Effect of group velocity dispersion on supercontinuum generation and filamentation in transparent solids

We experimentally investigate the spectral extent and spectral profile of the supercontinuum (SC) generated in transparent solids: barium fluoride, calcium fluoride, and fused silica upon irradiation by intense femtosecond-long pulses of 800, 1,380, and 2,200 nm light. These wavelengths correspond to the normal and anomalous group velocity dispersion (GVD) regimes in fused silica calcium fluoride and barium fluoride. We observe an isolated (anti-Stokes) wing on the blue side most prominently in fused silica but also in CaF₂. The SC conversion efficiency is measured for the long wavelengths used in our experiments. We also present results on filamentation in BaF₂ in the anomalous GVD regime, including visualization of focusing–refocusing events within the crystal; the size of a single filament is also determined. The 15-photon absorption cross section in BaF₂ is deduced to be 6.5 × 10^?190 cm³⁰ W^?15 s^?1.     

1kHz飞秒激光脉冲在空气中传输成丝的演化过程

利用高重复频率(１kHz)、低能量的飞秒激光脉冲研究激光脉冲在空气中传输成丝的演化过程.采用成像的方法观测飞秒激光脉冲在大气传输过程中光束截面上光强分布变化，以及大气等离子体通道对光强分布的反作用.实验结果表明，激光脉冲在传输过程中先形成双丝结构，再逐渐合并成单丝结构.实验结果与利用非线性薛定谔方程耦合多光子电离的数值模拟结果基本一致. 关键词： 飞秒激光脉冲 等离子体通道 成像     

Direct observation of the space-time transformation of a femtosecond laser pulse in fused quartz

The transformation of a femtosecond laser pulse propagating in fused quartz before and after its transition to a filamentation regime has been investigated by femtosecond time-resolved optical polarigraphy. The spatial periodicity of a light field along and across the propagation axis has been detected and its nature has been attributed to the interference of the conical and plane components of the wave packet of the filament. The “supraluminal” motions of the observed filament intensity maximum are due to the longitudinal transformation of the pulse profile.     

Nutations of magnetizations of sublattices and their role in the formation of Mössbauer spectra of antiferromagnetic nanoparticles

A law determining the dispersion shift of the anti-Stokes band of the supercontinuum of a light bullet in a filament of a femtosecond laser pulse in transparent dielectrics has been established. The dispersion equation theoretically obtained for the anti-Stokes shift has been confirmed by spectroscopic studies of the filamentation of the near and middle infrared ranges in fused silica and fluorides.     

Long-range spectrally and spatially resolved radiation from filaments in air

The distance-resolved spectral intensity distribution of the backscattered light from long filaments generated in air using ultra-short and intense laser pulses is presented. A clean fluorescence spectrum from N₂ molecules and ions, which is produced by the high peak intensity inside the plasma filament of the fundamental pulse, was clearly resolved from the backscattered supercontinuum. The supercontinuum generated by both the fundamental and the third-harmonic pulses developed progressively and became fully developed only at the end of the filamentation.     

Impact of dispersion on pulse dynamics in chirped-pulse fiber lasers

We report on a systematic study of an environmentally stable mode-locked Yb-doped fiber laser operating in the chirped-pulse regime. The linear cavity chirped-pulse fiber laser is constructed with a saturable absorber mirror as nonlinear mode-locking mechanism and a nonlinearity-free transmission-grating-based stretcher/compressor for dispersion management. Mode-locked operation and pulse dynamics from strong normal to strong anomalous total cavity dispersion in the range of +2.5 to ?1.6 ps² is experimentally studied. Strongly positively chirped pulses from 4.3?ps (0.01?ps²) to 39?ps (2.5?ps²) are obtained at normal net-cavity dispersion. In the anomalous dispersion regime, the laser generates average soliton feature negatively chirped pulses with autocorrelation pulse durations from 0.8?ps (?0.07 ps²) to 3.9?ps (?1.6 ps²). The lowered peak power due to the pulse stretching allows one to increase the double pulse threshold. Based on the numerical simulation, different regimes of mode locking are obtained by varying the intra-cavity dispersion, and the characteristics of average soliton, stretched-pulse, wave-breaking-free and chirped-pulse regimes are discussed.     

