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.     

Ultrashort-pulse modulation in adiabatically prepared Raman media

We demonstrate the efficient modulation of an approximately 100-femtosecond pulse in a Raman medium coherently prepared by nanosecond pulses. Raman sidebands of the ultrashort pulse spanning 360 THz are generated with an efficiency of >5%. We show that the mechanism permitting the sidebands to be generated is the preparation of a significant vibrational coherence in the medium that is robust to disturbance by an intense short pulse. If the observed sidebands were phase compensated, they would form a short train of approximately ten 3-fs pulses. Focusing would permit the realization of a peak intensity of >10(13) W cm(-2).     

Self-compression of attosecond high-order harmonic pulses

Self-compression of attosecond high-order harmonic pulses in the harmonic generation medium itself has been demonstrated. The attosecond pulses were generated in an argon-filled gas cell and compressed by exploiting the dispersion characteristics of argon. Since the harmonic generation medium itself was used as the compression medium, continuous chirp control was easily achieved by adjusting the gas pressure. The optimized attosecond pulse was also the most intense, and its duration of 206 as was very close to the transform-limited value of 200 as.     

Adaptive compression of tunable pulses from a non-collinear-type OPA to below 16 fs by feedback-controlled pulse shaping

The self-controlled compression of widely tunable pulses in the visible generated by a non-collinear-type optical parametric amplifier is accomplished by a pulse shaper based on a 4f setup with a pixeled mask in the Fourier plane which is controlled by an evolutionary algorithm in a feedback loop. Pulse durations below 16 fs are achieved by shaping the pulses such that their second-harmonic signal is maximized. The optimization process generally requires less than five minutes. It is shown that the algorithm eventually determines the shaper settings which produce the global optimum for the SH signal. Moreover, pulses having propagated through a disturbing medium which introduced additional group velocity dispersion have been recompressed to below 16 fs. An acceptable value for the phase difference between two adjacent pixels of the liquid crystal mask is experimentally found to be 1.6. The described setup provides a powerful tool for delivering ultrashort tunable pulses to any location within an experiment, as well as tailored sub-20-fs pulses for optimal control studies.     

双色光场驱动产生单个阿秒脉冲过程中的宏观效应

通过数值模拟三维传播方程研究了双色场产生高次谐波过程中宏观效应的影响,重点分析了阿秒脉冲的时域形状.在6 fs/800 nm和21.3 fs/400 nm组成的双色场中,通过调节双色场间的相对延时,双色场各焦点相对于气体盒子入口的间距和双色场束腰半径和气体压强等参数,可以在平台区得到超宽带连续谱.对该连续谱中420—540 eV的谐波直接进行滤波后可以得到时间同步性很好的单个阿秒脉冲.这种性质对实验上通过双色场方案产生超短的阿秒脉冲非常有利. 关键词： 传播效应 阿秒脉冲 时间同步性     

Determination of temporal correlation of ultrafast laser pulses using phase conjugation

A new time domain single shot conjugation autocorrelator is described. Three beams derived from the same initial laser pulse interact in a nonlinear medium to produce a backward signal wave in a 90° phase conjugate geometry. The pulse duration is determined from the spatial width of the phase conjugate beam emerging from the interaction region. Pulse duration measurements of pulses selected from a YAG laser train show that shorter pulses are generated toward the tail of the pulse train.     

Frequency shifting of sub-100 fs laser pulses by stimulated Raman scattering in a capillary filled with pressurized gas

The technique of Raman conversion of sub-100 fs laser pulses based on excitation of active medium by two orthogonally polarized pulses has been developed for Raman lasers with a glass capillary. 52 fs Stokes pulse at the wavelength of 1200 nm has been generated by stimulated Raman scattering of 48 fs Ti:sapphire laser pulse at the wavelength of 800 nm in hydrogen. 13% energy conversion efficiency has been achieved at pulse repetition rate up to 2 kHz.     

