Semilinear coherent oscillator with reflection-type photorefractive gratings

The saturation intensity, oscillation spectrum, and temporal dynamics of oscillation are studied for a semilinear coherent oscillator with two counterpropagating pump waves and a photorefractive crystal with dominating reflection gratings. The instability of the single-frequency oscillation spectrum is revealed, similar to that known for an oscillator with dominating transmission gratings. The experimental manifestation of this transition in the output characteristics of the oscillator is favourably compared with numerical calculations. PACS 42.65.Hw; 05.45.-a; 42.65.Pc; 42.65.Sf     

Backward-wave four-wave mixing and coherent oscillation in CdF<Subscript>2</Subscript>:Ga,Y

Cadmium fluoride doped with Ga and Y is shown to be a suitable medium for backward-wave four-wave mixing with a grating decay time of a few seconds at room temperature. A 3-mm-thick sample ensures amplified phase-conjugate reflectivity and can therefore be used for building a coherent oscillator with a conventional mirror. PACS 42.65.Hw; 42.70.Mp; 42.70.Nq     

Yellow nanosecond sum-frequency generating optical parametric oscillator using periodically poled LiNbO<Subscript>3</Subscript>

Nanosecond yellow light has been generated through simultaneously phase matched sum-frequency generation and optical parametric oscillation in a periodically poled LiNbO₃ crystal. 300 mW of yellow light at a wavelength of 586 nm has been generated from 1.3 W of laser power from a Q-switched Yb:YAG laser operating at 1031 nm. The conversion efficiency of the device is 23%. PACS 42.65.Ky; 42.65.Yj     

A new instability of counter-propagating waves in BaTiO3?

The self-development of a strong reflection grating in a BaTiO₃ sample illuminated with two mutually incoherent counter-propagating light waves is reported. The two transmitted waves diffracted from this grating become partially mutually coherent. PACS 42.65.Hw; 05.45.-a; 42.65.Pc; 42.65.Sf     

Instability of single-frequency operation in semilinear photorefractive coherent oscillators

The transition of the single-frequency oscillation of a semilinear photorefractive coherent oscillator for sufficiently large coupling strengths into two-frequency oscillation is predicted and is observed experimentally. The critical value of the coupling strength at which the bifurcation occurs is a function of pump intensity ratio and cavity losses. The supercritical bifurcation in the oscillation spectrum is analogous to the second-order phase transition.     

Effects of angular pump mismatch for the semi-linear oscillator

We investigate, analytically and numerically, the influence of an angular mismatch of counter-propagating pump beams on the threshold of oscillation for the photorefractive semi-linear oscillator driven by non-local non-linear response. Our analysis includes the frequency degenerate and non-degenerate regimes within a wide range of the variable input parameters—the coupling strength, the pump ratio, and the feedback mirror reflectivity. The limiting case of mirrorless oscillation is considered as well. The main outcome of our studies is the possibility of strong reduction of the oscillation threshold owing to the angular mismatch. Furthermore, increasing the mismatch induces pronounced bifurcations of the oscillation parameters, including transitions between degenerate and non-degenerate oscillation modes. The main findings are verified by direct simulations of the dynamic equations.     

Coherent states of general time-dependent harmonic oscillator

By introducing an invariant operator, we obtain exact wave functions for a general time-dependent quadratic harmonic oscillator. The coherent states, both inx- andp-spaces, are calculated. We confirm that the uncertainty product in coherent state is always larger thankh/2 and is equal to the minimum of the uncertainty product of the number states. The displaced wave packet for Caldirola-Kanai oscillator in coherent state oscillates back and forth with time about the center as for a classical oscillator. The amplitude of oscillation with no driving force decreases due to the dissipation in the system. However, the oscillation with resonant frequency oscillates with a large amplitude, even after a sufficient time elapse.     

