Cascaded compression of the first and second Stokes pulses during forward transient stimulated Raman amplification

The results of numerical modelling of cascaded compression of the first and second Stokes pulses during regenerative regime of the forward transient stimulated Raman amplification are presented for the case when the walk-off length of the first Stokes pulse due to group velocity mismatch is shorter than the length of the nonlinear medium. The influence of the initial amplitudes of the seed first Stokes pulses, its durations and its time delay with respect to the pump pulse, the Kerr nonlinearity of the medium on the conversion efficiency, duration and propagation factor M² of the first and second Stokes pulse are studied. It is demonstrated that for the pump pulse duration of 1 ps the duration of the compressed second Stokes pulses in a KGW crystal near the beam axis may be approximately 14 times shorter than the pump pulse duration. It is shown that the propagation factor of the compressed pulses increases significantly because of complex spatial-temporal dynamics of compression and the influence of Kerr nonlinearity of Raman medium.     

富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的非共珍三阶非线性光学特性

采用中心波长800 nm、脉宽30 fs的超短激光脉冲,通过飞秒光开关技术(Optical Kerr Shutter,OKS)对富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的飞秒超快非线性特性进行了实验研究.获得270 fs的开关时间,所得的富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的三阶非线性系数X~(3)约为4.5×10~(-4) esu,比C_(60)分子的三阶非线性系数X~(3)高一个数量级.通过实验测定的光克尔信号强度与激发光和探测光偏振方向夹角的依赖关系表明:30 fs的超短激光脉冲激发富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的克尔信号主要是源于光诱导双折射效应,而非用200 fs的超短激光脉冲时来自瞬态栅的自衍射效应.     

富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的非共珍三阶非线性光学特性

采用中心波长800 nm、脉宽30 fs的超短激光脉冲,通过飞秒光开关技术（Optical Kerr Shutter,OKS）对富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的飞秒超快非线性特性进行了实验研究.获得270 fs的开关时间,所得的富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的三阶非线性系数χ(3)约为4.5×10－14 esu,比C60分子的三阶非线性系数χ(3)高一个数量级.通过实验测定的光克尔信号强度与激发光和探测光偏振方向夹角的依赖关系表明：30 fs的超短激光脉冲激发富勒烯有机-无机杂化材料的克尔信号主要是源于光诱导双折射效应,而非用200 fs的超短激光脉冲时来自瞬态栅的自衍射效应.     

基于克尔效应的真空绝缘子表面电场在线测量

克尔效应(Kerr Effect)作为一种电光效应,主要表现为:克尔介质在外加电场作用下,会使得入射到其中的探测光带有外加电场的信息.基于上述原理,设计并搭建了由快脉冲高电压源、YAG激光器、同步控制子系统、被测绝缘子及克尔效应单元、相位差检测子系统构成的真空绝缘子表面电场在线测量实验平台.通过对比性测量,观察到了真空绝缘子沿面带电导致的表面电场畸变现象.并进一步对绝缘子表面电场的畸变进行了时间分辨测量.     

CS_2飞秒超快非线性特性的实验研究

采用中心波长800 nm、脉宽30 fs的超短激光脉冲,通过飞秒光开关技术对CS_2的飞秒超快非线性特性进行了实验研究.在探测光强与抽运光强比为1∶10时,得到了较理想的光克尔时间分辨曲线.通过实验测定的光克尔信号强度与激发光和探测光偏振方向夹角的依赖关系表明:30 fs的超短激光脉冲激发CS_2的克尔信号主要是源于光诱导双折射效应,而非用200 fs的超短激光脉冲时来自瞬态栅的自衍射效应.     

Femtosecond third-harmonic generation:. self-phase matching through a transient. Kerr grating and the way to ultrafast computing

The third harmonic of 810-nm 100-fs pulses at 130 μJ is generated very efficiently when ultrashort pulses from two noncollinear beams interfere in an optical medium to create an instantaneous transient grating via the optical Kerr effect. The grating couples two pathways for third-harmonic generation, each taking two photons from one beam and one photon from the other beam, respectively. The coupling enables self-phase matching in the complete process, resulting in a conversion efficiency of ≈3%. Scattering an independent beam at the transient grating confirms a lifetime limited by the pulse duration, with a reaction on the order of one optical cycle. Using the second harmonic of a Ti-sapphire laser at 405 nm, it is shown that the generation of the transient Kerr grating is a general feature, requiring less than 20 μJ/pulse. By introducing a third femtosecond beam we are able to emulate various digital logic units with femtosecond response. Received: 16 October 2001 / Published online: 6 June 2002     

