Dispersion-Managed Optical Solitons with Higher-Order Nonlinearity

In this paper we have investigated the propagation characteristics of optical solitons in dispersion managed optical communication systems taking into account of the effect of quintic nonlinearity. Using variational formalism, several ordinary differential equations have been established for pulse parameters. These equations have been solved numerically to investigate the propagation characteristics. It has been noticed that stable periodic pulse propagation is possible over long distance. Numerical simulation has been undertaken to show that parabolic nonlinearity reduces collision distance between neighbouring pulses of the same channel.     

Squeezed states of light pulses in the presence of a self-effect in an inertial nonlinear medium

A systematic theory of the formation of squeezed states during the propagation of coherent light pulses in a medium with an inertial Kerr nonlinearity is developed. It is established that the region of the spectrum where the quadrature fluctuations are weaker than the shot noise depends on both the relaxation time of the nonlinearity and the magnitude of the nonlinear phase shift. It is also shown that the frequency at which suppression of the fluctuations is greatest can be controlled by adjusting the phase of the pulse. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 7, 481–485 (10 April 1999)     

Acousto-Optic Tunable Filter (AOTF) Revisited: Ultrashort Optical Pulses Crosstalk Studies on the Lossy Filter

We examine again the crosstalk level (Xtalk) and extinction ratio (Xratio) of an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) operating with ultrashort light pulses (2 ps), now considering the loss effect. The compression factor was studied for the switched pulse with lossy AOTF (α _dB = 4 dB/mm) considering five nonlinearity profiles. One can observe that there is always an optimum value for δ (final value of the nonlinearity) that one can obtain a switched pulse with the same time duration of the input pulse (C = 1). The compression factor for the switched pulse along the filter length shows that for the constant profile, the compression factor is around 1 all over the device. The study of the crosstalk level (Xtalk) of this device, considering the optimum values of δ obtained from the compression studies, as a function of the pump power (P ₀) was done. The acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) has attracted great attention in recent years, in part because it appears to be a suitable basis for multi-wavelength optical cross-connects. It is probably the only known tunable filter that is capable of selecting several wavelengths simultaneously. This capability can be used to construct a multi-wavelength router.     

Space-time dynamics of ultrashort pulses in vacuum

An analytical study is made of the evolution of spatially bounded pulses whose length amounts to several periods of the field oscillations. An equation is analyzed that describes unidirectional (reflectionless) propagation of light pulses in vacuum. The method of moments is used to find the variations in length, effective width of the wave field, and other characteristic averaged parameters of a pulse along its propagation path. A broad class of self-similar solutions describing the focusing of the light pulses is found. Finally, by direct integration of the starting equation it is shown that a horseshoe-shaped precursor forms near the leading edge of the pulse. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 116, 35–46 (July 1999)     

Asymmetrically Apodized Linearly Chirped Fiber Bragg Gratings for Efficient Pulse Compression

Abstract

A simple and stable technique of optical short pulse generation for soliton transmission based on external modulation is reviewe.By using nonlinearity of absorption characteristics of an electroabsorption modulator, ultra-short optical pulse trains having a shape close to sech² shape can be generated just with sinusoidal modulation, without ultra-short driving pulses and ultra-broad bandwidth of the modulator. The pulse width and the repetition rate can be varied by changing the electrical driving conditions. Quasi-transform-limited optical pulseswith time-bandwidth product of 0.32 were successfully generated by the sinusoidally driven InGaAsP electroabsorption modulator with up to 20 GHz repetition rate. An application of a λ/4-shifted DFB laser-electroabsorption modulator integrated light source to a single-chip soliton source is also described. The high quality of the modulator-generator pulses has been proven by long-distance soliton transmission over 6400 km at 2.5 Gb/s using a recirculating fiber loop.     

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.     

High-order harmonic generation of pulses with multiple timescales: selection rules,carrier envelope phase and cutoff energy

ABSTRACT

High harmonic generation (HHG) is sensitive to the carrier envelope phase (CEP) of its driving laser field if it is a sufficiently short pulse (several-cycle pulse). Here we show that strong CEP effects can also be found in HHG from long duration multi-cycle pulses (up to 200?fs at 800?nm central wavelength). We find that HHG from multi-cycle pulses may be CEP dependent when the driving pulse exhibits two distinct timescales (multi-timescale pulse): (i) a short timescale associated with the average frequency, and (ii) a long timescale associated with the pulse’s temporal periodicity. The interplay of these timescales results in significant changes to both the cutoff frequency, and the appearance of symmetry allowed harmonics in the spectrum as function of CEP, similar to HHG from several-cycle pulses. We relate this effect to the multi-timescale intensity variations in the driving pulse, and construct an analytical condition to access the phenomenon. Lastly, we numerically demonstrate reconstruction of the CEP through HHG from long duration multi-timescale pulses. Our work may be useful in several areas of strong-field physics and attosecond science, for example, allowing spectroscopy of multi-timescale processes (e.g. HHG from vibrationally active media), and paving the way towards CEP characterisation using long pulses.     