Narrow linewidth 2 μm optical parametric oscillation in periodically poled LiNbO<Subscript>3</Subscript> with volume Bragg grating outcoupler

An optical parametric oscillator using a periodically poled LiNbO₃ crystal and a volume Bragg grating output coupler is presented. Signal and idler wavelengths of 2008 and 2264 nm were generated from the 1064 nm Nd:YVO₄ pump laser. The Bragg grating was reflecting in a narrow band around 2008 nm, creating a purely singly resonant cavity. Signal and idler linewidths of approximately 0.44 and 0.72 nm, respectively, were measured. This is a reduction of 80 and 60 times compared to when using a mirror as output coupler. A total output energy of 156 μJ was measured with 47% slope efficiency. PACS 42.65.Yj; 42.72.Ai; 42.40.Eq     

Multiline coherent oscillation in photorefractive crystals with two species of movable carriers

The coherent oscillation, because of nearly degenerate four-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals with two types of movable charge carriers, occurs at two spectral lines symmetrically shifted with respect to the pump frequency. Consequently the output oscillation exhibits the high contrast intensity modulation. The frequency separation of two oscillation modes (and modulation frequency of the output intensity) depend on the incident light intensity and spatial frequency of the developing grating. A model is presented explaining this type of oscillation by the two-maxima shape of the gain spectrum in crystals with sufficiently different relaxation times of two space-charge gratings, one formed by movable electrons and the other one by movable holes. The experimental data for coherent oscillator with tin hypothiodiphosphate (Sn₂P₂S₆) are in reasonable quantitative agreement with the calculations. Received: 12 November 1998 / Revised version: 11 January 1999 / Published online: 7 April 1999     

Phase mismatch effects on the dynamics of a semilinear photorefractive oscillator with reflection-type gratings

This paper describes the effect of pump waves misalignement on the performance of the semilinear photorefractive coherent oscillator with the reflection gratings. The oscillation intensity and its modulation frequency are calculated numerically for different misalignement angles, coupling strengths and pump intensity ratios. It is shown that a small angular detuning of the pump wave, less than one milliradian, extends the range of pump ratios and the range of coupling strengths for which a non-degenerate oscillation occurs. The results of experiments with the BaTiO₃-based semilinear oscillator are in qualitative agreement with the calculated data.     

High-contrast chemical imaging with gated heterodyne coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy

A novel method is presented which substantially improves the signal-to-background ratio for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy. It exploits the fixed phase relation between pump, Stokes and CARS fields together with the strong phase coherence in supercontinua generated by femtosecond lasers. Three phase-locked optical parametric amplifiers are used for the realisation of heterodyne signal detection. Proper pulse timing yields a gating mechanism which nearly completely suppresses solvent background signals. PACS 42.65.Dr; 42.65.Hw; 42.65.Yj     

Extending optical fs metrology to XUV attosecond pulses

We report on the progress towards a 2nd-order autocorrelation measurement of a coherent superposition of the 7th to the 15th harmonic of the fundamental frequency of the Ti : Sapphire laser. The two-photon ionization of He atoms was investigated and found to be an appropriate non-linear detector. In addition, the technique of volume autocorrelation based on a split mirror wavefront divider was analysed and shown to exhibit adequate degree of modulation. Moreover, the approach presented opens up the path to XUV-pump XUV-probe type of temporal studies of ultrafast processes with a sub-fs temporal resolution. PACS 42.60.By; 42.65.Re; 42.65.Ky     

Microanalytical nonlinear single-beam spectroscopy combining an unamplified femtosecond fibre laser,pulse shaping and interferometry

Nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy using a single beam of femtosecond pulses from an unamplified fibre laser oscillator is demonstrated. To achieve high spectral resolution and sensitive signal detection with the picojoule pulse energies available, pulse shaping and integrated interferometric detection is employed. The spectroscopic technique used is coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), which yields well-resolved spectra of molecular vibrations in the 100–350 cm^-1 domain of halomethane samples in the liquid phase. We explore the implications of phase control for the interferometric detection of weak signals. The presented combination of a fiber laser, pulse shaping and CARS microspectroscopy is a first example of simplified schemes for compact and robust nonlinear spectroscopic detection and sensing, which is demonstrated exemplarily by on-line monitoring of the chemical composition in a microfluidic flow cell. PACS 42.55.Wd; 42.62.Fi; 78.47.Fg; 42.65.Dr; 82.80.Gk; 92.20.cn     

