Pulse self-compression in normally dispersive bulk media

We experimentally demonstrate that high-power femtosecond pulses can be compressed during the nonlinear propagation in the normally dispersive solid bulk medium. The self-compression behavior was detailedly investigated under a variety of experimental conditions, and the temporal and spectral characteristics of resulted pulses were found to be significantly affected by the input pulse intensity, with higher intensity corresponding to shorter compressed pulses. By passing through a piece of BK7 glass, a self-compression from 50 to 20 fs was achieved, with a compression factor of about 2.5. However, the output pulse was observed to be split into two peaks when the input intensity is high enough to generate supercontinuum and conical emission.     

Ultra-broadband continuum generation by hollow-fiber cascading

A novel spectral broadening technique, based on hollow-fiber cascading, is reported, which allows the generation of a supercontinuum extending to a bandwidth exceeding 510 THz with excellent spatial beam quality. High-peak-power, sub-7-fs light pulses tunable from the visible to the near infrared have been generated by compression of portions of the supercontinuum, employing different sets of chirped mirrors. Received: 11 July 2002 / Revised version: 3 September 2002 / Published online: 15 November 2002 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +39-02/2399-6126, E-mail: mauro.nisoli@fisi.polimi.it     

Two-color pulse compression in aperiodically-poled lithium niobate

We experimentally demonstrate engineerable compression of two-colored pulses in a linearly-chirped quasi-phase-matching grating. Quadratic solitons generated from fundamental input are reshaped through cascaded parametric processes of second-harmonic generation (SHG) and the back-conversion. We use type-I (e: o + o) SHG geometry in a 50-mm-long aperiodically-poled MgO:LiNbO₃ device to satisfy the group-velocity matching condition. Simultaneously compressed fundamental and SH pulses of about 55-fs duration with small pedestal are generated from the fundamental input pulses of 95-fs duration.     

Flat Supercontinuum Generation at 1550 nm in a Dispersion-Flattened Microstructure Fibre Using Picosecond Pulse

The generation of a flat supercontinuum of over 80nm in the 1550nm region by injecting 1.6ps 10 GHz repetition rate optical pulses into an 80-m-long dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre is demonstrated. The fibre has small normal dispersion with a variation smaller than 1.5 （ps·nm^-1·km^-1） between 1500 and 1650nm. The generated supercontinuum ranging from 1513 to 1591 nm has the flatness of ±1.5 dB and it is not so flat in the range of several nanometres around the pump wavelength 1552nm. Numerical simulation is also used to study the effect of optical loss, fibre parameters and pumping conditions on supercontinuum generation in the dispersion-flattened microstructure fibre, and can be used for further optimization to generate flat broad spectra.     

Sum and difference frequency generation of white light continuum with the ps pulses of Nd:YAG laser in a thick BBO crystal

The white light continuum (WLC) generated in water/D₂O mixture by pumping with the fundamental of ps Nd⁺³:YAG laser has been used as a variable frequency source for the sum frequency generation as well as for its amplification. 35 ps long pulses with 8 mJ energy at 1064 nm were mixed collinearly with the WLC generated by the same laser beam in a 20 mm thick BBO crystal. The obtained tunable output has been identified as the sum frequency between the fundamental and a portion of the WLC with the required phase matching. Theoretical simulations are also given along with a few initial experiments to use this combination for the difference frequency generation (optical parametric amplification) under non-collinear geometry.     

色散平坦渐减光纤中超连续谱的产生

对双正交偏振光脉冲在色散平坦渐减光纤中传输时超连续谱的产生进行了计算和分析。结果表明，由于交叉相位调制效应的作用，双光脉冲可以产生比单光脉冲明显展宽且更为平坦的超连续谱。对于双基孤子脉冲，可以得到-20dB谱宽达388nm的平坦宽带超连续谱，比单基孤子脉冲产生的超连续谱谱宽增加72nm，交叉相位调制效应对超连续谱的产生起到增强的效果。当输入脉冲的抽运功率较低时，交叉相位调制效应对超连续谱的产生的增强效果更为显著，它极大地提高了超连续谱的产生的效率。数值计算的结果还表明，与其他高阶非线性效应相比，拉曼自频率移效应对超连续谱产生的影响更为明显。     

Coherent enhancement of broadband frequency up-conversion in BBO crystal by shaping femtosecond laser pulses

