Chirped optical pulse propagation in saturating nonlinear media

Using a variational method, we have investigated the propagation characteristics of a chirped optical pulse in anomalously dispersive media possessing saturating nonlinearity. For the special case of uniform loss less media, the dynamics of the temporal width of the pulse is shown to be equivalent to an oscillator of unit mass which is executing its motion under some effective potential well. The potential is examined and four different types of behavior of the pulse width are noticed. The role of saturation parameter and the initial chirp in determining the propagation characteristics have been examined. It is found that, both high value of chirp and saturation are detrimental to stable pulse propagation. Particularly, the effect of chirp becomes severe with the increase in the value of saturation. We have shown that incorporation of saturation in the nonlinearity leads to the existence of bistable soliton. For the case of a lossy medium, net broadening of width takes place over many cycles of oscillation. The net broadening decreases with the increase in the value of saturation.     

Waveguide propagation of sound beams in a nonlinear medium

A possibility of a waveguide propagation of sound beams in the case of compensation of the diffraction divergence by the nonlinear refraction is demonstrated theoretically. A stationary (with respect to the longitudinal coordinate) solution is obtained to the nonlinear equation for a sound beam (the Khokhlov—Zabolotskaya equation); the solution describes the characteristic bow-shaped profile of the beam and the self-localized (with respect to the transverse coordinate) distribution of the peak values of this profile. The physical and mathematical features of this phenomenon belonging to nonlinear acoustics are discussed and compared with those of the well-known analog from nonlinear optics. A scheme of an experimental realization of the waveguide propagation of acoustic beams is proposed.     

Profile of radial inhomogeneity for stationary self-trapped propagation of laser beams in a non-linear absorbing/amplifying medium with arbitrary non-linearity

Summary This paper presents an analysis of stationary self-trapped propagation of a Gaussian laser beam in radially inhomogeneous absorbing/amplifying medium with saturating non-linearity. Using the paraxial theory, the profile of radial inhomogeneity corresponding to stationary self-trapped propagation has been evaluated.     

A variational analysis of soliton switching in an NLDC with saturating non-linearity

A comparative analysis of soliton switching in a non-linear directional coupler with saturating non-linearity is carried out by a variational method. Two models of fractional non-linearity, one the usual unaveraged and the other obtained after averaging over the fibre cross-section, are considered. It is shown that the switching characteristics differ (for the same set of fibre parameters), qualitatively as well as quantitatively, for these models. The soliton switching characteristics in both the models are obtained, compared and discussed.     

Transient propagation of optical beams in active media

The coherent interaction of short optical pulses with a nonlinear active resonant medium is calculated. The rigorous and self-consistent solution of the coupled nonlinear Maxwell-Bloch equations including transverse and time-dependent phase variations predicts the onset on an on-resonance self-focusing that agrees very well with a previous perturbation treatment and with recent experiments in sodium and neon. The formation of this dynamic self-action effect is elucidated as being due to the combined effects of diffraction and the inertial response of the active media. Accuracy and computational economy are achieved simultaneously by redistributing the computational grid points according to the physical requirements of the problem. Evenly spaced computational grids are related to variable grids in physical space by a range of stretching and rezoning techniques including adaptive rezoning where the coordinate transformation is determined by the actual physical solution. Work supported in part by the Mobil Oil Corporation and the Office of Naval Research.     

Optimal beams for propagation through random media

The problem of maximizing the intensity that is transferred from a transmitter aperture to a receiver aperture is considered in which the propagation medium is random. Two optimization criteria are considered: maximal expected intensity transfer and minimal scintillation index. The beam that maximizes the expected intensity is shown to be fully coherent. Its coherent mode is determined as the principal eigenfunction for a kernel that is determined through the second-order moments of the propagation Green's function. The beam that minimizes the scintillation index is shown to be partially coherent in general, with its coherent modes determined by minimizing a quadratic form that has nonlinear dependence on the coherent-mode fields, and on the second- and fourth-order moments of the propagation Green's function.     