Threshold of oscillation in a ring-loop phase conjugator as a second-order optical phase transition

The threshold behavior is studied for a ring-loop coherent oscillator with a photorefractive strontium barium niobate (SBN) sample. A soft onset of oscillation is revealed and critical slowing down is observed in the temporal development of light-induced scattering below the threshold, thus pointing to a similarity with a second-order phase transition. Received: 10 July 2000 / Published online: 20 September 2000     

Coherent summation of power of nanosecond relativistic microwave oscillators

The possibility of developing a two-channel nanosecond relativistic microwave oscillator with a phase stability in each channel sufficient for coherent summation of their electromagnetic fields is demonstrated experimentally. In experiments, vacuum diodes of two independent superradiant backward wave oscillators operating in 10-GHz frequency range were connected to a common voltage source with a subnanosecond pulse rise time, which ensured the fixation of the initial phase of electromagnetic oscillations. The measured values of the phase difference jitter of the channel electromagnetic oscillations amount to several percent of the oscillation period.     

Nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy of semiconductor nanostructures

Nonlinear frequency conversion and electro-optic sampling allow for the generation and phase-resolved characterization of few-cycle pulses in the frequency range up to 50 THz. Electric field transients with amplitudes of up to several MV/cm are applied to study coherent nonlinear excitations of low-dimensional semiconductors. We report the first observation of Rabi oscillations on intersubband transitions of electrons in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. Frequency and phase of such oscillations are controlled in the 0.3- to 2.5-THz range via the strength and shape of the mid-infrared driving pulse. PACS 78.67.De; 73.21.Fg; 07.57.Hm; 42.65.Re     

Heterodyne detection of enhanced backscatter

Heterodyne detection has been used to measure the enhanced backscattering from a standard target consisting of a plane mirror positioned behind a moving ground-glass disk (assumed to act as a phase screen). A tilt of the plane mirror in combination with spectral filtering of the detector output allows isolation of the double-scattered component of the light signal. When the illuminating laser and the local oscillator beams are correctly mode matched, the intensity of this signal displays the factor-of-2 increase that denotes full coherent enhancement. This full enhancement is preserved for a wide range of mirror to phase-screen spacing, in contrast with earlier observations in which direct-detection techniques were used.     

Manifestation of Curie–Weiss law for optical phase transition

Considerable slowing down is observed for both the temporal development of the coherent oscillation slightly above the threshold and the refractive index grating decay slightly below the threshold for a semilinear photorefractive oscillator with two counter-propagating pump waves. It is shown that in the vicinity of the threshold the reciprocal characteristic time is a linear function of deviation from the threshold coupling strength. This behaviour is similar to an empirical Curie–Weiss law and points to the analogy of the oscillation threshold to a second-order phase transition. Received: 2 April 2001 / Revised version: 23 August 2001 / Published online: 7 November 2001     

Raman and line centre oscillation selection in coherently pumped four-level fir lasers

Competition between Raman and line-centre oscillation in multilevel lasers pumped with coherent radiation off resonance is studied by means of semi-classical laser theory. In a four level system consisting of a combination of a Λ and V system, it is shown that simultaneous Raman and line centre oscillation is expected on one of the transitions contrary to the case of a simple three level system where the Raman line completely suppresses the line centre oscillation. The crucial importance of a new highly nonlinear phase locking effect for the behaviour of the system is demonstrated.     

High-power picoseconds 355 nm laser by third harmonic generation based on CsB3O5 crystal

We report on the high average power third harmonic generation (THG) of a mode-locked picosecond laser in a CsB₃O₅ (CBO) crystal. The picosecond laser beam at 1064 nm is produced by a home-made 30 W master oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) Nd:YVO₄ laser system. The maximum THG output at 355 nm is up to 5.4 W. We also investigate the phase matching angle at different temperatures. During high power operation, the temperature of the CBO crystal is set at a high temperature of more than 100 °C. The THG system has shown a fine long-term stability for more than two months of operation. PACS 42.55.Px; 42.55.Rz; 42.70.Mp; 42.70.Nq; 42.65.Ky