Collisions of unipolar subcycle pulses in a nonlinear resonantly absorbing medium

Collisions of unipolar subcycle pulses in a nonlinear resonant medium that coherently interact with it are studied theoretically. The dynamics of spatial polarization structures and population difference that the pulses induce in the medium are analyzed. A surprising feature is that the medium is capable of “remembering” the result of the interaction with the pulses and their collisions during times comparable to the polarization relaxation time. An analysis of the dynamics of light-induced structures makes it possible to judge the parameters of subcycle pulses at the times longer than the pulse duration, which, in the future, can be useful in their detection.     

Reversible storage of multiple light pulses in the EIT atomic medium

In this paper, we first present a full numerical simulation for the trapping and retrieval procedure of eight continuing "1" Guassian pulses (i.e., "11111111") in the electromagnetically induced transparency (BIT) medium. This simulation shows that an BIT medium has the ability to store multiple light pulses in a shape-preserving way. And we also, for the first time, give the formula evaluating the maximum number of pulses that can be stored by an EIT medium at one time. This work reveals a new possible way to the reversible storage of the photonic information.     

Propagation of Electromagnetic Pulses in an Inhomogeneous Scattering Absorbing Medium. Invariant Temporal Properties

We present analytical solutions of the Ishimaru parabolic equation for the coherence function of electromagnetic field. The equation describes the temporal properties of the pulse at the output of an inhomogeneous dissipative scattering medium. An explicit expression for the Green's function of the problem is found. It is shown that the temporal part of the Green's function has an invariant Laguerre form. Numerical results describing the shapes of the studied temporal pulses at the output of the pass interval of the medium are also given. Time scales characterizing the shapes of the Laguerre output pulses are proposed and the influence of the parameters of the medium on the properties of the resulting pulses is analyzed.     

粒子数密度对飞秒Gauss型脉冲传播及光谱特性的影响

利用预估校正-时域有限差分(PC-FDTD)法求解全波Maxwell-Bloch方程,研究介质粒子数密度(N)对飞秒Gauss型激光脉冲在Λ型三能级原子介质中传播及光谱特性的影响.结果表明:小面积2π脉冲在不同N介质中都不发生分裂,脉冲频谱基本没有新的高频成分产生,随N增大中心频率附近光谱强度明显减小.面积4π脉冲,在N较大的稀疏介质及稠密介质中都产生分裂,在稀疏介质中随N增大频谱展宽幅度及高频成分强度增大,但在稠密介质中频谱展宽变小且远小于N较大时的稀疏介质情况.大面积8π脉冲,脉冲分裂情况与4π脉冲情况相似,但随N增大频谱展宽幅度及高频成分强度单调增大,且在稠密介质中的频谱展宽幅度及高频成分强度远大于N较小的稀疏介质情况.     

Self-focusing and defocusing of self-similar π pulses in an amplifying two-level medium

The effect of transverse perturbations on the propagation of electromagnetic π pulses in an amplifying two-level medium is studied. The cases of quasi-monochromatic and extremely short pulses are considered. The equations describing the behavior of the transverse size of the pulse during its propagation in the medium are derived. It is shown that, if the ratios of the diffraction length to the length of dispersion spreading are smaller than certain critical values, self-focusing regimes are realized for both types of pulses. Otherwise, at a finite distance, blowup of defocusing occurs, after which the amplified pulse propagates as if it is a one-dimensional pulse, with the velocity equal to the velocity of light in vacuum. Similarities and distinctions in the dynamics of propagation of extremely short and quasi-monochromatic pulses are indicated.     

Stimulated generation of superluminal light pulses via four-wave mixing

We report on the four-wave mixing of superluminal pulses, in which both the injected and generated pulses involved in the process propagate with negative group velocities. Generated pulses with negative group velocities of up to v(g)=-1/880c are demonstrated, corresponding to the generated pulse's peak exiting the 1.7 cm long medium ≈50 ns earlier than if it had propagated at the speed of light in vacuum, c. We also show that in some cases the seeded pulse may propagate with a group velocity larger than c, and that the generated conjugate pulse peak may exit the medium even earlier than the amplified seed pulse peak. We can control the group velocities of the two pulses by changing the seed detuning and the input seed power.     

Dispersion Tuning of a SOA Fiber Laser Incorporating a Linearly Chirped Fiber Grating

We describe a simple method to generate wavelength-tunable pulses by using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) as an intensity modulator and a gain medium. Wavelength tunable pulses at a repetition rate of 4.8 GHz have been generated.     

