On the path length of an excess electron interacted with optical phonons in a molecular chain

We show that in a molecular chain with dispersionless phonons at zero temperature, a “quasistationary” moving soliton state of an excess electron is possible. As the soliton velocity vanishes, the path length of the excess electron exponentially tends to infinity. It is demonstrated that in the presence of dispersion, when the soliton initial velocity exceeds the maximum group velocity of the chain, the soliton slows down until it reaches the maximum group velocity and then moves stationarily at this maximum group velocity. A conclusion is made of the fallacy of some works were the existence of moving polarons in a dispersionless medium is considered infeasible.     

Anomalous behaviour in a Bragg reflection waveguide

A novel asymmetric Bragg reflection waveguide (BRW) showing anomalous dispersion characteristic is presented. The abnormal behaviour of increase of modal effective index with wavelength is primarily caused by the changes taking place in the imaginary part of the Bloch wavevector, in the periodic stratified cladding. The phase velocity and the group velocity dispersion characteristics for the waveguide have also been analyzed. Such an anomalous behaviour can find applications in the design of integrated optical devices.     

A recipe for making materials with negative refraction in acoustics

A recipe is given for making materials with negative refraction in acoustics, i.e., materials in which the group velocity is directed opposite to the phase velocity. The recipe consists of injecting many small particles into a bounded domain, filled with a material whose refraction coefficient is known. The number of small particles to be injected per unit volume around any point x is calculated as well as the boundary impedances of the embedded particles.     

Coherent control of a light field with electromagnetically induced transparency in a dark state Raman coherent tripod system

A dark state superposition is employed and formed a tripod-like system. A weak probe pulse propagates in it can experience a crossover from absorption to transparent and then to amplification, and its group velocity can be controlled in any desired speed by determining the initial states of the dark state superposition.     

The group indices of refraction and the group velocities of the e-ray and the o-ray waves in α-quartz

A spectroscopic method was proposed for direct determination of the group velocity and the group index of refraction of the medium. By evaluating the wavelengths at successive interference fringes shown in transmission spectrum, the group velocity and the group index of refraction, and their dependences on the wavelength of the incident light can be determined. This method was applied to evaluate the group velocities and the group indices of refraction for the extraordinary (e-ray) and the ordinary (o-ray) waves in α-quartz in a wide infrared wavelength range. Anomaly in both group index of refraction and the group velocity of the e-ray results from the interaction of the e-ray and the o-ray waves in α-quartz.     

Negative and Superluminal Group Velocity Propagation with Narrow Pulse in a Coaxial Photonic Crystal

We investigate the propagation of electric signal along a spatially periodic impedance mismatched transmission line group. Anomalous dispersion is caused by the periodically mismatched impedance structure and a forbidden band appears near 8 MHz in transmission. The group velocity of the amplitude-modulated signal is augmented up to infinity, even -3.89c （c the speed of light in vacuum） in the forbidden region with the amplitude of the modulated signal increasing. When the carrier sinusoid signal is modulated in amplitude by the modulating sinusoid signal, of which the peak is superimposed with a narrow pulse at fivefold frequency, the superluminal group velocity also occurs. The experiment failed to show whether the propagation velocity of narrow pulse exceeds c or not.     

Simulation of the Propagation Property of Metal Wires Terahertz Waveguides

The propagation property of metal wires terahertz waveguides is studied and simulated under the framework of the Sommerfeld model. The group velocity dispersion, attenuation amplitude, transverse magnetic mode and propagating energy have been obtained by numerically solving the complex eigenvalue equation for the propagation constant. It is found that the group velocity dispersion and attenuation amplitude decrease with the increasing radii of metal wires. The energy power within the dielectric layer increase with the increase of radiation frequency.     

Slowdown of Group Velocity of Light Using Coherent Population Oscillation

We investigate the reduction of the group velocity propagation resulting from the steep change of the refractive index by the coherent population oscillation in erbium-doped optical fibre. The largest delay is measured to be about 8.75ms corresponding to a group index of 1.312×10^6. The time delay or advancement depends on the pump intensity. Influences of the ion density on the fractional delay and the group velocity reduction of light propagation are studied. Based on our discussion the optimization parameters should be selected in order to obtain more appropriate time delay and the slowdown of group velocity.     

Theory of wiggler superradiance from an extended electron bunch under the group synchronism condition

Superradiance (SR) from an electron bunch moving in a waveguide and oscillating in the field of helical wiggler is analysed for the specific group synchronism regime which occurs when the electron translational velocity coincides with the wave group velocity. In the comoving reference frame such a regime corresponds to emission at a quasi cutoff frequency. Both linear and nonlinear analysis demonstrate the advantages of the group synchronism regime for wiggler SR. Detuning from this regime leads to a fast drop in both the gain of the instability and peak power of the SR pulse.     

Slow light phenomenon and extraordinary magnetooptical effects in periodic nanostructured media

Physical nature of the magnetooptical effects enhancement in periodic nanostructured media is investigated. The correlation between group velocity and the Faraday rotation peaks is found. The Faraday rotation gets its maximum values at vanishing group velocity. It is shown that in the vicinity of the photonic band gap the Faraday angle is inversely proportional to the group velocity and directly proportional to the magnetooptical parameter Q averaged along the period of the structure. At this the efficiency of light-magnetic-matter interaction increases significantly. Thus, the increase of the magnetooptical effects in magnetic periodic systems is related to the slow wave phenomenon.     