An optimal feedback control of broadband frequency up-conversion in BBO crystal is experimentally demonstrated by shaping femtosecond laser pulses based on genetic algorithm, and the frequency up-conversion efficiency can be enhanced by ∼16%. SPIDER results show that the optimal laser pulses have shorter pulse-width with the little negative chirp than the original pulse with the little positive chirp. By modulating the fundamental spectral phase with periodic square distribution on SLM-256, the frequency up-conversion can be effectively controlled by the factor of about 17%. The experimental results indicate that the broadband frequency up-conversion efficiency is related to both of second harmonic generation (SHG) and sum frequency generation (SFG), where the former depends on the fundamental pulse intensity, and the latter depends on not only the fundamental pulse intensity but also the fundamental pulse spectral phase.     

Supercontinuum generation of ultrashort laser pulses in air at different central wavelengths

Supercontinuum generation by femtosecond filaments in air is investigated for different laser wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to infrared. Particular attention is paid on the role of third-harmonic generation and temporal steepening effects, which enlarge the blue part of the spectrum. A unidirectional pulse propagation model and nonlinear evolution equations are numerically integrated and their results are compared. Apart from the choice of the central wavelength, we emphasize the importance of the clamped intensity reached by self-guided pulses, together with their temporal duration and propagation length as key players acting on both supercontinuum generation of the pump wave and emergence of the third harmonic. Maximal broadening is observed for large wavelengths and long filamentation ranges.     

Microjoule supercontinuum generation by stretched megawatt femtosecond laser pulses in a large-mode-area photonic-crystal fiber

Microjoule supercontinuum generation is demonstrated using a large-mode-area photonic-crystal fiber (PCF) pumped by an amplified stretched-pulse output of a mode-locked Cr:forsterite laser. A PCF with a mode area of 380 μm² is employed to transform 300-fs Cr:forsterite laser pulses with a peak-power of a few megawatts into a supercontinuum radiation with a spectrum spanning from 700 to 1800 nm and a total energy of 1.15 μJ.     

Supercontinuum Gneneration and Modes Analysis in Secondary Cores of a Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber

We demonstrate the generation of supercontinuum spectra in three secondary cores of a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber pumped by femtosecond laser pulses, respectively. The supercontinuum spectra are mainly a result of the soliton self-frequency shift and an amplification of dispersive wave at visible wavelengths. Detailed mode simulations show that with the increasing core length, the modes transfer from ＂double-points＂ to ＂single-point＂ since the pump laser is more easily coupled into the two side cores of a secondary core when the core length is small. The simulation results also explain why the experimental observed far-field beam patterns of first two secondary cores are different.     

Polarization-dependent supercontinuum generation from light filaments in air

We investigate polarization-dependent properties of the supercontinuum emission generated from filaments produced by intense femtosecond laser pulses propagating through air over a long distance. The conversion efficiency from the 800-nm fundamental to white light is observed to be higher for circular polarization than for linear polarization when the laser intensity exceeds the threshold of the breakdown of air.     

块状介质超连续谱相位的相干特性

 块状介质超连续谱由一系列复杂的非线性过程产生。用两路飞秒泵浦光聚焦到熔石英玻璃上得到两束独立的超连续谱，实验上观察到它们形成的稳定干涉条纹；改变两路泵浦光的时间延迟，得到共线超连续谱形成的频率梳。实验证明，块状介质超连续谱的产生保持了泵浦光的相位锁定关系，泵浦光能量抖动和介质的缺陷都不会对超连续谱的相位带来明显的扰动。     

Two-color pump-probe ionization spectroscopy of gaseous water enhanced by preliminary impulsive Raman excitation

We use sub-10-fs pulses at 400 nm and 15-fs pulses at 800 nm to ionize water molecules and their isotopomers HDO and D₂O in a pump–probe scheme. Pulses are generated via spectral broadening of 25-fs pulses of a 1-kHz Ti:sapphire amplifier system by self-phase modulation in a noble-gas-filled hollow waveguide and subsequent compression using chirped mirrors. At this time scale vibronic excitation of the first bending mode of water in the electronic ground state by impulsive Raman scattering is possible (e.g. the fundamental bending mode of H₂O: t_vib=20 fs). The effect of this pre-excitation on the ionization rate is shown. Received: 14 May 2001 / Revised version: 24 August 2001 / Published online: 19 September 2001     

