Synthesis, characterization and studies on the nonlinear optical parameters of hydrazones

Three hydrazones, 2-(4-methylphenoxy)-N′-[(1E)-(4-nitrophenyl)methylene]acetohydrazide (compound-1), 2-(4-methylphenoxy)-N′-[(1E)-(4-methylphenyl)methylene]acetohydrazide ((compound-2) and N′-{(1E)-[4-(dimethylamino)phenyl]methylene}-2-(4-ethylphenoxy) acetohydrazide(compound-3) were synthesized and their third order nonlinear optical properties were investigated using a single beam z-scan technique with nanosecond laser pulses at 532 nm. Open aperture data obtained from the three compounds indicates two photon absorption at this wavelength. The nonlinear refractive index n₂, the nonlinear absorption coefficient β, the magnitude of the effective third order susceptibility χ⁽³⁾, the second order hyperpolarizability γ_h and the coupling factor ρ have been estimated. The values obtained are comparable with the values obtained for 4-methoxy chalcone derivatives and dibenzylidene acetone derivatives. Among the compounds studied, compounds-1 and 3 exhibited the better optical power limiting behaviour at 532 nm. Our studies suggest that compounds-1, 2 and 3 are potential candidates for optical device applications such as optical limiters and optical switches.     

3,3′-Benzene-1,4-diylbis[1-(substituted)phenylprop-2-en-1-one] derivatives: A new class of materials for third-order nonlinear optical applications

We have investigated the third-order nonlinear optical parameters of Bischalcones embedded in DMF solution and in solid PMMA matrix, by Z-scan technique using nanosecond laser pulse trains at 532 nm. Z-scan results reveal that the Bischalcones exhibits negative nonlinear refractive index as high as 10⁻¹¹ esu. The molecular two-photon absorption cross-section of Bischalcones were of the order 10⁻⁴⁶ cm⁴ s/photon, which is nearly two orders of magnitude larger than that of Rhodamine 6G which is 10⁻⁴⁸ - 10⁻⁵⁰ cm⁴ s/photon. We found that, the two-photon absorption (TPA) is the dominating nonlinear process leading to nonlinear absorption in both the cases in solution and as well as in solid medium. Based on TPA process, the Bischalcones exhibit good optical power limiting of nanosecond laser pulses at the input wavelength. The nonlinear optical parameters found to increase on enhancing the strength of the electron donor groups indicating the dependence and importance of electron donor/acceptor units on third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility χ⁽³⁾.     

Effect of concentration and particle size on nonlinearity of Au nano-fluid prepared by γ (Co) radiation

Nonlinear properties of Au nano-fluid prepared by γ-radiation method at different concentrations were investigated. Measurements of nonlinear refractive index and nonlinear absorption coefficient were carried out using a single beam Z-scan technique. A green CW laser beam operated at 532 nm was used as excitation source. The Au nano-fluid shows a good third order nonlinear response. The sign of the nonlinear refractive index is found to be negative and the magnitude is in the order of 10⁻⁷ cm²/W. This nonlinear effect increases as the concentration increases from 3.119 × 10⁻⁴ to 2.354 × 10⁻³ M which correspond to particle sizes of 4.0-30.5 nm, respectively. A good linear relationship was obtained between nonlinear refractive index and concentration. However the relationship between nonlinear refractive index and particle size was nonlinear behavior.     

Mitigation of phase noise in dispersion compensated quasi-linear optical transmission systems: Analysis

We theoretically investigate the phase noise in quasi-linear optical transmission systems and study the mitigation of phase noise by properly choosing periodic dispersion compensation and amplification. Variational method is used to deduce the analytical formula for calculating the phase fluctuations of a Gaussian pulse. The analytical predictions are then checked against direct simulations by numerically solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We find that stronger dispersion compensation maps can be used to reduce phase noise and it can be further mitigated by modifying the dispersion map appropriately. It is also found that shorter amplifier spacing yields lower phase noise. We also explore the effect of pre-, post- and bi-end dispersion compensation configurations on phase noise with full compensation and check the reduction of phase noise along the fiber link.     

Distributed strain measurement using a tellurite glass fiber with Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry

A tellurite glass fiber with a high Brillouin gain was employed for distributed strain measurement with Brillouin optical correlation-domain reflectometry (BOCDR). First, the spatial resolution of BOCDR was evaluated using the tellurite fiber. With the high Brillouin gain of the fiber, it was confirmed clearly in the experiment that the spatial resolution is limited by the Rayleigh scattering-induced noise. Then, the dependence of the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS) on strain in the tellurite fiber was investigated, showing a negative dependence with a coefficient of −0.023 MHz/με. Using this tellurite fiber, the distribution of the BFS around a 1-cm strain-applied section was successfully measured with BOCDR of a nominal spatial resolution of 6 mm.     

Simple and flexible generation of vestigial side band modified duobinary return-to-zero signals at 10, 20 and 40 Gb/s

We propose and demonstrate a simple and flexible approach to generate vestigial side band modified duobinary return-to-zero (VSB MD-RZ) signals at 10-40 Gb/s, using a dual-drive Mach-Zehnder modulator and a detuned optical band-pass filter. The performance of the proposed VSB MD-RZ signal is investigated by comparing with double side band MD-RZ (DSB MD-RZ) and conventional VSB MD-RZ. Bit error ratio (BER) measurement at 10 Gb/s shows an error free operation for the generated signal. Good performance is further observed after 100 km of single-mode-fiber transmission at 40 Gb/s.     

Periodic intensity variations on the pulse-train of a passively mode-locked fiber ring laser

We investigate the evolvement of the periodic intensity variations of the pulse-train in a fiber ring laser mode-locked by the nonlinear polarization rotation technique. It is found that the phenomenon of such intensity fluctuations is related to the orientation of the polarization controllers when the pump power is fixed. The numerical results show that the mechanism of the periodic intensity variations is caused by the interaction of the nonlinear polarization rotation and the passive polarizer in the cavity.     

Gray photorefractive polymeric optical spatial solitons

We show that gray spatial optical solitons are possible in biased photorefractive polymers under steady-state conditions. We find that for a given material parameter the absolute value of a gray photorefractive polymeric soliton's phase decreases with an increase in the beam's grayness, whereas it increases with the material parameter for a given beam's grayness and that the full width half maximum (FWHM) of the gray soliton beam's intensity increases with the beam's grayness when the normalized background intensity and the material parameter are fixed and decreases with an increase in the normalized background intensity when the material parameter is fixed. On the other hand, we also show that N coupled beam evolution equations in biased photorefractive polymers can exhibit multicomponent gray solitons. These multicomponent gray solitons can be obtained provided that the N coupled beams share the same polarization, wavelength, and are incoherent with one another. The characteristics and stability properties of these multicomponent gray solitons are also discussed in detail.     

Third-order nonlinear optical studies of new anthraquinone derivatives

Four new donor-acceptor-donor anthraquinone derivatives were synthesized and characterized by UV, IR, ¹H NMR and elemental analysis. Their off-resonant third-order nonlinear optical properties were measured using femtosecond laser and degenerate four-wave mixing technique. The third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities χ⁽³⁾ were 3.36-3.76 × 10⁻¹³ esu. The nonlinear refractive indexes n₂ were 6.19-6.91 × 10⁻¹² esu. The second-order hyperpolarizabilities γ of the molecules were 3.36-3.76 × 10⁻³¹ esu. The response times were 101-115 fs. The results show that these compounds have potential nonlinear optical applications.