Influence of Kerr nonlinearity on the band structures of two-dimensional photonic crystals

Dynamic modifications of the band structures of two-dimensional photonic crystals composed of Kerr-nonlinear dielectric rods in air forming hexagonal, square and honeycomb lattices are investigated. Calculations are carried out by the method based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique for both TM and TE polarizations. The bands in all cases are observed to red-shift with the introduction of nonlinearity. Inspection of the variation of the mid-gap frequencies with source intensity reveals that the red-shift increases as gap number increases, in a manner proportional to the mid-gap frequency in linear regime. The red-shift of mid-gap frequencies is also found to follow the adopted saturable model for the change of relative permittivity with source intensity. Either the so-called dielectric or the air band edges of the gaps are found to be more sensitive to nonlinearity resulting in broadening or shrinking of the gaps. Possible utilizations of the present observations for all-optical device applications, such as wavelength multiplexing, are discussed.     

Z-scan measurements of optical nonlinearity in acid blue 29 dye

The third order nonlinear optical properties of acid blue 29 solutions have been studied using Z-scan technique. Experiments are performed using a CW He–Ne laser at 632.8 nm wavelength and 3 mW power. The linear absorption coefficient α₀, nonlinear absorption coefficient β, nonlinear refractive index n₂, Re χ³, and Im χ³ are measured at three different concentrations. Our results show that higher concentration gives better nonlinear optical properties. Also, it was found that there is an increasing trend in the value of the nonlinear refractive index n₂ as the concentration increases.     

Charge-separated-state enhancement of the third-order optical nonlinearity of a photosensitizer-electron acceptor triad assembly

′ ,4^′′,4^′′′-tetrasulfonato-phthalocyanine/N-butyl-N^′-methylanthraquinone-4,4^′-bipyridinum dibromide assembly (ZnTsPc-V-AQ), was observed to be enhanced by ten times when the sample was optically pumped by a 355 nm pump beam. The enhancement of the nonlinearity was found to be due predominantly to the charge transfer between the two monomers of the supramolecule after optical excitation. Received: 2 July 1996     

Resonant electronic nonlinearity and laser heating induced nonlinearity of chlorophosphonazo I

The nonlinear refraction of chlorophosphonazo I (CPA I) was investigated using the Z-scan technique with a pulse Nd:YAG laser and a cw HeNe laser as excitation sources. Positive and large nonlinear refractive index attributed to resonant electronic nonlinear effect was observed under pulse 532 nm excitation. Under cw HeNe 633 nm excitation, the origin of optical nonlinearity was discussed in term of laser heating effect. The experimental results show that CPA I will have potential applications in nonlinear optical devices.     

Nonlinear optical properties of (B3O7)5- and (B3O6)3- groups

3 O₅ (LBO) crystal has been studied by using the bond valence theory of complex crystals. Chemical bond parameters and linear and nonlinear optical (NLO) properties of each type of constituent chemical bonds are quantitatively determined. Because of the different crystal structure characteristics of LBO from those of β-BaB₂O₄ (BBO), the two anionic groups, (B₃O₇)^5- in LBO and (B₃O₆)^3- in BBO, play different roles in contributions to their own total NLO tensor coefficients of LBO and BBO, respectively. By comparison, we find that planar (B₃O₆)^3- groups are the ideal structure model, leading to little cancellation of contributions of each kind of bond in these groups, and this gives us a useful guide to design new NLO materials in the future. Received: 24 January 1997/Accepted: 27 March 1997     

Intensity dependence of thermal nonlinear optical activity in crystals

The thermal contribution to nonlinear optical activity in a BSO crystal was studied at 514.5 nm. The results show that the effect is only weakly dependent on laser intensity for constant beam power. By varying the laser spot size in the sample the electronic and thermal contributions to nonlinear optical activity may be separated.     

Quasi-stable propagation of vortices and soliton clusters in saturable Kerr media with square-root nonlinearity

Analytical and numerical investigation of the propagation of optical beams in Kerr-like saturable photorefractive media is carried out, utilizing a novel model for the local isotropic part of the space-charge field generated in the medium. Using a variational technique, optimal propagation parameters for the most stable propagation of otherwise unstable single Gaussian, single vortex, and optical soliton cluster beams are determined. Analogy between a ring of identical weakly overlapping solitons and a vortex of the same topological charge is explored.     

