Quantum key distribution with high loss: toward global secure communication

We propose a decoy-pulse method to overcome the photon-number-splitting attack for Bennett-Brassard 1984 quantum key distribution protocol in the presence of high loss: A legitimate user intentionally and randomly replaces signal pulses by multiphoton pulses (decoy pulses). Then they check the loss of the decoy pulses. If the loss of the decoy pulses is abnormally less than that of signal pulses, the whole protocol is aborted. Otherwise, to continue the protocol, they estimate the loss of signal multiphoton pulses based on that of decoy pulses. This estimation can be done with an assumption that the two losses have similar values. We justify that assumption.     

Comparison of Solutions of the General Nonlinear Amplitude Equation and a Modified Schrӧdinger Equation

We review the dynamics of narrow and broad-band optical pulses in nonlinear dispersive media. A major problem that arises during the development of theoretical models, which describe accurately and correctly the behavior of these pulses, is the limited application of the nonlinear Schr?dinger equation. It describes very well the evolution of nanosecond and picosecond laser pulses. However, when we investigate the propagation of femtosecond and attosecond light pulses, it is necessary to use the more general nonlinear amplitude equation. We show that in this equation two additional terms are included and they have a significant impact on the phase of the pulse. We perform numerical simulations and show the temporal shift of the position of fundamental solitons. This effect depends on the initial duration of the laser pulses. To clarify the influence of the additional terms on the parameters of the optical pulses, we consider the nonlinear amplitude equation, which is a modified nonlinear Schr?dinger equation.     

Excitability in a quantum dot semiconductor laser with optical injection

We experimentally analyze the dynamics of a quantum dot semiconductor laser operating under optical injection. We observe the appearance of single- and double-pulse excitability at one boundary of the locking region. Theoretical considerations show that these pulses are related to a saddle-node bifurcation on a limit cycle as in the Adler equation. The double pulses are related to a period-doubling bifurcation and occur on the same homoclinic curve as the single pulses.     

Binding widely-separated pulses with a passively mode-locked Yb-doped double-clad fiber laser

We have investigated the generation of widely-separated bound pulses with a high power passively mode-locked Yb-doped double clad fiber laser. We report on the emission of bound pulses of 5 ps whose separation can exceed 180 ps. Pulses are further compressed extra-cavity to 140 fs, leading to pulse separations that can reach approximately 1300 pulse widths, while pulses remain bound. Scenarios leading to these regimes are detailed. RF analysis shows an important reduction of the amplitude noise of the laser when pulses bind together. Finally, we report on a new regime of multiple pulse emission of this fiber laser: stable co-emission of a single-pulse and a pair of bound pulses in the same cavity round trip. PACS 42.55.Wd; 42.65.Re     

Generation of soliton-like wave packets and wave packets with linear phase modulation in gaining optical wave-guides with saturable nonlinearity

We have considered the dynamics of soliton-like pulses and stable frequency-modulated self-similar pulses in an active medium with saturable nonlinearity and a parabolic refractive-index profile. We show that, based on gaining gradient fibers with a parabolic distribution of the refractive index and saturable nonlinearity, it is possible to create complexes that ensure generation of laser pulses with a high (above 1 TW) peak power.     

All optical switch of vacuum Rabi oscillations: the ultrafast quantum eraser

We study the all-optical time?control of the strong coupling between a single cascade three-level quantum emitter and a microcavity. We find that only specific arrival times of the control pulses succeed in switching off the Rabi oscillations. Depending on the arrival times of control pulses, a variety of exotic nonadiabatic cavity quantum electrodynamics effects can be observed. We show that control pulses with specific arrival times, performing which-path and quantum-eraser operations, are able to suddenly switch-off and on first-order coherence of cavity photons, without affecting their strong?coupling population dynamics.     

