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.

Nonlinear copropagation of two optical pulses of different frequencies in photonic crystal fibers

A theoretical investigation of the nonlinear copropagation of two optical pulses of different frequencies in a photonic crystal fiber is presented. Different phenomena are observed depending on whether the wavelength of the signal pulse is located in the normal or the anomalous dispersion region. In particular, it is found that the phenomenon of pulse trapping occurs when the signal wavelength is located in the normal dispersion region while the pump wavelength is located in the anomalous dispersion region. The signal pulse suffers cross-phase modulation by the Raman shifted soliton pulse and it is trapped and copropagates with the Raman soliton pulse along the fiber. As the input peak power of the pump pulse is increased, the red-shift of the Raman soliton is considerably enhanced with the simultaneous further blue-shift of the trapped pulse to satisfy the condition of group velocity matching.

不同功率下的飞秒激光在水中形成的脉冲压缩和超连续谱

本文研究了飞秒激光脉冲在水中的传输情况.通过改变不同的激光输入功率进行模拟，我们发现从输入功率略高于到远远高于发生自聚焦的临界功率,分别是群速度色散和多光子电离多光子吸收阻止了自聚焦导致的脉冲塌陷，当多光子电离和多光子吸收主导传输时，脉冲能被压缩到几个光学周期.在频域，多光子电离能引起很强的蓝移,而多光子吸收能对这种蓝移起到抑制作用。

超短激光脉冲在不同色散参量光子晶体光纤中传输的数值模拟

为了使得数值模拟更为精确, 采用广义非线性薛定谔方程(GNSE)描述超短激光脉冲在光子晶体光纤中的传输演化过程, 并利用二阶分步傅里叶方法通过求解方程, 数值计算了相同脉宽和能量的超短脉冲在不同色散参量的光子晶体光纤中非线性传输和超连续谱的产生。比较了超短脉冲在光纤不同色散区传输时, 高阶色散和非线性效应对超连续谱的产生以及对脉冲波形演化的影响。结果表明, 相对于超短脉冲中心波长位于光子晶体光纤的正常和反常色散区, 可以相应获得短波波段和长波波段的超连续谱输出, 当超短脉冲中心波长位于零色散波长点时, 通

Conical emission by femtosecond pulses with different spectral bandwidths

Conical emission (CE) has been investigated experimentally by laser pulses with different pulse durations and spectral bandwidths. The results show that the overall CE curve will shift as the varying of spectral bandwidth of pump laser pulse. But for pump laser pulses which have same spectral bandwidth but different pulse duration, the CE angles will be same at the spectral region close to the pump wavelength while will be different at the spectral region far away from the pump wavelength. We have also fitted the measured CE angles with X-wave model. The calculated curves and the measured CE curves match reasonably well. The best fits indicate that the group velocity of the filament pulse may be greatly controlled by controlling the spectral bandwidth of pump laser pulse. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Formation of X-waves at fundamental and harmonics by infrared femtosecond pulse filamentation in air

We experimentally observe the formation of X-waves at fundamental, third harmonic, and fifth harmonic wavelengths by infrared (central wavelength at similar to 1500 nm) femtosecond laser pulse filamentation in air. By fitting the angularly resolved spectra of the fundamental and harmonic waves using X-wave relations, we confirm that all the X-waves have nearly the same group velocity, indicating that they are locked in space and time during their propagation in filament.

Self-compression of femtosecond pulses in argon with a power close to the self-focusing threshold

Self-compression of femtosecond pulses in noble gases with an input power close to the self-focusing threshold has been investigated experimentally and theoretically. It is demonstrated that either multiphoton ionization (MPI) or space time focusing and self-steepening effects can induce pulse shortening, but they predominate at different beam intensities during the propagation. The latter effects play a key role in the final pulse self-compression. By choosing an appropriate focusing parameter, action distance of the space time focusing and self-steepening effects can be lengthened, which can promote a shock pulse structure with a duration as short as two optical cycles. It is also found that, for our calculation cases in which an input pulse power is close to the self-focusing threshold, either group velocity dispersion (GVD) or multiphoton absorption (MPA) has a negligible influence on pulse characteristics in the propagation process.

Standing ultrashort relativistic solitons in overdense plasmas

By using a one-dimensional self-consistent relativistic fluid model, an investigation is made numerically on relativistic electromagnetic solitons with a high intensity in cold overdense plasmas with an electrons' initial velocity opposite to the laser propagating direction. Two types of standing solitons with zero group velocity are found at the given electrons' initial velocities. One is single-humped with a weakly relativistic intensity; the another is multi-humped with a strong relativistic amplitude. The properties of these two types of solitons are presented in detail.

Nonlinear X-wave formation and conical emission at different powers of a femtosecond laser pulse in water

Nonlinear X-wave formation at different pulse powers in water is simulated using the standard model of nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE). It is shown that in near field X-shape originally emerges from the interplay between radial diffraction and optical Kerr effect. At relatively low power group-velocity dispersion (GVD) arrests the collapse and leads to pulse splitting on axis. With high enough power, multi-photon ionization (NIPI) and multi-photon absorption (MPA) play great importance in arresting the collapse. The tailing part of pulse is first defocused by MPI and then refocuses. Pulse splitting on axis is a manifestation of this process. Double X-wave forms when the split sub-pulses are self-focusing. In the far field, the character of the central X structure of conical emission (CE) is directly related to the single or double X-shape in the near field. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Microstructure control and iodine doping of bismuth telluride

On the materials scale, thermoelectric efficiency is defined by the dimensionless figure of merit zT. This value is made up of three material components in the form zT = Tα²/ρκ, where α is the Seebeck coefficient, ρ is the electrical resistivity, and κ is the total thermal conductivity. Therefore, in order to improve zT would require the reduction of κ and ρ while increasing α. However due to the inter-relation of the electrical and thermal properties of materials, typical routes to thermoelectric enhancement come in one of two forms. The first is to isolate the electronic properties and increase α without negatively affecting ρ. Techniques like electron filtering, quantum confinement, and density of states distortions have been proposed to enhance the Seebeck coefficient in thermoelectric materials. However, it has been difficult to prove the efficacy of these techniques. More recently efforts to manipulate the band degeneracy in semiconductors has been explored as a means to enhance α.