Nonlocal control of pulse propagation in excitable media

We study the effects of nonlocal control of pulse propagation in excitable media. As ageneric example for an excitable medium the FitzHugh-Nagumo model with diffusion in theactivator variable is considered. Nonlocal coupling in form of an integral term with aspatial kernel is added. We find that the nonlocal coupling modifies the propagatingpulses of the reaction-diffusion system such that a variety of spatio-temporal patternsare generated including acceleration, deceleration, suppression, or generation of pulses,multiple pulses, and blinking pulse trains. It is shown that one can observe these effectsfor various choices of the integral kernel and the coupling scheme, provided that thecontrol strength and spatial extension of the integral kernel is appropriate. In addition,an analytical procedure is developed to describe the stability borders of the spatiallyhomogeneous steady state in control parameter space in dependence on the parameters of thenonlocal coupling.     

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.     

飞秒激光离焦抽运熔融石英产生超连续白光的实验研究

利用飞秒激光在熔融石英介质中传输产生能量达数毫焦、波长范围覆盖400-900 nm 且光谱分布较为均匀的超连续白光,实验过程中将熔融石英介质离焦放置以避免被击穿. 研究了入射激光能量以及介质离焦距离对超连续白光特性的影响. 结果表明采用高能量的入射激光脉冲离焦抽运介质的方法能够有效避免介质 击穿损伤并提高超连续白光脉冲的能量输出.     

基于光纤中SBS相位共轭的自调Q光纤激光器

分析了利用光纤中的受激布里渊散射(stimulated Brillouin scattering,SBS)相位共轭效应进行激光腔内调Q,产生ns量级脉冲激光的原理,并对利用该效应产生的激光脉冲波形和脉冲形成过程进行了数值模拟,得到的脉冲波形与SBS相位共轭反射率随时间变化曲线基本一致,表明利用光纤中的SBS相位共轭作用调Q具有可行性.据此,对采用单模光纤(single-mode fiber,SMF)作为SBS池的Er³⁺掺杂调Q光纤激光器进行实验研究.当单模光纤长度为1.5 m时,在45 mW的光抽运功率下得到脉宽约2.6ns,脉冲周期58.23ns,平均功率7.35mW的激光脉冲.进一步的研究表明:激光器中相位共轭镜的形成与SBS介质长度有关,SBS介质过长,斯托克斯线之间无固定的相位关系,不能形成相干叠加,SBS相位共轭腔不能形成;SBS介质过短,腔内正交偏振模光子寿命的改变使脉冲出现双峰现象.脉冲形成后其属性只与SBS动态属性有关.     

由前向四波混频产生脉冲压缩态光场

本文提出一个方案,用锁模激光脉冲序列相干泵浦一个具有三阶极化率的非线性介质,经由前向四波混频产生脉冲压缩态光场,采用激光脉冲序列作为本地振荡对压缩态光场进行平衡零差检测。理论结果表明,本方案不但可以获得光强很强的压缩态光场输出,而且可以获得几乎完全压缩的脉冲序列形式的压缩噪声功率谱,其脉冲序列谱形状和输入光脉冲序列谱形状相反。 关键词：     

传播效应对宽带极紫外连续谱的影响

宽带极紫外连续谱是获得阿秒脉冲的重要途径,在此过程中传播效应是影响宽带极紫外连续谱产生的重要因素,本文针对传播效应对宽带极紫外连续谱的影响,采用慢变波近似的一阶传播方程,研究了传播过程对双色场周期量级激光脉冲产生宽带连续谱及其对应的单个阿秒脉冲的影响.通过分析不同聚焦位置和介质长度的传播过程,发现介质位于焦点之后有利于产生连续谱,同时随着介质长度的变长,虽然单个阿秒脉冲峰值强度有所提高,但是产生的阿秒脉冲宽度也会增加.进一步的分析表明,在特定的双色场延迟优化下,传播效应不仅使得阿秒脉冲强度增强,还可以获得与单原子模型下具有同样脉宽的单个阿秒脉冲,而不会因为传播效应导致阿秒脉冲宽度变宽.     

Monoenergetic electronic beam production using dual collinear laser pulses

The production of monoenergetic electron beams by two copropagating ultrashort laser pulses is investigated both by experiment and using particle-in-cell simulations. By proper timing between guiding and driver pulses, a high-amplitude plasma wave is generated and sustained for longer than is possible with either of the laser pulses individually, due to plasma waveguiding of the driver by the guiding pulse. The growth of the plasma wave is inferred by the measurement of monoenergetic electron beams with low divergence that are not measured by using either of the pulses individually. This scheme can be easily implemented and may allow more control of the interaction than is available to the single pulse scheme.     