Saturation of the filament density of ultrashort intense laser pulses in air

We experimentally and numerically characterize multiple filamentation of laser pulses with incident intensities of a few TW/cm². Propagating 100 TW laser pulses over 42 m in air, we observe a new propagation regime where the filament density saturates. As also evidenced by numerical simulations in the same intensity range, the total number of filaments is governed by geometric constraints and mutual interactions among filaments rather than by the available power in the beam.     

Generation of high harmonics and attosecond pulses with ultrashort laser pulse filaments and conical waves

Results illustrating the nonlinear dynamics of ultrashort laser pulse filamentation in gases are presented, with particular emphasis on the filament properties useful for developing attosecond light sources. Two aspects of ultrashort pulse filaments are specifically discussed: (i) numerical simulation results on pulse self-compression by filamentation in a gas cell filled with noble gas. Measurements of high harmonics generated by the pulse extracted from the filament allows for the detection of intensity spikes and subcycle pulses generated within the filament. (ii) Simulation results on the spontaneous formation of conical wavepackets during filamentation in gases, which in turn can be used as efficient driving pulses for the generation of high harmonics and isolated attosecond pulses.     

Role of the carrier-envelope phase in laser filamentation

We numerically study the influence of the initial carrier-envelope phase (CEP) on the filamentation of ultrashort laser pulses in noble gas. Emphasis is put on the CEP-induced changes of pulses that reach their clamping intensity during near-cycle self-compression. In other propagation regimes, the CEP does not significantly alter the pulse evolution. Our results indicate that third-harmonic generation, compared to plasma generation, is dominant in driving these changes. Finally, the stability of the filament CEP against shot-to-shot fluctuations is examined.     

Self-transformation of a powerful femtosecond laser pulse into a white-light laser pulse in bulk optical media (or supercontinuum generation)

We present experimental and theoretical results on white-light generation in the filamentation of a high-power femtosecond laser pulse in water and atmospheric air. We have shown that the high spatio-temporal localization of the light field in the filament, which enables the supercontinuum generation, is sustained due to the dynamic transformation of the light field on the whole transverse scale of the beam, including its edges. We found that the sources of the supercontinuum blue wing are in the rings, surrounding the filament, as well as at the back of the pulse, where shock-wave formation enhanced by self-steepening takes place. We report on the first observation and demonstration of the interference of the supercontinuum spectral components arising in the course of multiple filamentation in a terawatt laser pulse. We demonstrate that the conversion efficiency of an initially narrow laser pulse spectrum into the supercontinuum depends on the length of the filament with high intensity gradients and can be increased by introducing an initial chirp. PACS 42.65.Jx; 42.65.Re; 42.25.Bs; 42.50.Hz     

Can we reach very high intensity in air with femtosecond PW laser pulses?

In the course of femtosecond pulse filamentation in atmospheric density gases, the peak intensity is always limited by optical-field-induced ionization. This intensity clamping phenomenon is universal in all the cases we studied, namely, single and multiple filament regimes with and without external focusing using pulses of up to subpetawatt level. Even in the tight focusing cases, the clamped intensity along the propagation direction does not exceed 30% of the global intensity maximum. The remarkable shot-to-shot stability of the clamped intensity (better than 1% of the maximum value) is revealed both experimentally and numerically in a single filament regime in air.     

Intensity modulation of filaments by shaped laser pulses in fused silica

We show the intensity control of filamentation in fused silica by temporally shaping the femtosecond laser pulse.The arbitrary control of filamentation intensity has been obtained by the feedback control based on the genetic algorithm, and the peak intensity of filament has changed from about 670 to around 2100(charge-coupled device counts). This modulation is in qualitative agreement with the simulation results. It is shown that the control of the intensity is realized by modulating the peak power of the shaped pulse.     

Self-focusing and multiple filamentation of laser light in disperse media

We present the results of a computer simulation of the initiation and formation of filaments under conditions of high-power laser pulse scattering on atmospheric aerosols. We demonstrate that the femtosecond filament is robust to the perturbations induced by a disperse medium and can transport a high-fluence energy for long distances. At sufficient pulse power, the intensity perturbations, caused by the interference of light scattered on particles, initiate the generation of filaments and result in multiple filamentation. The results were obtained using the stratified-medium approach of coherent light scattering on an ensemble of aerosol particles.     

