Nonlinear propagation of fs laser pulses in liquids and evolution of supercontinuum generation

Nonlinear propagation of fs laser pulses in liquids and the dynamic processes of filamentation such as self-focusing, intensity clamping, and evolution of white light production have been analyzed by using one- and two-photon fluorescence. The energy losses of laser pulses caused by multiphoton absorption and conical emission have been measured respectively by z-scan technique. Numerical simulations of fs laser propagation in water have been made to explain the evolution of white light production as well as the small-scale filaments in liquids we have observed by a nonlinear fluorescence technique. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.

An experimental study of ultrashort pulsed ytterbium-doped fibre laser and amplifier

We report the generation of ultrashort pulses in ytterbium-doped fibre oscillator emitting around 1.05 mum at a repetition rate of 17.6MHz. A diode laser with single silica fibre at 976 nm pumps the ytterbium fibre laser, the all-fibre picosecond pulsed oscillator has excellent stability and compact size, and freedom from misalignment. After amplifying, pulse energy of 3.4 nJ and an average power of 60mW are obtained. The compression is obtained with a grating pair out of the cavity. The compressor produces 307 fs with the peak power 5.47 kW. A practical fibre-based source with good performance is thus demonstrated.

Wideband-tuneable, nanotube mode-locked, fibre laser.

Ultrashort-pulse lasers with spectral tuning capability have widespread applications in fields such as spectroscopy, biomedical research and telecommunications. Mode-locked fibre lasers are convenient and powerful sources of ultrashort pulses, and the inclusion of a broadband saturable absorber as a passive optical switch inside the laser cavity may offer tuneability over a range of wavelengths. Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors are widely used in fibre lasers, but their operating range is typically limited to a few tens of nanometres, and their fabrication can be challenging in the 1.3-1.5 microm wavelength region used for optical communications. Single-walled carbon nanotubes are excellent saturable absorbers because of their subpicosecond recovery time, low saturation intensity, polarization insensitivity, and mechanical and environmental robustness. Here, we engineer a nanotube-polycarbonate film with a wide bandwidth (>300 nm) around 1.55 microm, and then use it to demonstrate a 2.4 ps Er(3+)-doped fibre laser that is tuneable from 1,518 to 1,558 nm. In principle, different diameters and chiralities of nanotubes could be combined to enable compact, mode-locked fibre lasers that are tuneable over a much broader range of wavelengths than other systems.

Enhancement of ultrafast four-wave mixing in a polar molecule medium

We investigate the ultrafast four-wave mixing (FWM) with two-color few-cycle ultrashort pulses propagating in a two-level polar molecule medium. It is found that the enhancement of FWM can be achieved even for low intensity pulses due to the effects of permanent dipole moments (PDM) in polar molecules. Moreover, the conversion efficiency of FWM can be controlled by the carrier-envelope phases (CEP) of two ultrashort pulses. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America

Space-frequency coupling, conical waves, and small-scale filamentation in water

Numerical simulations of fs laser propagation in water have been made to explain the small-scale filaments in water we have observed by a nonlinear fluorescence technique. Some analytical descriptions combined with numerical simulations show that a space-frequency coupling mainly from the interplay among self-phase modulation, dispersion and phase mismatching will reshape the laser beam into a conical wave which plays a major role of energy redistribution and can prevent laser beam from self-guiding over a long distance. An effective group velocity dispersion is introduced to explain the pulse broadening and compression in the filamentation. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Few-cycle spatiotemporal soliton wave excited by filamentation of a femtosecond laser pulse in materials with anomalous dispersion

The nonlinear dynamics of 1.6-mu m fs laser pulses propagating in fused silica is investigated by employing a full-order dispersion model. Different from the x-wave generation in normally dispersive media, a few-cycle spatiotemporally compressed soliton wave is generated with the contrary contributions of anomalous group velocity dispersion (GVD) and self-phase-modulation. However, at the tailing edge of the pulse forms a shock wave which generates separate and strong supercontinuum peaked at 670 nm. It is also the origin of conical emission formed both in time and frequency domain with the contribution of normal GVD at visible light.

