Dynamics of high-power ultrashort laser pulses in resonant media

Work supported by Russian Fund for Basic Research, Project 93-02-14271.     

Propagation of few-cycle laser pulses through a linear gas medium

We investigate the ultrashort pulse propagation through a linear gas medium by direct solution of the wave equation beyond the often used lowest orders of the dispersion approximation and the assumption of a slowly varying envelope. The dispersion effects and the effective absorption of the pulse energy by the medium are shown to result in a strong dispersive broadening of the initial pulse in the time and space domains. New features of the polarization response of the medium resulting from essentially nonadiabatic ramps of the pulse envelope are found. The possibility of using the two-pulse experimental scheme to partly compensate for the dispersion is discussed.     

Propagation dynamics of nonlinear chirped optical laser pulses in a two-level medium

We investigate the propagation dynamics of nonlinear chirped optical laser pulses in a two-level medium. For certain chirp strength and chirp width, an incident 2π nonlinear chirped pulse will split into optical precursors and a stable self-induced transparency soliton. This is caused by the particular Fourier spectrum that includes not only central resonant frequency components but also high-frequency and low-frequency sidebands. Moreover, the effects of chirp parameters on the evolution of nonlinear chirped pulses are also discussed.     

Two-photon resonant three-photon ionization with ultrashort pulses

The problem of two-photon resonant three-photon ionization is analysed for the case of ultrashort ionizing pulses. An analytic solution to the problem is obtained and discussed. A simple experiment is proposed which would demonstrate the effect of optical nutation on the photoelectron flux.     

Propagation of ultrashort pulses in a nonlinear long-period fiber grating

By solving a pair of normalized nonlinear coupled-mode equations, we analyze in detail the propagation of ultrashort optical pulses in a nonlinear long-period fiber grating and investigate the conditions for the grating to function as an optical limiter or a saturable absorber. We show that the function of the grating depends on whether the nonlinear effect counteracts or enhances the detuning effect, and the nonlinear effect can be weakened significantly by the group-delay difference between the core mode and the coupled cladding mode. We present simulation results to illustrate these effects and discuss the physical conditions required for an effective operation of a nonlinear long-period grating.     

Microablation with ultrashort laser pulses

This paper reports the micromachining results of different materials (Al, Si, InP and fused silica) using a Ti : sapphire laser at the wavelength of 800 and 267 nm with variable pulse lengths in the range from 100 fs to 10 ps. The hole arrays with a diameter up to a few μm through microdrilling are presented. We discussed how an effective suppression of the thermal diffusion inside the ablated materials and an effective microablation could be realized. If the laser fluence is taken only slightly above the threshold, a hole array can be drilled with diameters even smaller than the wavelength of the laser. Some examples are presented in the paper.     

Coherent forward four-wave mixing of ultrashort radiation pulses in a resonant medium

Forward four-wave mixing (FFWM) of ultrashort light pulses is considered theoretically under their coherent propagation in a resonant-absorbing medium. Nonlinear equations describing FFWM are obtained and studied and it is shown that the energy exchange between pulses of exact resonance may lead to the enhancement of weak radiation. The influence of input radiation parameters and interaction geometry on the FFWM characteristics has been studied.     

Propagation of ultrashort pulses in a nonlinear two-core photonic crystal fiber

We analyze the propagation of ultrashort pulses in a nonlinear two-core photonic crystal fiber (PCF) by solving a pair of coupled-mode equations that include all the significant linear and nonlinear terms. In particular, we highlight the fact that the coupling coefficient dispersion can cause significant pulse distortion over a short length of a two-core PCF. We also study all-optical switching and multi-frequency generation and obtain a reasonable agreement with recent experimental data.     

Reaching the nonlinear regime of Raman amplification of ultrashort laser pulses

The intensity of a subpicosecond laser pulse was amplified by a factor of up to 1000 using the Raman backscatter interaction in a 2 mm long gas jet plasma. The process of Raman amplification reached the nonlinear regime, with the intensity of the amplified pulse exceeding that of the pump pulse by more than an order of magnitude. Features unique to the nonlinear regime such as gain saturation, bandwidth broadening, and pulse shortening were observed. Simulation and theory are in qualitative agreement with the measurements.     

Interaction of ultrashort elliptically polarized laser pulses with nonlinear helical photonic metamaterial

The effect of nonlinear properties of a material with a periodic structural cell (three-dimensional spiral) on the specificity of transmission and reflection of elliptically polarized laser pulses normally incident on the metamaterial is studied using the finite-difference time-domain method. An analysis of the hodograph of electric-field strength vector showed that an increase in the peak intensity of a linearly polarized laser pulse incident on a sample leads to an increase in the orthogonal component of the electric-field strength vector in the pulse transmitted through the medium. When pulses containing few electric-field periods are incident on a metamaterial, the latter demonstrates radically different optical properties for right- and left-handed circularly polarized light passing through the medium. It was shown that an increase in the intensity of a right-handed (left-handed) circularly polarized ultrashort pulse, incident on a sample composed of a rather large number of right-handed (left-handed) spirals made of nonlinearmaterial, widens the frequency range within which the incident light is almost entirely reflected from the medium.     