Combination of high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses for generation of time-dependent polarization pulses and ionization of atomic gas

Time-dependent polarization pulses are generated by combining two perpendicularly polarized, high-intensity laser pulses. The time evolution of the polarization state of the combined laser pulse is measured by the POLLIWOG technique. We observed changes in the polarization state while varying the relative delay. In order to investigate the effect of pulse combination on the ionization of atoms, the electron signals and the ion signals are measured by irradiating combinations of two perpendicularly polarized pulses or two parallel polarized pulses. With the two parallel polarized pulses, high-order fringe-resolved autocorrelations are obtained by measuring the time-integrated ion signals as a function of the time delay. When two perpendicularly polarized pulses are combined, the fringe period of the time-integrated electron signal as a function of the time delay is different from that of the time-integrated ion signal. This is due to the fact that the electron signal depends on the direction of the field vibration and the number of generated electrons. We also measured the electron energy distributions at different relative delays and confirmed that these depend on the polarization state of generated pulses.     

Femtosecond measurements of the time of flight of photons in a three-dimensional photonic crystal

We report on experimental measurements of the propagation behavior of short optical pulses in a three-dimensional photonic crystal in the visible spectrum. The propagation delay of 70 fs light pulses transmitted through a sample of a fcc synthetic opal at frequencies lying in a photonic stop band was measured directly using a time-of-flight technique. Taking into account spectral reshaping of the transmitted pulses as well as the residual frequency chirp of the incoming pulses, it is found that the pulses significantly slow down at the photonic band edges.     

Vectorial phase retrieval for linear characterization of attosecond pulses

The waveforms of attosecond pulses produced by high-harmonic generation carry information on the electronic structure and dynamics in atomic and molecular systems. Current methods for the temporal characterization of such pulses have limited sensitivity and impose significant experimental complexity. We propose a new linear and all-optical method inspired by widely used multidimensional phase retrieval algorithms. Our new scheme is based on the spectral measurement of two attosecond sources and their interference. As an example, we focus on the case of spectral polarization measurements of attosecond pulses, relying on their most fundamental property-being well confined in time. We demonstrate this method numerically by reconstructing the temporal profiles of attosecond pulses generated from aligned CO(2) molecules.     

Dynamics of self-similar light pulses of limiting pulse width and energy in a fiber laser

We investigate dynamics of the formation of high-power ultrashort self-similar light pulses (similaritons) in a fiber laser in the regime of positive dispersion. The physical factors limiting the energy and the pulse width of such pulses are revealed. We specify regimes where a laser system based on an ytterbium-doped fiber can generate self-similar pulses with an energy of about 80 nJ compressible to a pulse width of about 150 fs through extracavity linear chirp compensation.     

Far-infrared second-harmonic generation and pulse characterization with the organic salt DAST

We generated the second harmonics of pulses in the far-infrared region (30-55 microm), using the organic salt dimethylamino-4-N-methylstilbazolium tosylate (DAST). We demonstrate that DAST can be used to characterize ultrashort pulses in a spectral region where no other materials are available. To illustrate the need for such characterizations, we show the effects of propagation through air on the shape of ultrashort far-infrared pulses.     

The spatio-temporal structure of wideband acoustic pulses in shallow sea

We study the influence of a bottom-sediment layer on the spatio-temporal structure of wideband acoustic pulses in shallow sea. The shallow sea is modeled as a uniform liquid layer above a layer of liquid sediments located on an elastic half-space. The influence of various acoustic parameters of the problem, in particular the thickness of the sedimentary layer, damping parameters, etc. on the structure of wideband pulses is considered. We analyze the features of constructive mode interference due to which the spatial structure of the pulses takes the form of beams.     

A Compact Nanosecond-Pulse Shaping System Based on Pulse Stacking in Fibres

We demonstrate a compact pulse shaping system based on temporal stacking of pulses in fibres, by which synchronized pulses of ultrashort and nanosecond lasers can be obtained. The system may generate shape-controllable pulses with a fast rise time and high-resolution within a time window of ～2.2ns by adjusting variable optical attenuators in the 32 fibre channels independently. With the help of optical amplifiers, the system delivers mJ-level pulses with a signal-to-noise ratio of ～35dB.     