利用单模光纤中SBS效应进行被动调Q的掺铒光纤激光器研究

分析了利用光纤中的受激布里渊散射(SBS)相位共轭效应进行激光腔内调Q,产生ns量级脉冲激光的原理,并对利用该效应产生的激光脉冲波形和脉冲形成过程进行了数值模拟,得到的脉冲波形与SBS相位共轭反射率随时间变化曲线基本一致,表明利用光纤中的SBS相位共轭作用调Q具有可行性。据此,对采用单模光纤(SMF)作为SBS池的掺Er3＋调Q光纤激光器进行实验研究,当单模光纤长度为1.5 m时,在45 mW的抽运光功率下得到脉宽约2.6 ns,脉冲周期58.23 ns,平均功率7.35 mW的激光脉冲。进一步的研究表明：激光器中相位共轭镜的形成与SBS介质长度有关,SBS介质过长,斯托克斯线之间无固定的相位关系,不能形成相干叠加,SBS相位共轭腔不能形成; SBS介质过短,腔内正交偏振模光子寿命的改变使脉冲出现双峰现象。脉冲形成后其属性只与SBS动态属性有关。     

Optical pulsing in a resonator with a highly dispersive nonlinearity

By introducing an intracavity Doppler shift in a resonator with a highly dispersive nonlinear medium, a train of optical pulses is generated whose features are related to the slow/fast-light response of the medium. The cavity transmission is asymmetric and the pulse shape is modified differently depending on the direction of the Doppler shift, hence, on the sign of the group delay provided by the dispersive process.     

Generation of frequency shifted picosecond pulses with low temporal jitter

Transient stimulated Raman scattering is used for the generation of a frequency shifted picosecond light pulse; part of this Raman shifted pulse is subsequently coherently scattered at a material excitation of a second Raman cell. Starting with the second harmonic pulse (t_p = 4 ps) of a mode-locked Nd : glass laser system, both the stimulated and the coherently produced pulses have durations of 2.3 ps at different wavelengths. By the appropriate choice of the Raman medium pulses between 13 000 and 21 000 cm^-1 can be generated. The coherent generation process minimizes the temporal jitter between the two pulses and allows to obtain a high time resolution of better than 0.3 ps in excite and probe experiments.     

A novel multi-optical/quantum memory and encoding system using multi-photon generation

We propose a novel system of an optical/quantum memory generation, which can be used for multi-optical/quantum memory applications. The large bandwidth of a single pulse is generated using a soliton pulse in a Kerr-type nonlinear medium, i.e. a nonlinear waveguide. The generation of the localized temporal and spatial soliton pulses within the nano-waveguide is achieved. The free spectrum range enhancement of the generated multi-soliton signals can be formed and achieved using the nano-waveguide incorporating the Mach Zhender Interferometer (MZI). The different light path of the soliton pulses is introduced by the delayed lines of the interferometer. This improves the wavelength free spectrum range, where the different entangled photon pairs can also obtained. Furthermore, the generated photons can be filtered and stored within a system, where the storage of single or multi-photons using the proposed system can be achieved, which in turn can be used for multi-optical/quantum memory applications.     

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.     

THz Radiation Generation via the Interaction of Ultra‐short Laser Pulses with the Molecular Hydrogen Plasma

In this paper, a two dimensional Particle In Cell‐Monte Carlo Collision simulation scheme is used to examine the THz generation via the interaction of high intensity ultra‐short laser pulses with an underdense molecular hydrogen plasma slab. The influences of plasma density, laser pulse duration and its intensity on the induced plasma current density and the subsequent effects on the generated THz signal characteristics are studied. It is observed that the induced current density in the plasma medium and THz spectral intensity are increased at the higher laser pulse intensities, laser pulse durations and plasma densities. Moreover, the generated THz electric field amplitude is reduced at the higher laser pulse durations. A wider frequency range for the generated THz signal is shown at the lower laser pulse durations and higher plasma densities. Additionally, it is found that the induced current density in hydrogen plasma medium is the dominant factor influencing the generation of THz pulse radiation. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)