Waveguide propagation of intense electromagnetic radiation in slightly inhomogeneous nonlinear media

The propagation of self-localizing beams of electromagnetic waves in the form of nonlinear waveguides in a slightly inhomogeneous medium is studied analytically and numerically. The trajectories of the axial ray are studied as a function of its direction and the field strength at the initial point on the basis of a nonlinear scalar Helmholtz equation. Analytic expressions are derived. The longitudinal refractive index, the field intensity, and the waveguide radius are plotted as functions of the instantaneous position of the point on the axial ray. Deep penetration of the beam into the opaque region and the position of the screening surface are studied as functions of the parameters of the beam and the medium. A steady-state 3D problem is analyzed for a power-law nonlinearity with an arbitrary power. A 2D problem is analyzed for the case of a ponderomotive nonlinearity with saturation.     

Propagation of laser beams through inhomogeneous media

The propagation of gaussian beams in media with an arbitrary gain and/or dispersion profile is discussed using a variational method. Simple analytic formulae are derived and applied to the spin-flip laser which has a gaussian gain profile. The results are a significant improvement on the quadratic-gain approximation.     

Nonparaxial propagation of soliton-like laser beams-pulses in media with saturable nonlinearity

The theoretical analysis of manifestations of nonparaxiality of propagation (in the plane transverse to the direction of propagation of radiation) of soliton-like beams-pulses in self-focusing media with electronic saturable nonlinearity is carried out. It is shown that, in formation of such structures by pulses of a comparatively small duration, a modulation of the radiation intensity arises, which can result in a fragmentation of the beam in the longitudinal direction. The number and depth of such "jags" are governed by the power of the nonparaxial beam.     

Interaction of pulsed laser beams in quadratic nonlinear media

A theory of three-wave cascade interaction of pulsed laser beams in quadratic nonlinear media is developed with regard to diffraction and dispersion. The space-time trajectories of signal motion in a medium with an inhomogeneity induced by high-power low-frequency pumping are analyzed. It is shown that total signal reflection from a moving localized inhomogeneity can be implemented. This reflection is accompanied by a change in the frequency, velocity, and propagation direction of the signal wave.     

Modeling the propagation of nonlinear three-dimensional acoustic beams in inhomogeneous media

A three-dimensional model of the forward propagation of nonlinear sound beams in inhomogeneous media, a generalized Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov equation, is described. The Texas time-domain code (which accounts for paraxial diffraction, nonlinearity, thermoviscous absorption, and absorption and dispersion associated with multiple relaxation processes) was extended to solve for the propagation of nonlinear beams for the case where all medium properties vary in space. The code was validated with measurements of the nonlinear acoustic field generated by a phased array transducer operating at 2.5 MHz in water. A nonuniform layer of gel was employed to create an inhomogeneous medium. There was good agreement between the code and measurements in capturing the shift in the pressure distribution of both the fundamental and second harmonic due to the gel layer. The results indicate that the numerical tool described here is appropriate for propagation of nonlinear sound beams through weakly inhomogeneous media.     

Near-field and far-field propagation of beams and pulses in dispersive media

We formulate an efficient exact method of propagating optical wave packets (and cw beams) in isotropic and nonisotropic dispersive media. The method does not make the slowly varying envelope approximation in time or space and treats dispersion and diffraction exactly to all orders, even in the near field. It can also be used to determine the partial differential wave equation for pulses (and beams) to any order as a power series in the partial derivatives with respect to time and space. The method can treat extremely focused pulses and beams, e.g., from near-field scanning optical microscopy sources whose transverse spatial extent in smaller than a wavelength.     