Exciton-related optical nonlinearities in semiconductors and semiconductor microcrystallites

We report on large optical nonlinearities due to specific many-body effects in high-density electron-hole pair systems. On bulk CdS we study the effect of free-carrier screening on the absorption and refraction in the vicinity of the band-gap at room temperature. Steady-state saturable absorption at mW-power levels and four-wave mixing with first-order efficiencies as large as 2% of the incoming light are demonstrated on a 1m slab. On CuBr microcrystallites embedded in glass we investigate the changes of the exciton absorption caused by many-exciton effects both at cryo and room temperature. In contrast to bulk semiconductors, we observe a blue shift of the exciton peak at resonant optical excitation. In addition, strong saturation of absorption with very large contrast shows up. We find Lorentzian saturation intensities in the 100 kW/cm² range.     

(1 + 2)-Dimensional sub-strongly nonlocal spatial optical solitons: Perturbation method

By extending the (1 + 1)-dimensional [(1 + 1)-D] perturbation method suggested by Ouyang et al. [S. Ouyang, Q. Guo, W. Hu, Phys. Rev. E. 74 (2006) 036622] to the (1 + 2)-D case, we obtain a fundamental soliton solution to the (1 + 2)-D nonlocal nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NNLSE) with a Gaussian-type response function for the sub-strongly nonlocal case. Numerical simulations show that the soliton solution obtained in this paper can describe the soliton states in both the sub-strongly nonlocal case and the strongly nonlocal case. It is found that the phase constant and the power of the (1 + 2)-D strongly nonlocal spatial optical soliton with a Gaussian-type response function are both in inverse proportion to the 4th power of its beam width.     

Photorefractive optical properties of volume phase gratings induced in sillenite crystals, when the grating vector lies on the (111) plane

We study the diffraction efficiency of volume phase gratings in Bi₁₂GeO₂₀, when the grating vector, lying on a (111) plane, is at an angle with respect to the crystallographic direction. An external bias field parallel to the direction is applied during recording, thus, the recording conditions depend on the grating vector orientation. The basic parameters determining the diffraction efficiency are the grating vector orientation, the rotatory power and the field-induced linear birefringence (primary and secondary). Analytic expressions for the diffraction efficiency have been obtained by taking into account all the above-mentioned parameters, provided that linearly polarized light is incident on the crystal. In this configuration, the influence of the secondary electro-optic effect (inverse piezoelectric and photoelastic effects) to the diffraction efficiency is actually stronger than the influence of the primary effect. Experimental results are given. Received: 3 January 2000 / Revised version: 6 June 2000 / Published online: 13 September 2000     

Reverse saturable absorption and optical limiting in indanthrone dyes

Fluence dependence of transmission in three dyes, viz. indanthrone, dichloroindanthrone and violanthrone, is reported at 532 nm as well as at 1.06 µm. These dyes show optical limiting at both these wavelengths for nanosecond pulses. The limiting is due to the combined effect of reverse saturable absorption from the triplet state and thermal defocussing in the dye solutions.     

Inertia of the bound-electron Kerr-type optical nonlinearity in transparent solids

The inertia of the Kerr-type nonlinear-optical response of bound electrons in solids is analyzed. It is shown that, in the case of wide-gap materials, away from the mid-gap frequency E_g/2?, E_g being the band gap, the inertia of this response becomes noticeable only for attosecond pulse features. However, near E_g/2?, where the inertia of bound-electron Kerr-type optical nonlinearity is enhanced by a strong dispersion of two-photon absorption and where the nonlinear refraction is especially strong, light pulses as long as tens and even hundreds of femtoseconds are expected to experience self-steepening and an asymmetric spectral broadening due to the retarded Kerr effect.     