On the third harmonic generation in a medium with negative pump wave refraction

The propagation of the pump and its third harmonic pulses in a cubically nonlinear medium is considered theoretically, provided that the linear properties of the medium are characterized by a negative refractive index at the pump frequency and a positive refractive index at the harmonic frequency. For low-intensity interacting waves, the pump and third harmonic pulses propagate in opposite directions, but sufficiently intense pulses can produce a simulton—a solitary two-frequency wave that propagates in a certain direction as a single whole. The system of equations is investigated numerically for a model that, apart from the harmonic generation, includes the second-order group velocity dispersion and the nonlinear self- and cross-phase modulations of the interacting waves. The separation of the pump and harmonic pulses due to the difference in the directions of their group velocities and peculiarities of the Manley-Rowe relation for parametric processes in metamedia are discussed.     

Extremely short and quasi-monochromatic electromagnetic solitons in a two-component medium

The propagation of extremely short (without high-frequency filling) pulses and nonresonant envelope solitons in a two-component medium comprising two-level atoms with substantially different quantum transition frequencies was studied. The dynamics of a pulse whose reciprocal time scale lay between these frequencies was shown to be described by the Kosevich-Kovalev equation, the one-way variant of which was the Konno-Kameyama-Sanuki equation. If the transition dipole moments of medium components were equal, the one-way equation became integrable. Soliton and soliton-like solutions to these equations were used to analyze pulse propagation regimes at various two-component medium initial states. The stability of these localized wave formations was analyzed. The possible existence of stable soliton-like pulses propagating in a nonequilibrium medium at group velocities exceeding the velocity of light in vacuum was discussed.     

Collisions of Single-Cycle and Subcycle Attosecond Light Pulses in a Nonlinear Resonant Medium

By numerically solving the system of Maxwell–Bloch equations, we have examined theoretically collisions of extremely short single-cycle and unipolar subcycle pulses in a nonlinear resonant medium under conditions that the light interacts coherently with the medium. The dynamics of the electric field of structures of light-induced polarization and inversion difference has been considered in the situation in which pulses are overlapped in the medium. We show that the states of the medium (to the right and to the left of the overlap region of the pulses) may differ. In particular, we show that polarization waves with different characteristics can exist in the regions of the medium that are located on opposite sides of the overlap region of the pulses. These waves travel in different directions and have different spatial frequencies.     

Propagation of elliptically polarized laser pulses in isotropic gyrotropic medium with relaxation cubic nonlinearity and anomalous frequency dispersion

The self-action of elliptically polarized Gaussian laser pulses in an isotropic gyrotropic medium with an anomalous frequency dispersion and cubic Kerr nonlinearity with a finite relaxation time on the order of the pulse duration is numerically studied. It is shown that, at the output of the medium, the pulse polarization nonmonotonically varies with time. The main peak of the pulse is additionally delayed compared to the time of passing the linear medium; the value of this delay significantly depends on the polarization of the incident pulse and achieves a maximum for incident pulses whose degree of ellipticity is equal to the ratio of the material constants characterizing the local and nonlocal nonlinear optical response of the medium. It seems promising to search for possible differences in relaxation times depending on the intensity of additions to the refractive indices of the right and left circularly polarized waves by investigating the time dependence of polarization characteristics at the output of the medium.     

高斯光脉冲在非线性增益介质中的孤子特性

本文从理论上分析了高斯光脉冲在非线性增益介质中的传播特性,从而解释高斯光脉冲的压缩及展宽和形成光孤子的机理。用计算机模拟了不同参数的高斯光脉冲在非线性增益介质中的传播过程,并获得了脉宽沿传播方向变化的定量关系。结果表明,以不同能量向增益介质中注入高斯脉冲,有可能产生各阶光孤子,但由于增益的存在,光孤子的传输距离受到限制。     

Demonstration of the interaction between two stopped light pulses

This study reports the first experimental demonstration that two light pulses were made motionless and interacted with each other through a medium. The scheme with motionless light pulses maximizes the interaction time and can achieve a considerable efficiency even below single-photon level. To demonstrate the enhancement of optical nonlinear efficiency, the experiment in this study used the process of one optical pulse switched by another based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency. Moving light pulses activate switching at an energy per area of 2 photons per atomic absorption cross section as discussed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999)]. This study demonstrates that motionless light pulses can activate switching at 0.56 photons per atomic absorption cross section, and that the light level can be further reduced by increasing the optical density of the medium. The result of this work enters a new regime of low-light physics.     

Statistical inversion from reflections of spherical waves by a randomly layered medium

We show that the asymptotic theory developed for the analysis of reflected wave pulses from randomly layered media can be used to solve statistical inverse problems. In particular, we recover the large scale behavior of medium properties from a single realization of reflected wave pulses observed at different points on the surface.     