Weak-pulse transparency enhancement in an optically dense three-level medium induced by a 2π pulse in a neighboring transition (V-scheme)

The coherent V-configuration interaction between an optically dense resonantly-absorbing three-level medium (neon) and two ultrashort superradiance pulses with converging wave fronts is investigated experimentally and theoretically. Both separate and combined propagation of pulses with wavelengths λ ₁=614.3 nm (strong field, θ ₁⩾π) and λ ₃=594.5 nm (weak field, θ ₃≈/20) are studied. For propagation of a separate strong-field pulse, supertransparency of the absorbing medium was observed, which is associated with the generation of a soliton-like pulse at the difference frequency (Δν≈1700 MHz) and the dispersion-diffraction stabilization effect. Under these conditions a weak-field pulse is completely absorbed. Combined propagation of the pulses leads to novel effects. A below-threshold pulse (weak field) was observed to pass through the absorber while interacting coherently with a strong-field pulse at a neighboring transition. It is shown theoretically that absorption of the weak pulse is reduced for two reasons: first, as a result of incoherent transparency of the resonance transition caused by emptying of the lower level by the field of the strong pulse, and second, as a result of coherent transfer of polarization between the upper levels via the two-photon processes. When the conditions for combined propagation are met, the latter mechanism ensures inversionless amplification of a weak pulse over a wide band of frequencies. In this case, the gain can even exceed the linear absorption coefficient in absolute value. A difference in propagation velocities of the weak and strong pulses was recorded experimentally, along with a shift in the carrier frequency of the weak field towards the red (≈600 MHz). A mechanism for transfer of phase modulation from a strong pulse to a weak pulse via the common lower level is discussed theoretically. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 113, 71–88 (January 1998)     

Non-envelope formulation for femtosecond optical pulses in semiconductors

We analyze the response of an ensemble of 1s-excitons driven by a femtosecond optical pulse, beyond traditional “slowly varying amplitudes” approach. For optical pulses of a given duration it is shown that the off-resonance optical field can evolve into a stable soliton with nonzero asymptotic behavior. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 65, No. 5, 380–384 (10 March 1997) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

Induced modulation instability of spin waves in ferromagnetic films

Induced modulation instability of backward volume spin waves in ferromagnetic films is investigated. It is found that the nonlinearity of the spin system of a ferromagnetic sample can greatly enrich the spectrum by excitation of spin waves at close frequencies and, in consequence, result in the appearance of a sequence of soliton-like pulses. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 68, No. 11, 828–832 (10 December 1998)     

Breathing solitons in optical fiber links

We introduce the concept of “breathing” solitons to describe the dynamics of optical pulses in transmission lines with passive compensation of fiber chromatic dispersion. The “breathing” pulse can be used as the information carrier. The theory presented is complimentary to the concept of the guiding-center soliton. It is shown that an average bright soliton can propagate in a system with large variations of the dispersion, including segments with high normal dispersion. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 63, No. 10, 814–819 (25 May 1996) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

Electroluminescence study of polarization changes in lead magnoniobate crystals in pulsed electric fields

Electroluminescence is used to study changes in the polarization of crystals of a model ferroelectric relaxor, lead magnoniobate (PMN), in pulsed electric fields. The amplitude of the electoluminescence pulses produced during polarization and depolarization of PMN crystals is found to depend on the duration of the applied electric field pulses if this duration is shorter than the most probable time for polarization buildup. These data provide evidence of rapid changes in the polarization through realignment of the domain and heterophase structure at temperatures above the temperature for destruction of the induced macrodomain ferroelectric phase and evidence of an “excited” polarization state for short-lived pulses whose decay is accompanied by an enhancement in the amplitude of the depolarizing luminescence pulse and by a reduction in the time delay of its emission following the end of the field pulse. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 39, 341–343 (February 1997)     

Splitting of an electromagnetic pulse on resonant reflection from a plasma film

It is found theoretically that the temporal profile of a quasimonochromatic electromagnetic pulse is strongly distorted on reflection from a thin (on the wavelength scale) film of a plasma-like (semiconductor, metallic) medium under plasma-resonance conditions. It is shown that an incident Gaussian pulse splits with time (completely or partially) into two reflected pulses, whose amplitudes can be controlled by varying the relationships among the parameters of the incident pulse and the film. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67, 65–68 (June 1997)     

Propagation of a heat pulse in a bounded conducting medium: Thermoelectric detection

The one-dimensional, non-steady thermal field on the surface of a bounded conducting sample arising from the absorption of a square heat pulse of arbitrary duration is calculated. It is shown that the spatial temperature distributions for long and short pulses are fundamentally different: After a short heat pulse is “switched off” regions of local heating arise; such regions do not occur in the case of a long pulse. The thermoelectric response is calculated and it is shown that data on the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity can be obtained in a single experiment. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 41, 606–611 (April 1999)     

Time-shift quantum key distribution with decoy states

We suggest a protocol for quantum key distribution—a technology allowing two distant parties to create an unconditionally secure cryptographic key. For the creation of the key we suggest to use laser pulses weakened to the single-photon level of duration T, the pulse carrying the value “1” being shifted in time by T/2 compared to the pulse carrying the value “0”. The overlap of the pulses provides their non-orthogonality and, therefore, impossibility to discriminate between them with certainty. Besides the signal pulses the protocol uses coherent decoy pulses, having longer duration than the signal ones and providing a more effective protection from a wide class of attacks. Security of the protocol is based on interferometric control of the pulse coherence at the receiving station. We analyze the security of the protocol against a number of intercept-resend attacks and on the basis of this analysis substantiate the necessity of decoy state implementation.     

