Passive nonlinear reshaping towards parabolic pulses in the steady-state regime in optical fibers

The passive nonlinear reshaping in normally dispersive optical fibers in the steady-state regime is studied numerically. It is found that normal dispersion and self-phase modulation are able to provide pulse reshaping towards a parabolic pulse profile at the distances exceeding the optical wave breaking length. However, as compared to the similariton formation in active fibers the resulted pulse shape in passive fibers is strongly depended on the initial pulse parameters and nonlinear and dispersive fiber properties as well. The influence of initial pulse shape, initial chirp, third-order dispersion and loss on the parabolic pulse formation is studied consistently, and estimation of practical conditions which are needed for parabolic pulses formation in a passive fiber is provided.     

New Chemical Transformations Involving SO2F2-Mediated Alcohol Activation

Sulfuryl fluoride is a gas produced on a multi-ton scale for its use as a fumigant. In the last decades, it has gained interest in organic synthesis as a reagent with unique properties in terms of stability and reactivity when compared to other sulfur-based reagents. Sulfuryl fluoride has not only been used for sulfur-fluoride exchange (SuFEx) chemistry but also encountered applications in classic organic synthesis as an efficient activator of both alcohols and phenols, forming a triflate surrogate, namely a fluorosulfonate. A long-standing industrial collaboration in our research group drove our work on the sulfuryl fluoride-mediated transformations that will be highlighted below. We will first describe recent works on metal-catalyzed transformations from aryl fluorosulfonates while emphasizing the one-pot processes from phenol derivatives. In a second section, nucleophilic substitution reactions on polyfluoroalkyl alcohols will be discussed and the value of polyfluoroalkyl fluorosulfonates in comparison to alternative triflate and halide reagents will be brought to light.