAKE show that combination of nonlinear plasma wave focusing, relativistic self-focusing, and nonlinear temporal compression guide a 1.33 PW pulse over 10 cm of uniform plasmas. Self-guided TPW pulse has intensity above 10 19 W/cm 2 and drives the laser wakefield in the blowout regime in the plasma density range n 0 > 2 × 10 17 cm −3. Both test-particle (WAKE) and full 3D PIC modelling (using recently developed quasi-cylindrical CALDER-Circ code) demonstrate robust electron self-injection in the first plasma wave bucket (“bubble”) during the periods of laser defocusing and bubble growth. Injection terminates as soon as the laser evolution stabilizes. As a result, quasi-monoenergetic acceleration of ∼1.3 nC electron bunch to the 2.5–7 GeV is expected in 10-cm long plasmas.