The other route to thermoelectric enhancement is through minimizing the thermal conductivity, κ. More specifically, thermal conductivity can be broken into two parts, an electronic and lattice term, κ_e and κ_l respectively. From a functional materials standpoint, the reduction in lattice thermal conductivity should have a minimal effect on the electronic properties. Most routes incorporate techniques that focus on the reduction of the lattice thermal conductivity. The components that make up κ_l (κ_l = 1/3Cνl) are the heat capacity (C), phonon group velocity (ν), and phonon mean free path (l). Since the difficulty is extreme in altering the heat capacity and group velocity, the phonon mean free path is most often the source of reduction.

Past routes to decreasing the phonon mean free path has been by alloying and grain size reduction. However, in these techniques the electron mobility is often negatively affected because in alloying any perturbation to the periodic potential can cause additional adverse carrier scattering. Grain size reduction has been another successful route to enhancing zT because of the significant difference in electron and phonon mean free paths. However, grain size reduction is erratic in anisotropic materials due to the orientation dependent transport properties. However, microstructure formation in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium processing routines can be used to effectively reduce the phonon mean free path as a route to enhance the figure of merit.

This work starts with a discussion of several different deliberate microstructure varieties. Control of the morphology and finally structure size and spacing is discussed at length. Since the material example used throughout this thesis is anisotropic a short primer on zone melting is presented as an effective route to growing homogeneous and oriented polycrystalline material. The resulting microstructure formation and control is presented specifically in the case of In₂Te₃-Bi₂Te₃ composites and the transport properties pertinent to thermoelectric materials is presented. Finally, the transport and discussion of iodine doped Bi₂Te₃ is presented as a re-evaluation of the literature data and what is known today.

Superluminal optical solitons in a four-level tripod atomic system

With one weak probe field and two strong pumping fields, superluminal optical solitons are formed in a lifetime-broadened four-level tripod atomic medium. With proper parameters, both dark and bright solitons can occur in the highly resonant medium. The corresponding group velocity of the solitons can be superluminal. Meanwhile, the conditions for superluminal solitons occurrence are given.

Optical solitons in a four-level inverted-Y system

With one weak probe field and two strong pumping fields, the possibility of producing superluminal optical solitons is discussed in a lifetime-broadened inverted-Y atomic medium with proper parameters. As the group velocity of the solitons is larger than c, its occurrence can be controlled by modulating the intensities and the detunings of lasers.

高阶群速度色散引起的高斯超短脉冲宽度的展宽和形变

基于动量守恒和光参变过程中的三波耦合波方程, 和负单轴非线性光学晶体CsLiB6O10的色散方程, 研究了在光参变效应中超短激光脉冲由于群速度色散引起的展宽和形变。数值模拟显示, 在超短脉冲波形为双曲正割形和无啁啾调制时, 高阶群速度色散引起的超短脉冲为50 fs时, 晶体长度为10 mm, 紫外光213 nm作为基波入射时的脉冲展宽是波长为532 nm绿光在同等条件下的1.6倍。脉冲展宽程度与入射波长和晶体长度有关, 波长越短和晶体长度越长则脉冲展宽和波形变化越严重,高阶色散引起的超短高斯脉冲展宽, 将

基于多台阶反射光栅的飞秒脉冲压缩装置

反射式光栅对是一种具有负色散性质的器件,可用于飞秒激光脉冲的压缩和展宽,具有无材料色散的优点。给出了一种基于多台阶反射光栅的脉冲压缩装置。该装置为倍密度光栅结构,由两个周期分别为40μm和20μm的四台阶反射式光栅组成。实验得到的衍射效率可以达到70%以上,输入脉冲经过两个光栅的衍射后会按原路返回,从而达到色散补偿的效果。利用此压缩装置,脉冲宽度为66.8 fs的输入脉冲压缩至接近傅里叶变换极限脉冲,即46.6 fs,由此证明只要多台阶光栅效率足够高,此装置就有可能成为不同于棱镜对进行飞秒脉冲腔内和腔外压缩的另一种途径。

基于频域相位共轭技术的交叉相位调制所致失真的复原

理论分析和讨论了基于频域相位共轭技术的交叉相位调制所致信号失真的复原和补偿机理，数值模拟了在交叉相位调制作用下，高斯脉冲在中距相位共轭光纤系统中的传输演化过程．结果表明，频域相位共轭技术能够抑制交叉相位调制对光纤系统中传输信号的损害，复原其所导致的信号失真，并能够同步补偿群速度色散和自相位调制非线性效应所导致的信号失真．合适的初始脉冲时延和初始脉冲啁啾有利于频域相位共轭技术对交叉相位调制所致信号失真的抑制．