真空绝缘子脉冲表面电场在线测量系统的实现

基于Kerr电光效应,建立了用以对纳秒脉冲高电压作用下的真空绝缘子表面电场进行在线测量的实验系统。该测量系统由快脉冲高电压源、YAG激光器、同步控制系统、被测中空薄壁绝缘子及Kerr效应单元、光学相位差检测系统等部分构成。利用YAG激光器输出的激光脉冲,触发导通快脉冲高压源中的高压气体开关,使其给被测绝缘子试品上施加一个脉宽100ns的高压脉冲方波。利用同步控制,使得探测激光在试品上的脉冲方波达到幅值后,入射到Kerr腔体中对Kerr效应进行探测。从而实现了对绝缘子表面电场的在线测量,并给出了初步的测量结果。     

热效应对克尔自锁模激光腔的影响

讨论了克尔透镜锁模激光腔中热效应对锁模的影响，用数值解法给出了存在热效应时腔中光斑半径随归一化功率的变化曲线。同时给出了存在热效应时光斑半径对归一化功率的相对敏感度参数。     

Frequency resolved optical gating in the UV using the electronic Kerr effect

A phase-sensitive single-shot autocorrelator (FROG) for the UV spectral region based on the electronic Kerr effect is demonstrated. Since the Kerr shutter technique leads to a third-order autocorrelation function, information about pulse asymmetries and pulse structures along with the temporal phase can be obtained.     

Single-shot time-frequency imaging spectroscopy using an echelon mirror

We demonstrate single-shot time-frequency imaging spectroscopy with an echelon mirror for measuring ultrashort laser pulses as well as ultrafast responses of materials using the same optical setup. The echelon mirror produces a spatially encoded time delay for the probe pulse whereby both the probe and pump pulses are focused on samples with small spot size. Using the optical Kerr gate apparatus, we successfully mapped the time-frequency images of ultrashort laser pulses and subsequently evaluated the chirp characteristics with the phase-retrieval procedure on a single-shot basis. By simply replacing the Kerr medium with samples, we could also visualize the phonon-polariton oscillations in ferroelectric LiNbO3.     

Spectral Hole Burning via Kerr Nonlinearity

Spectral hole burning is investigated in an optical medium in the presence of Doppler broadening and Kerr nonlinearity. The Kerr nonlinearity generates coherent hole burning in the absorption spectrum. The higher order Kerr nonlinearity enhances the typical lamb dip of the hole. Normal dispersion in the hole burning region while Steep anomalous dispersion between the two hole burning regions also enhances with higher order Kerr effect. A large phase shift creates large delay or advancement in the pulse propagation while no distortion is observed in the pulse. These results provide significant steps to improve optical memory, telecom devices, preservation of information and image quality.     

Spectral Hole Burning via Kerr Nonlinearity

Spectral hole burning is investigated in an optical medium in the presence of Doppler broadening and Kerr nonlinearity. The Kerr nonlinearity generates coherent hole burning in the absorption spectrum. The higher order Kerr nonlinearity enhances the typical lamb dip of the hole. Normal dispersion in the hole burning region while Steep anomalous dispersion between the two hole burning regions also enhances with higher order Kerr effect. A large phase shift creates large delay or advancement in the pulse propagation while no distortion is observed in the pulse. These results provide significant steps to improve optical memory, telecom devices, preservation of information and image quality.     

Accurate second Kerr virial coefficient of rare gases from the state-of-the-art ab initio potentials and (hyper)polarizabilities

The second Kerr virial coefficient of rare gases is studied in this work using the best ab initio potentials and (hyper)polarizabilities in the literature. The second Kerr virial coefficient of helium-4, helium-3, neon, argon, and krypton and its polarizability component of xenon are computed by the semi-classical method together with the Padé approximant over a wide temperature range. In addition, the uncertainty of second Kerr virial coefficient is estimated from the uncertainties of the ab initio interaction-induced properties. The experimental and theoretical data in the literature is compared with our calculated values to examine the quality of this work. It is shown that our computed values in the supplementary materials are as accurate as the literature data at medium and high temperatures and are more reliable at low temperatures.     