Control of femtosecond filamentation by field-free revivals of molecular alignment

We show that the filamentation dynamics of a femtosecond laser probe pulse can be readily controlled by properly matching it to the quantum revivals of pre-aligned molecules prepared through impulsive rotational Raman excitation with an advancing ultrashort pump pulse. Several features of the filamentation process including supercontinuum generation, the length of the plasma channel generated in the wake of the filament, the associated secondary radiations and the multiple filamentation pattern are all easily modified by tuning the cross phase modulation induced by the field-free revivals of molecular alignment, through the delay between the pump and the probe pulses. We show that molecular alignment can also be used to generate conical waves with extremely short intensity spike called shocked X-waves and to further tune the frequency of a few-cycle laser pulse in the wake of a self-guided intense filament.     

Spatial optimization of filaments

We demonstrate the spatial homogenization of intense laser pulses by adaptive minimization of spatial chirp of the spectrally broadened output pulses of a filament. A liquid-crystal-based two-dimensional spatial light modulator is used to control the spatial phase of the driver pulse. An evolutionary algorithm finds the optimal spatial laser phase distribution that introduces minimal distortions during filamentation and enhances the beam quality of the output pulse. A homogeneous intensity distribution favours efficient temporal compression close to the bandwidth limit without the need for spatial filtering after the filament. PACS 42.65.-k; 42.65.Re; 41.85.Ct     

光纤色散对超连续谱产生的影响

对1550nm波长附近具有不同色散特性的光纤产生超连续谱进行了详细的计算和分析。结果表明，在反常色散区和零散区，由于内脉冲拉曼散射效应和三阶色散效应的影响，不能产生平坦、宽带的超连续谱。而在正常色散区，可以产生平坦光滑的超连续谱。进一步研究表明，具有较小正常色散的色散平坦光纤对于产生平坦、宽带的超连续谱极为有效。通过增强脉冲抽运功率，可以得到谱强起伏小于10dB、带宽达300nm以上的平坦超宽超连续谱。     

Propagation of ultrafast pulses in the anomalous-dispersion regime of silicon-on-insulator strip nanowaveguides

The dynamic evolution of ultrafast high-intensity pulses with a 100 fs half-width at 1/e intensity point based on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) strip nanowaveguides is considered and investigated numerically under the condition of anomalous group-velocity dispersion (GVD) regime. For ultrafast high-intensity pulses propagating in millimeter-long SOI nanowaveguides, the interplay between the dispersion and nonlinear effects such as the two-photon absorption, free-carrier absorption, free-carrier dispersion, and self-phase modulation has to be taken into account, which results in the significant optical wave breaking phenomenon that occurs near the pulse leading edge for an unchirped Gaussian pulse in the anomalous GVD regime. However, when the input Gaussian pulse with linear up-chirp is introduced, the position of the optical wave breaking shifts from the leading pulse edge to its trailing edge along the several millimeters-long SOI nanowaveguides.     

The study of the wake field effects on the self-focusing and the compression of the laser pulse in plasma at the relativistic regime by Lagrangian method

The trial function in the variational-Lagrangian method is a fundamental method to explain the essential features of the laser pulse evolution in the plasma. Self-focusing behavior and compression of the laser pulse in plasma are analyzed, for both low and high intensity regimes. It is shown that the compression threshold depends on both pulse intensity and pulse length. In particular, in both regimes, the compression threshold is directly proportional to the pulse length. This is while this threshold is directly, in the linear regime, and inversely, in the nonlinear regime, proportional to pulse intensity. In the present work, the existence of oscillations is revealed, with a behavior akin to laser pulse width. Finally, the effects of pulse intensity, pulse length, and plasma density on compression are analyzed.     

Self-stabilization of third-harmonic pulse during two-color filamentation in gases

Self-stabilization of the laser pulse parameters is demonstrated during the two-color filamentation of ultrashort and intense laser pulses in gases. Experimental data and results of numerical simulations show, in good qualitative agreement, that the root-mean-square values of the intensity fluctuations decrease below the initial value for the near-infrared pump pulse and the perturbative limit for the third-harmonic pulse in the filament. It is found that the stabilization of the third-harmonic intensity and energy are due to intensity clamping of the pump pulse and a constant ‘volume’ of the laser pulse during the nonlinear propagation inside the filament. PACS 42.65.Ky; 42.65.Jx; 52.35.Mw     

Transverse evolution of a plasma channel in air induced by a femtosecond laser

We investigate the evolution of filamentation in air by using a longitudinal diffraction method and a plasma fluorescence imaging technique. The diameter of a single filament in which the intensity is clamped increases as the energy of the pump light pulse increases, until multiple filaments appear.