Active phase control and frequency chirp effects on supercontinuum generation in high birefringence photonic crystal fiber

An acoustic-optics programmable dispersive filter (AOPDF) was first employed to actively control the linearly polarized femtosecond pump pulse frequency chirp for supercontinuum (SC) generation in a high birefringence photonic crystal fiber (PCF). By accurately controlling the second order phase distortion and polarization direction of incident pulses, the output SC spectrum can be tuned to various spectral energy distributions and bandwidths. The pump pulse energy and bandwidth are preserved in our experiment. It is found that SC with broader bandwidth can be generated with positive chirped pump pulses except when the chirp value is larger than the optimal value, and the same optimal value exists for the pump pulses polarized along the two principal axes. With optimal positive chirp, more than 78% of the pump energy can be transferred to below 750 nm. Otherwise, negative chirp will weaken the blue-shift broadening and the SC bandwidth.     

Multi-stage pulse compression by use of cascaded quadratic nonlinearity

In this paper, the multi-stage compression of picosecond pulses by cascaded quadratic nonlinearity is studied theoretically, and the dependence of pulse compression on phase-mismatch, laser intensity, and crystal characteristics has been discussed in detail. We demonstrate that the multi-stage pulse compression is much more efficient than the single-stage with a same total crystal length. Pulses as short as ∼150 fs can be generated by compressing 30-ps initial pulses in a two-stage configuration under the realistic crystal and laser conditions, and shorter pulses of ∼30 fs may be obtained by three-stage compression. Pulse compression performances with BiBO and BBO crystals are compared and discussed finally.     

Modulation control and spectral shaping of optical fiber supercontinuum generation in the picosecond regime

Numerical simulations are used to study how fiber supercontinuum generation seeded by picosecond pulses can be actively controlled through the use of input pulse modulation. By carrying out multiple simulations in the presence of noise, we show how tailored supercontinuum spectra with increased bandwidth and improved stability can be generated using an input envelope modulation of appropriate frequency and depth. The results are discussed in terms of the nonlinear propagation dynamics and pump depletion.     

High-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond pulses generated from a BaWO4 Raman-seeded optical parametric amplifier

We report the generation of high-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses using optical parametric amplification (OPA) in BBO seeded with pulses generated in a 5-mm length BaWO₄ crystal by stimulated Raman scattering of 18-ps laser pulses at 532 nm. The maximum output energy of the amplified first-Stokes component at 559.7 nm was about 1.76 mJ. The corresponding maximum peak power, pulse duration and spectral line width were measured to be 117.3 MW, 15 ps and 18.0 cm⁻¹, respectively. The multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses were in the visible and near infrared ranges. Using this Raman-seeded OPA technique, the beam quality of the stimulated Raman scattering pulses can be improved.     

Generation of 200 femtosecond pulses tunable between 2.5 and 5.5 µm

The signal and idler output of an optical parametric oscillator are mixed in LiIO₃ and AgGaS₂ crystals to generate infrared pulses with a repetition rate of 82 MHz and an average power of 500µW. The infrared pulses are tunable between 2.5 and 5.5 µm, have a duration of 200 fs and a peak-to-peak intensity fluctuation of less than 5 %.     

非平行偏振双色场驱动产生脉宽稳定的单个宽谱阿秒脉冲

提出一种直接得到脉宽稳定的单个宽谱阿秒脉冲的新方法.利用波长为800 nm脉宽为5 fs的超短脉冲叠加上偏振方向与主脉冲成π/3,脉宽同样为5 fs的二次谐波脉冲驱动氦原子,可以得到宽度达到50 eV的超连续谱.当二次谐波的强度大于10¹⁴ W/cm²时,超连续谱的位置以及谱宽几乎不会随着二次谐波脉冲的强度的改变而改变.对85—125 eV的超连续谱进行滤波可以直接得到100 as左右的单个阿秒脉冲,这个性质对于实验上获得单个宽谱阿秒脉冲而言是非常有利的. 关键词： 阿秒脉冲 超连续谱     

The critical laser intensity of self-guided light filaments in air

The critical intensity inside plasma filaments generated in air by high-power, ultra-short laser pulses is estimated analytically and compared to recent experimental data. The result, I_crit≈4×10¹³ W/cm², is highly relevant for atmospheric applications. Received 18 August 2000 / Published online: 8 November 2000