Structure dependence of ultrafast third-order optical nonlinearity for GeS2-In2S3-CsI chalcohalide glasses

Ultrafast third-order nonlinear optical responses of GeS₂-In₂S₃-CsI chalcohalide glasses have been measured by using the femtosecond time-resolved optical Kerr effect (OKE) technique at a wavelength of 820 nm. The third-order nonlinear susceptibility was estimated to be as large as 5.12×10⁻¹³ esu. The full width at half maximum of the Kerr signal was 120 fs and its response was dominantly assigned to the ultrafast distortion of the electron cloud. The relationship between the structural units and the third-order nonlinear optical responses was analysed by Raman spectra. It is suggested that the covalent bonds of S-Ge or S-In constituting the tetrahedral units [GeS_4/2] or [InS_4−xI_x], respectively, play an important role in the ultrafast third-order nonlinear optical responses of these chalcohalide glasses.     

Third-order resonant optical nonlinearity from trans–cis photoisomerization of an azo dye in a rigid matrix

 We investigated the trans–cis photoisomerization of an azo dye in a rigid matrix and the resulting third-order resonant optical nonlinearity by means of the simple theoretical prediction of a two-energy-level system, thin-layer chromatography and H-NMR studies. A methylorange (MO), a methylred (MR), congored (CR) or a Disperse Red 1 (DR1) doped polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) or silica film was used as nonlinear optical material. The existence of equi-absorbing points, or isosbestic points in the absorbance spectrum change and the remarkable stationary transmittance to be independent of the action beam intensity enabled us to confirm the photoisomerization even in a rigid matrix. Then, we measured the third-order resonant optical nonlinearity of dichroism through the polarization absorbance spectrum measurement and determined the characteristic optical parameters of the photoisomerization in the film such as the quantum yields φ_T, φ_C, the thermal reaction constant K and the photoisomerization time constant by fitting the theoretical curve of the two-energy-level system to the observed temporal transmittance change after the action beam exposure of the MO/PVA film. The quantum yields were φˉ_T=0.36 and φˉ_C=0.38, respectively. The photoisomerization time constant of MO embedded in the PVA film was a few seconds. The thermal reaction constant K depended on the excitation beam intensity. Received: 20 June 1996/Revised version: 4 October 1996     

Ultra fast third-order non-linear response of amino-triazole donor-acceptor derivatives by optical Kerr effect

We report the study of the temporal dependence of the non-linear optical response of novel organic materials in solution. The experimental results of the optical Kerr gate using 70 fs pulses show a quasi-instantaneous response for three derivatives of an amino-triazole donor-acceptor system. The non-linearity of the compounds is identified as arising from the electronic contribution to the third-order non-linear susceptibility. The non-linear parameters of each sample were obtained using the optical Kerr response of CS₂ as reference.     

Modeling of enhancement of nonlinearity in oxide and chalcogenide glasses by introduction of nanometals

In this Letter we extended T-matrix to calculate the nonlinear susceptibilities of a composite nonlinear host and guest medium, and then applied this model to calculate the nonlinear susceptibilities of oxide and chalcogenide glasses by introduction of nanometals. The results of the model is in good agreement with experimental ones.     

Studies on self-pumped phase conjugation in Cu-doped (K0.5Na0.5)0.2(Sr0.61Ba0.39)0.9Nb2O6 crystals

The use of Cu-doped (K_0.5Na_0.5)_0.2(Sr_0.61Ba_0.39)_0.9Nb₂O₆ as self-pumped phase conjugators using internal reflection is reported. Reflectivities as high as 63% at 5145.5 nm and 60% at 632.8 nm were realized. It was found that the photorefractive response changes significantly at different doping concentration. The responses of the crystals to the laser wavelength, incident angle and dopant concentration are studied.     

Voltage sensitivity of the optical nonlinearity in nematic liquid-crystal cells

The influence of an external quasi-static electric field on the third-order nonlinear optical properties of a nematic liquid crystal has been studied. We demonstrate both in theory and experiment that the cell behaves like a Kerr-Medium. The sensitivity of the cell can be controlled by the applied voltage. If optical feedback is provided by the use of a dielectric mirror, optical bistability can be achieved. The switching behaviour of the cell may also be controlled by the applied voltage.     

Observation of phase-matched optical second-harmonic generation in organic monolayers

Guided-wave second-harmonic generation using a passive planar waveguide covered with an organic nonlinear optical film as thin as a single molecular layer is demonstrated. The phase-matching condition of this process is revealed both with a high degree of waveguide-mode selectivity and a maximum in the frequency response.