飞秒脉冲波列激发的半导体量子阱中再发射场的相位演变

本文研究了在被飞秒脉冲波列激发的半导体量子阱中再发射场的相位性质。再发射场的相位演化受入射脉冲波列的相对相位控制。对于所有的奇数次入射脉冲激发，再发射场与入射场相位演化是：反相到同相再到反相；但是对于所有的偶数次入射脉冲激发，情况发生了反转，即再发射场与入射场相位演化是：同相到反相再到同相。

Self-induced transmission on intersubband resonance in multiple quantum wells

We investigate the nonlinear propagation of ultrashort pulses on resonant intersubband transitions in multiple semiconductor quantum wells. It is shown that the nonlinearity rooted from electron-electron interactions destroys the condition giving rise to self-induced transparency. However, by adjusting the area of input pulse, we find the signatures of self-induced transmission due to a full Rabi flopping of the electron density, and this phenomenon can be approximately interpreted by the traditional standard area theorem via defining the effective area of input pulse.

Carrier-envelope phase control of carrier-wave Rabi flopping in asymmetric semiparabolic quantum well

We investigate the carrier-wave Rabi flopping effects in an asymmetric semiparabolic semiconductor quantum well (QW) with few-cycle pulse. It is found that higher spectral components of few-cycle ultrashort pulses in the semiparabolic QW depend crucially on the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the few-cycle ultrashort pulses: continuum and distinct peaks can be achieved by controlling the CEP. Our results demonstrate that by adjusting the CEP of few-cycle ultrashort pulses, the intersubband dynamics in the asymmetric semiparabolic QW can be controlled in an ultrashort timescale with moderate laser intensity. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America.

消色差相位匹配在光参量啁啾脉冲放大中的应用

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) supplies broadband gain for ultrashort pulses. A new theoretic explanation of OPCPA has been obtained by introducing the concept of tilted pulse front in this paper, and the distribution of broadband amplification has been twice expanded by introducing the technology of achromatic phase matching (APM). The prospect of APM in OPCPA has been discussed in detail. Finally, a design for the amplification of chirped pulses at 1600 nm has been firstly proposed and numerically simulated. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

超短脉冲激光照射下光栅Talbot效应的实验研究

理论上研究了超短脉冲激光照射下光栅的Talbot效应，得到了超短脉冲激光照射下光栅Talbot图像的性质.实验上采用严格的实验方法(频率分辨光学开关装置测量超短脉冲激光、反射式扩束系统对超短脉冲进行扩束)很好地验证了理论分析结果.理论分析和实验结果表明，超短脉冲激光照射下光栅的Talbot图像的对比度会显著下降，而且超短脉冲激光的脉宽越短，Talbot距离越大，Talbot图像的对比度会进一步下降.

Spatiotemporal instabilities in nonlinear Kerr media in the presence of arbitrary higher-order dispersions

Spatiotemporal instabilities in nonlinear Kerr media with arbitrary higher-order dispersions are studied by use of standard linear-stability analysis. A generic expression for instability growth rate that unifies and expands on previous results for temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal instabilities is obtained. It is shown that all odd-order dispersions contribute nothing to instability, whereas all even-order dispersions not only affect the conventional instability regions but may also lead to the appearance of new instability regions. The role of fourth-order dispersion in spatiotemporal instabilities is studied exemplificatively to demonstrate the generic results. Numerical simulations confirm the obtained analytic results. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.

光谱相位相干技术测量飞秒脉冲的倍频误差

从理论上推导了第Ⅱ类相位匹配下宽带飞秒脉冲的二次谐波光场,分析输入飞秒脉冲的非共线相位匹配方式、脉冲带宽引起相位失配与群速失配对测量的影响。结果表明,为了消除飞秒脉冲的带宽影响,需要对测量记录的光强乘以一个调制因子;测量相位误差与非共线相位匹配的夹角和晶体长度成正比;相位失配与群速失配产生相位测量误差,且第Ⅱ类相位匹配方式下脉冲附加相位值较大;强度和相位误差需要在脉冲重建结果中补偿。

Comparison of femtosecond and nanosecond laser-induced damage in HfO2 single-layer film and HfO2-SiO2 high reflector

HfO2 single layers, 800 run high-reflective (HR) coating, and 1064 ran HR coating were prepared by electron-beam evaporation. The laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) and damage morphologies of these samples were investigated with single-pulse femtosecond and nanosecond lasers. It is found that the LIDT of the HfO2 single layer is higher than the HfO2-SiO2 HR coating in the femtosecond regime, while the situation is opposite in the nanosecond regime. Different damage mechanisms are applied to study this phenomenon. Damage morphologies of all samples due to different laser irradiations are displayed. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.