Light bullets in a Bragg medium containing metallic carbon nanotubes

Propagation of two- and three-dimensional ultimately short optical pulses (light bullets) in a medium exhibiting modulated refractive index and containing carbon nanotubes with a metallic type of conductivity is investigated theoretically. The dynamics of such pulses is demonstrated as a function of Bragg medium parameters. It is confirmed that the pulses are influenced by the state of the medium.     

Spectral features of the interaction of femtosecond light pulses of different frequencies near the boundary of a Kerr medium

The interaction of probe ultraviolet (UV) and intense infrared (IR) pump pulses with a duration of 150 fs in a thin 2-mm-long sample of fused silica has been studied theoretically and experimentally. The spectra of UV radiation at the output of the sample have been measured depending on the time delay between the pulses at the sample input. The maximum shifts of the spectrum, attaining up to 0.22 nm for an IR power density of 3 × 10¹¹ W/cm², have been observed under conditions of coincidence of the pulses at the sample input and output, which corresponds to a predominant interaction of the probe radiation with the leading and trailing edges of the pump pulse near the boundary of the medium. The observed dependences are interpreted as a manifestation of the cross-phase modulation due to the Kerr nonlinearity of the medium and the dispersion of the group velocities of the UV and IR pulses. The numerical simulations performed taking into account these effects agree well with the experimental data.     

Circularly polarized sub-1.5 cycle laser pulses at 1.8 μm

The generation of intense carrier-envelope-phase-stabilized sub-1.5 cycle circularly polarized pulses at 1.8 μm is reported. After changing the polarization of the pulses produced by an optical parameter amplifier to circular, selected nonlinear medium parameters are found to be able to expand the spectrum to supercontinuum (1,300–2,100 nm) with a extremely high transmittance (>65 %). Using such laser pulses, polarization control of terahertz emission is demonstrated.     

Investigation of a copper-vapor laser pumped by trains of damped sine pulses

A copper-vapor laser the lasing medium of which is pumped by damped sine voltage pulses is studied experimentally. It is shown that this laser can operate at megahertz lasing pulse repetition rates. Each current pulse in a train of damped sine excitation pulses generates a lasing pulse. The time between lasing pulses is no more than 224 ns, which corresponds to a lasing pulse repetition rate of more than 4.5 MHz. According to estimates, the use of the megahertz sine voltage to excite the copper-vapor laser may raise the specific power of laser radiation by at least an order of magnitude at an efficiency of ≈15%.     

Dissipative soliton-like plasmon-polariton pulses in extended medium

The propagation of the coupled state of the electron density perturbation in an extended metallic medium and the excitation of a two-level resonant medium are analyzed. The one- and two-photon transitions in the resonant medium are considered. The electron density perturbation is described using the hydrodynamic approximation. The formation of plasmon-polariton pulses is analyzed in the case when losses in the extended medium are compensated for by the pumping of the two-level dielectric medium. Numerical analysis carried out for the two models revealed that the losses in a soliton-like pulse in a thin metallic medium can be compensated for due to the energy transfer from the amplifying medium to electron density waves. It is shown that the dispersion of a medium containing a two-level component may considerably affect the characteristics of the pulses. The possibility of effectively controlling the evolution of soliton-like pulses by varying an external electromagnetic field and the characteristics of the matrix is demonstrated.     

Photon echo under excitation of a medium by pulses consisting of an arbitrary number of oscillations

Echo responses of a three-level medium formed by the λ-scheme of quantum transitions under exposure to optical pulses consisting of an arbitrary number of oscillations have been studied theoretically. The cases of pulses consisting of few optical oscillations (for which the concept of an envelope cannot be used) and combinations of such pulses and quasi-monochromatic resonance signals have been considered. The approach used can be reduced to the renormalization of dipole moments of allowed quantum transitions through their multiplication by coefficients depending on the shape and duration of pump pulses and having absolute values in the range from zero (for nonresonance pulses) to unity (for resonance quasi-monochromatic pulses and broadband pulses consisting of few oscillations, whose spectrum covers the quantum transitions). A general equation has been proposed for the pulse area. In the limit of a large number of oscillations, it transforms into the well-known definition of the area of a quasi-monochromatic signal. The characteristics of primary and longlived photon echoes have been analyzed in detail. It has been shown that, when a medium is exposed to only pulses consisting of a few oscillations, three echo responses of both types can be principally generated at each frequency of the λ-scheme. Introduction of quasi-monochromatic pulses in pump pulse series decreases the number of echoes, and their qualitative character has a non-commutative property with respect to pulse permutation in a series. The extension of the proposed approach to more complex schemes of quantum transitions with the large number of quantum levels faces no principal difficulties.