Features of propagation of laser radiation in media with small-scale periodic inhomogeneities

The problem of laser-radiation propagation in media with small-scale periodic phase inhomogeneities is considered analytically. Relying on our analytical treatment and numerical calculations performed in the diffraction approximation, we demonstrate the effect of periodic self-reproduction of the field structure of radiation during its propagation in media with small-scale periodic inhomogeneities, which is similar to the Talbot effect in a homogeneous medium.     

Beam propagation factor of partially coherent beams in gain or absorbing media

The definition of second-order intensity moments in the spatial domain and spatial frequency domain has been generalized for the case that the linear gain or absorbing media are included, where the wave number is generally complex. The formula for beam propagation M²-factor of partially coherent beams in linear gain or absorbing media has been given. The partially coherent flat-topped Schell-model beam is taken as an example. The closed-form expression for the beam propagation M²-factor of partially coherent flat-topped beam in gain or absorbing media has been derived. The changes of the M²-factor in media have been discussed with numerical examples. It can be shown that the M²-factor of flat-topped Schell-model beams in gain or absorbing media depends on the coherent parameter β, the coherent length σ₀, the beam order M, the propagation distance B, the imaginary part of the wave number K_i, as well as the real part of the wave number K_r.     

Time-dependent propagation of high energy laser beams through the atmosphere

The computation of time-dependent three-space-dimensional laser beam propagation is described. The methods are applicable to the propagation of high energy laser beams through the atmosphere in the presence of a horizontal wind and turbulence for most situations of interest. Possible cases are propagation of cw beams through stagnation zones, multi-pulse propagation, including the self-consistent treatment of pulse self-blooming, and propagation involving transonic slewing. The solution of the Maxwell wave equation in Fresnel approximation is obtained by means of a discrete Fourier transform method, which, surprisingly, gives excellent results for diffraction problems. The latter provide a stringent test for the accuracy of any solution method. Considerable use is also made of discrete Fourier transform methods in solving the hydrodynamic equations. The treatment of turbulence is based on the generation of random phase screens at each calculation step along the propagation path. In a time-dependent calculation the random phase screens can be either made to move with the wind at a given propagation position or generated anew for each successive time. This work was done under contract to the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense, the Army Missile Command, Huntsville, Alabama, and the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration.     

Numerical propagation of partially coherent laser beams through optical systems

The propagation of partially coherent beams through optical systems is computed numerically in one transverse dimension. The optical system is divided into different elementary segments, through which the propagation of light can be calculated by appropriate operators, working on the coherence function or the Wigner distribution function respectively. For the necessary changes between these two functions describing the partially coherent beams, the use of the remarkable z-transform seems to be an advantage. With this algorithm the grid and the resolution in the spatial frequency domain can be arbitrarily chosen in contrast to the usual Fourier transform, the influence of phase aberrations on the focusability of Gauss-Schell model beams is discussed as an application example of the numerical model. With the help of this tool, practical beam guiding systems can be simulated for use with multimode laser radiation.     

Research on the propagation properties of hollow laser beams with three-dimensional trap optical distribution

A new kind of hollow beams - hollow laser beams with three-dimension trap optical distribution - was put forward. With the help of the Collins formula in paraxial optical system, the analytical equation of propagation and transformation of the hollow laser beams was deduced. According to the analytical equation, the propagation properties of the kind of hollow beams that transform in free space were simulated. In the experiment, we obtained the hollow laser beams by means of the combinational optical system of reflecting positive-axis and negative-axis pyramids. The intensity of the vertical loop in different distances was tested, which shows that the analytical equation of propagation and transformation is in agreement with the result.     

Waveguide devices with homogeneous complementary media

We report the design of microwave waveguide devices based on complementary media. Various kinds of waveguide devices that possess nearly 100% transmission efficiency are proposed, such as waveguide bends, splitters, connectors, and shifters. Compared with previous work on waveguide devices of low reflection and minimized distortion based on transformation optics, our transform media are homogeneous metamaterials. Electromagnetic simulations by a finite-element method on detailed examples have been performed to validate the designs and these functionalities can be close to the practical.