Wave equation and dispersion relations for a compressible rotating fluid

A fundamental non-classical fourth-order partial differential equation to describe small amplitude linear oscillations in a rotating compressible fluid, is obtained. The dispersion relations for such a fluid, and the different regions of the group and phase velocity are analyzed.     

Determination of the temporal response function in femtosecond pump-probe systems

A method of determination of the true temporal response function for pump-probe type of experiments with femtosecond time resolution is presented. An analytical formula allowing calculation of group velocity dispersion (GVD) modified and sample thickness-sensitive pump-probe cross correlation function is provided. The reliability of the formula is further experimentally verified with measurements of ultrafast stimulated Raman scattering and transient absorption signals. Received: 31 October 2000 / Revised version: 6 February 2001 / Published online: 27 April 2001     

Guided wave dispersion curves for a bar with an arbitrary cross-section,a rod and rail example

Theoretical and experimental issues of acquiring dispersion curves for bars of arbitrary cross-section are discussed. Since a guided wave can propagate over long distances in a structure, guided waves have great potential for being applied to the rapid non-destructive evaluation of large structures such as rails in the railroad industry. Such fundamental data as phase velocity, group velocity, and wave structure for each guided wave mode is presented for structures with complicated cross-sectional geometries as rail. Phase velocity and group velocity dispersion curves are obtained for bars with an arbitrary cross-section using a semi-analytical finite element method. Since a large number of propagating modes with close phase velocities exist, dispersion curves consisting of only dominant modes are obtained by calculating the displacement at a received point for each mode. These theoretical dispersion curves agree in characteristic parts with the experimental dispersion curves obtained by a two-dimensional Fourier transform technique.     

A Formula of Propagating Beams Driven by Few-Cycle Gaussian Pulse in Dispersive Media

A formula is developed to describe the propagation of beams driven by few-cycle Gaussian pulse in a media with group velocity dispersion （GVD）. With the method, the spatiotemporal evolution of the pulsed beam can be straightforwardly quantified as long as the monochromatic beam solutions in free space, which have been widely investigated in previous works, are known. The method makes it possible to analytically deal with the few-cycle pulsed beams with transverse profiles other than the Gaussian one, which is, to our knowledge, the one mainly investigated previously, in GVD media.     

Low frequency lattice vibrations of LaF3 by neutron scattering

The phonon modes having frequencies less than 3 THz in the high symmetry directions of LaF₃ are reported. These are compared to the results of previous optical studies. A previously unobserved branch of low group velocity is found near 1.2 THz polarized both parallel and perpendicular to the basal plane. Its significance for the lifetimes of zone boundary acoustic phonons is discussed.     

Optical Amplification and Slow Light Based on Two-Wave Mixing at Large Modulation Depth

Based on Kukhtarev＇s equations, we derive the formulae of intensity-coupling coefficient, the phase-coupling coefficient and the group velocity at large modulation depth. It is theoretically shown that the signal beam can be amplified after passing through the photorefractive crystal and the group velocity reduced to m/s, even cm/s. Meanwhile, we also analyse the influence of the thermal excitation rate and the large signal effects on optical amplification and reduction of light propagation in photorefractive two-wave mixing.     

Period-doubling of dispersion-managed solitons in an Erbium-doped fiber laser at around zero dispersion

Period-doubling of dispersion-managed solitons in an Erbium-doped fiber ring laser operating at the near zero net cavity group velocity dispersion region was experimentally observed. The generated dispersion-managed solitons of the laser are characterized by their near Gaussian spectral profiles and no sidebands. Numerical simulations verified our experimental observations and showed that the period-doubling could occur both in the positive and negative near zero net cavity group velocity dispersion regions, which suggests that the occurrence of the period-doubling is an intrinsic feature of the mode-locking fiber lasers and independent of the concrete mode-locked pulse profile.     

Flexible Control of Light Propagation Using a Novel Photonic Crystal Hetero-Waveguide Based on Silicon-on-Insulator Slab

We demonstrate a photonic crystal hetero-waveguide based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) slab, consisting of two serially connected width-reduced photonic crystal waveguides with different radii of the air holes adjacent to the waveguide. We show theoretically that the transmission window of the structure corresponds to the transmission range common to both waveguides and it is in inverse proportion to the discrepancy between the two waveguides. Also the group velocity of guided mode can be changed from low to high or high to low, depending on which port of the structure the signal is input from just in the same device, and the variation is proportional to the discrepancy between the two waveguides. Using this novel structure, we realize flexible control of transmission window and group velocity of guided mode simultaneously.     

Superluminal pulse propagation in an erbium fiber laser

It is well known that saturating gain media can give rise to superluminal pulse propagation velocity. In most mode-locked lasers the effect is unmeasurably small and has not yet been directly demonstrated. We present experiments on the initial transient of an erbium fiber laser that show a dynamic shift in the propagation velocity to a value larger than the medium’s linear group velocity as the pulse builds up. Received: 14 December 1998 / Revised version: 21 May 1999 / Published online: 25 August 1999     

Observation of superluminal and slowdown light propagation in doped lithium niobate crystals

We investigate the group velocity of light in a one-dimensional volume grating inside lithium niobate crystals doped with different impurities. The superluminal and slowdown light propagations are both observed in the crystals. The relationships between the group refractive index and the grating amplitude and phase shift are presented and discussed.