Generation of 15-nJ bunched noise-like pulses with 93-nm bandwidth in an erbium-doped fiber ring laser

We report on the generation of high power superbroad spectrum bunched noise-like pulses from a passively mode-locked erbium-doped fiber ring laser without using the stretched-pulse technique. The maximum 3-dB spectral bandwidth of the noise-like pulses is about 93 nm with an energy of about 15 nJ. We further show numerically that the superbroad spectrum of the pulses is caused by the transform-limited feature of the pulses together with the Raman self-frequency shift effect. PACS 42.65.Dr; 42.55.Wd; 42.60.Fc; 42.81.Dp     

Femtosecond diode laser MOPA system at 920 nm based on asymmetric colliding pulse mode-locking

We report on the generation of 267 fs long pulses with a peak power of 661 W emitted by an InGaAs diode laser master-oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) system with an external grating compressor. The oscillator emits strongly chirped picosecond pulses with several nanometer of bandwidth, which can be amplified without significant phase modulation and are compressed to femtosecond pulses after leaving the amplifier. We used a diode laser module for asymmetric colliding pulse mode-locking and optimized the collision point and the relative intensity of the counter-propagation pulses.     

10-mJ optically synchronized CEP-stable chirped parametric amplifier at 1.5 μm

We demonstrate the generation of 10-mJ 1.5-μm few-cycle pulses from a 4-stage OPCPA system. The system is based on a fusion of femtosecond DPSS Yb technology and a picosecond Nd:YAG pump laser. In a first preliminary filamentation experiment in argon at 5 atm, we observe significant spectral broadening of the recompressed multi-mJ 1.5-μm pulses. The filamentation output spectrum supports the generation of 8 fs pulses equivalent to sub-to-cycle pulses at 1.5 μm. We foresee that our terawatt-peak-power sub-to-cycle pulse source will open the door to exciting new experiments in attosecond high-field science in the near future.

     

Chirp-dependent ionization of hydrogen atoms in the presence of super-intense laser pulses

We perform a theoretical study on dynamic interference in single photon ionization of ground state hydrogen atoms in the presence of a super-intense ultra-fast chirped laser pulse of different chirp types(equal-power and equal-FWHM laser pulses) by numerically solving the time-dependent Schr ¨odinger equation in one dimension. We investigate the influences of peak intensity and chirp parameters on the instantaneous ionization rate and photoelectron yield, respectively. We also compare the photoelectron energy spectra for the ionization by the laser pulses with different chirp types. We find that the difference between the instantaneous ionization rates for the ionization of hydrogen atom driven by two different chirped laser pulses is originated from the difference in variation of vector potentials with time.     

High energy giant chirped passively mode-locked Yb3+-doped fiber laser with nanoseconds to picoseconds pulses

We report an all normal dispersion low repetition rate high energy passive mode-locked ytterbium-doped fiber laser with output pulses duration ranging from nanoseconds to picoseconds. The mode-locking mechanism of the laser is based on nonlinear polarization evolution and strong pulses shaping with a cascade long-period fiber grating bandpass filtering in highly chirped pulses. The laser generates highly stable pulses duration from 2.62 ns to 315 ps with a maximum pulse energy of 49.5 nJ and 2.5435 MHz repetition rate.     

Ultrashort optical pulse in a thin film of a topological insulator

We consider the propagation of ultrashort optical pulses in a thin film of a topological insulator within the framework of an effective long-wave Hamiltonian for low-temperature media. The electromagnetic field is taken as classical Maxwellian. We reveal the dependence on the maximum amplitude of ultrashort optical pulses.     

Generation of intense,carrier-envelope phase-locked few-cycle laser pulses through filamentation

Intense, well-controlled light pulses with only a few optical cycles start to play a crucial role in many fields of physics, such as attosecond science. We present an extremely simple and robust technique to generate such carrier-envelope offset (CEO) phase locked few-cycle pulses, relying on self-guiding of intense 43-fs, 0.84 mJ optical pulses during propagation in a transparent noble gas. We have demonstrated 5.7-fs, 0.38 mJ pulses with an excellent spatial beam profile and discuss the potential for much shorter pulses. Numerical simulations confirm that filamentation is the mechanism responsible for pulse shortening. The method is widely applicable and much less sensitive to experimental conditions such as beam alignment, input pulse duration or gas pressure as compared to gas-filled hollow fibers. PACS 45.65.Ky; 42.65.Re