Adiabatic population transfer in multistate chains via dressed intermediate states

The well-known process of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) provides a robust technique for achieving complete population transfer between the first and last state of a three-state chain, with little population, even transiently, in the intermediate state. The extension of STIRAP to general N-state chainwise-linked systems continues to generate interest. Recently Malinovsky and Tannor (Phys. Rev. A 56, 4929 (1997)) have shown with numerical simulation that a resonant pulse sequence, which they term “straddle STIRAP”, can produce (under appropriate conditions, including specific pulse areas) complete population transfer with very little population in intermediate states. Their proposal supplements a pair of counterintuitively ordered delayed laser pulses, driving the first and last transition of the chain and corresponding to the pump and Stokes pulses in STIRAP, with one or more additional strong pulses of longer duration which couple the intermediate transition(s) and overlap both the pump and the Stokes pulses. In this paper, we modify the “straddling” Malinovsky-Tannor pulse sequence so that the intermediate couplings are constant (and strong), at least during the times when the pump and Stokes pulses are present, and the intermediate states therefore act as a strongly coupled subsystem with constant eigenvalues. Under this condition, we show that the original N-state chain is mathematically equivalent to a system comprising N-2 parallel -transitions, in which the initial state is coupled simultaneously to N-2 dressed intermediate states, which in turn are coupled to the final state. The population transfer is optimized by suitably tuning the pump and Stokes frequencies to resonance with one of these dressed intermediate states, which effectively acts as the single intermediate state in a three-state STIRAP-like process. We show that tuning to a dressed intermediate state turns the system (for both odd N and even N) into a three-state system - with all of the properties of conventional STIRAP (complete population transfer, little transient population in the intermediate states, insensitivity to variations in the laser parameters, such as pulse area). The success of the tuning-to-dressed-state idea is explained by using simple analytic approaches and illustrated with numerical simulations for four-, five-, six- and seven-state systems. Received: 17 April 1998 / Accepted: 15 June 1998     

Formation of amorphous carbon on melting of microcrystalline graphite by picosecond laser pulses

Observations of microcrystalline graphite subjected to picosecond laser pulses reveal the formation of a liquid phase with a subsequent transition to a uniform amorphous state of a surface layer upon solidification. This phenomenon is observed on a definite type of graphite and with the radiation incident on a plane parallel to the sixfold symmetry axis, and only for certain parameters of the laser pulse. A structural analysis of the amorphous phase is performed by electron microscopy and Raman scattering spectroscopy. A periodic structure with a period of the order of the wavelength of the heating pulse is formed in the heating region. The “rulings” of this periodic structure are oriented in the direction of polarization of the heating pulse. A study of the reflection kinetics of the probe laser pulse showed that the characteristic existence time of the liquid phase and of the solidification process is ∼10⁻¹⁰ s. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 66, No. 10, 661–665 (25 November 1997)     

Harmonic mode locking in a sliding-frequency fiber laser

We demonstrate a sliding-frequency mode-locked (SFM) erbium fiber laser generating 20 ps pulses with center wavelengths rapidly sweeping across a spectral range of 50 nm. Excess optical nonlinearity in the laser cavity leads to multipulsing, with a tendency to tight pulse bunching (<3 ns) at the fundamental cavity frequency of 25 MHz. The addition of a parallel optical delay line, with a path difference equal to a rational fraction of the cavity length, distributes the pulses uniformly across the entire cavity and achieves a harmonic SFM up to 1 GHz. The result establishes cavity nonlinearity as a critical design parameter for picosecond wavelength-swept lasers.     

Extracting microwave energy from a cavity by mode conversion at a coupling window

A study is made of the production of high power nanosecond rf pulses by extracting microwave energy from an oversized cavity by means of conversion, at a coupling window, of the high-Q working mode to an auxiliary mode which is strongly coupled to an external load. It is shown that microwave rf pulse compressors with copper storage cavities and energy extraction by mode conversion at a coupling window can provide gains of 5–13 dB with output signal durations of 20–150 ns and peak powers of 5–10 MW in the 3-cm band and 50–100 MW in the 10-cm band. Rf pulses lasting 30 ns with peak powers of 0.5 MW have been obtained experimentally at a frequency of 9.4 GHz with a gain of 9 dB. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 68, 92–96 (July 1998)