Measurement of ultraviolet femtosecond pulses using the optical kerr effect

We demonstrate the optical Kerr shutter technique as a simple and powerful tool for the measurement of femtosecond pulses in the ultraviolet as well as in the visible spectral region. The method provides the third-order intensity correlation function which gives information about pulse asymmetry and pulse structures.     

Half-cycle pulses in the mid-infrared from a two-color laser-induced filament

Four-wave mixing (FWM) of femtosecond near-infrared laser pulses and its second harmonic in the filamentation regime is shown to give rise to ultrashort field waveforms in the mid-infrared with pulse widths as short as a half of the field cycle and produce ultrabroadband supercontinuum spectra stretching from the mid-IR to the terahertz region. Generation of 7-fs pulses centered at 4.35 μm is demonstrated by a two-color filamentation experiment, where the 25-fs, 800-nm fundamental-wavelength output of a Ti: Sapphire laser is mixed with its second harmonic. The spectral and temporal properties of the mid-IR waveforms, as well as their emission pattern, are consistent with the FWM scenario of frequency conversion generalized to include the Kerr effect and ionization-induced refractive-index modulation.     

水溶性CdTe量子点的三阶光学非线性极化特性

利用超短脉冲Z扫描技术和光学Kerr效应研究了以巯基丙酸为稳定剂的CdTe量子点水溶液的三阶光学非线性极化特性. 在532nm,30ps和800nm,130fs脉冲激光激发下, 发现分别具有正负相反取值的三阶光学非线性折射率,自由载流子吸收和双光子吸收分别是这两种脉冲激光激发下三阶光学非线性吸收的起因. 测量得到CdTe量子点的三阶光学非线性极化率约为CS₂的32倍, 在520—700nm光谱区的CdTe量子点的光学响应时间小于400fs. 关键词： CdTe量子点(QDs) Z扫描 三阶光学非线性极化特性 双光子吸收     

光脉冲在负色散克尔介质中传输的时空耦合特性

本文综合考虑了在(3+1)维负色散介质中Kerr效应、衍射、色散对光脉冲传输的影响,用变分原理和数值计算的方法对带啁啾高斯光束的传输特性进行了研究,讨论了非线性时空耦合参数,初始束宽、脉宽、散聚特性对时空“自聚焦”特性的影响,计算表明利用会聚光束在负色散克尔介质中传输的耦合作用,可以压缩脉宽,这可作为一种新的压缩脉宽的方法。     

Arrest of self-focusing collapse in femtosecond air filaments: higher order Kerr or plasma defocusing?

Experimentally measured conical emission rings on the blue side of the filament supercontinuum of a 800 nm 50 fs pulse in air are reproduced in simulations with plasma and the third-order Kerr as the nonlinear terms. This agreement indicates plasma as the dominant mechanism arresting the self-focusing collapse. The higher order Kerr terms with the recently measured coefficients stop the collapse at a lower intensity than the plasma does and lead to the spherical angle-wavelength spectrum without blueshifted rings.     

Control of Group Velocity via Spontaneous Generated Coherence and Kerr Nonlinearity

A four-level N-type atomic medium is considered to study the effect of spontaneous generated coherence(SGC) and Kerr nonlinearity on light pulse propagation. A light pulse is propagating inside the medium where each atom follows four-level N-type atom-field configuration of rubidium(85Rb) atom. The atom-field interaction leads to electromagnetically induced transparency(EIT) process. The atom-field interaction is accompanied by normal dispersion and in the presence of SGC and Kerr nonlinearity the dispersion property of the proposed atomic medium is modified,which leads to enhancement of positive group index of the medium. The enhancement of positive group index then leads to slow group velocity inside the medium. A more slow group velocity is also investigated by incorporated the collective effect of SGC and Kerr nonlinearity. The control of group velocity inside a four-level N-type atomic medium via collective effect of SGC and Kerr nonlinearity is the major part of this work.     

Energy Squeeze of Ultrashort Light Pulse by Kerr Nonlinear Photonic Crystals

Self-phase modulation can efficiently shape the spectrum of an optical pulse propagating along an optical material with Kerr nonlinearity. In this work we show that a one-dimensional Kerr nonlinear photonic crystal can impose anomalous spectrum modulation to a high-power ultrashort light pulse. The spectrum component at the photonic band gap edge can be one order of magnitude enhanced in addition to the ordinary spectrum broadening due to self-phase modulation. The enhancement is strictly pinned at the band gap edge by changing the sample length, the intensity or central wavelength of the incident pulse. The phenomenon is attributed to band gap induced enhancement of light-matter interaction.