Comment on “propagation of ultrashort light pulses in a resonant medium”

Previous conclusions on the propagation of ultrashort light pulses in a resonant medium are found to be in error. There is no physical basis for rejecting the nd u and dn u solutions.     

Self-induced transparency for ultrashort pulses propagating in a multilevel quantum medium

We study theoretically the phenomenon of self-induced transparency for ultrashort pulses (videopulses) propagating in a multilevel quantum medium under conditions in which the method of slowly varying amplitudes and phases breaks down and the pulse spectrum substantially overlaps the quantum transitions. A special class of transitions with one common level is considered. We find that the dynamics of the videopulses in such a medium is described by a double sine-Gordon equation. We establish the conditions under which steady-state traveling 0π-, 2π-, and 4π-videosolitons are formed. It is found that 4π-videosolitons can propagate both in equilibrium media and in some nonequilibrium media, while 0π-videosolitons can propagate only in nonequilibrium media. We study amplification processes in highly nonequilibrium systems and show that, depending on the initial state of the medium, 2π-and qπ-pulses (0<q<1) with increasing amplitudes may be formed. We conclude that the amplification of an ultrashort pulse occurs due to an increase in the photon number density and to an increase in the frequency of each photon. Finally, we study the possibility of an electromagnetic autosoliton being formed in a nonequilibrium dissipative medium. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 114, 1595–1617 (November 1998)     

Tunable ultrashort laser pulses generated through filamentation in gases

Tunable and stable ultrashort laser pulses in the visible spectrum are generated with high efficiency by four-wave mixing process during the filamentation of near-infrared and infrared laser pulses in gases. It is shown that these tunable ultrashort pulses have a very low energy fluctuation and an excellent mode quality due to the processes of intensity clamping and self-filtering in the filament.     

Micromachining of quartz with ultrashort laser pulses

Received: 6 January 1997/Accepted: 1 April 1997     

Application of the Monte Carlo method for modeling passage of ultrashort laser pulses through an inhomogeneous medium with moving scatterers

We present the results of numerical modeling of passage of ultrashort laser pulses through an inhomogeneous layered medium with moving scatterers, based on solution of the nonsteady-state radiation transport equation by the Monte Carlo method. We consider the effects of Doppler broadening of the backscattered radiation spectrum in biological tissues. We have analyzed the dynamics of propagation of a short laser pulse within a multilayer model of human skin. We have studied the possibilities for tomography of different layers of biological tissue based on analysis of the spectrum of the scattered radiation pulse.     

Measurement of ultrashort laser pulses

A proposal for measuring the pulse shape of ultrashort laser pulses is described. The proposed method consists of a Gamo triple intensity-interferometer to measure the triple-correlation function of the light pulses. A subsequent signal processing algorithm is used to reconstruct the true shape of the light pulses out of their triple-correlation function. The suggested method is quite insensitive to noise, as shown by means of computer simulations.     

Third-order nonlinear optical response in transparent solids using ultrashort laser pulses

The third-order optical nonlinearity, χ ⁽³⁾, is measured in transparent glasses (BK7 and fused silica) and crystals (BaF₂ and quartz) using 36-fs, 800-nm laser pulses and the optical Kerr gate (OKE) technique; values are found to lie in the range 1.3–1.7×10^-14 esu, in accordance with theoretical estimates. We probe the purely electronic response to the incident ultrashort laser pulse in fused silica and BK7 glass. In BaF₂ and quartz, apart from the electronic response we also observe contribution from the nuclear response to the incident ultrashort pulses. We observe oscillatory modulations that persist for ～400 fs. The response of the media (glasses and crystals) to ultrashort pulses is also measured using two-beam self-diffraction; the diffraction efficiency in the first-order grating is measured to be in the range of 0.06–0.13 %. Third harmonic generation due to self-phase matching in the transient grating geometry is measured as a function of temporal delay between the two incident ultrashort pulses, yielding the autocorrelation signal.     

Vortices in ultrashort laser pulses

The propagation of optical vortices nested in broadband femtosecond laser beams was studied both numerically and experimentally. Based on the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the dynamics of different multiple-vortex configurations with varying topological charge were modelled in self-focussing and self-defocussing Kerr media. We find a similar behavior in both cases regarding the vortex–vortex interaction. However, the collapsing background beam alters the propagation for a positive nonlinearity. Regimes of regular and possibly stable multiple filamentation were identified this way. Experiments include measurements on pairs of filaments generated in a vortex beam on an astigmatic Gaussian background with argon gas as the nonlinear medium. Spectral broadening of these filaments leads to a supercontinuum which spans from the visible range into the infrared. Recompression yields <19 fs pulses. Further optimization may lead to much better recompression.     

Ultrafast optical switching of an ionized medium by interfering ultrashort laser pulses

Multibeam ionization of gas and condensed-phase media with interfering ultrashort laser pulses can help to substantially increase the maximum field intensity and the density of free electrons attainable in the focus of the laser field relative to the regime of single-beam ionization. Multibeam ionization schemes offer new solutions for laser micro- and nanomachining, micro- and nanosurgery, spectral and temporal transformation of ultrashort light pulses, as well as remote sensing of the atmosphere. Subfemtosecond changes in the local refractive index induced in the regime of multibeam tunneling ionization enable the high-speed switching of optical signals.