Modulation control and spectral shaping of optical fiber supercontinuum generation in the picosecond regime
G. Genty, J. M. Dudley, B. J. Eggleton
备注：
Aspects of this work were presented in Paper ThJ2 at OECC/ACOFT 2008, Sydney Australia 7-10 July (2008). Journal paper submitted for publication 30 July 2008
Numerical simulations are used to study how fiber supercontinuum generation seeded by picosecond pulses can be actively controlled through the use of input pulse modulation. By carrying out multiple simulations in the presence of noise, we show how tailored supercontinuum Spectra with increased bandwidth and improved stability can be generated using an input envelope modulation of appropriate frequency and depth. The results are discussed in terms of the non-linear propagation dynamics and pump depletion.
We generate mode-locked picosecond pulses near 1110 nm by spectrally slicing and reamplifying an octave-spanning supercontinuum source pumped at 1550 nm. The 1110 nm pulses are near transform-limited, with 1.7 ps duration over their 1.2 nm bandwidth, and exhibit high interpulse coherence. Both the supercontinuum source and the pulse synthesis system are implemented completely in fiber. The versatile source construction suggests that pulse synthesis from sliced supercontinuum may be a useful technique across the 1000 - 2000 nm wavelength range.
Recently, optimization techniques have had a significant impact in a variety of fields, leading to a higher signal-to-noise and more streamlined techniques. We consider the possibility for using programmable phase-only spatial optimization of the pump beam to influence the supercontinuum generation process. Preliminary results show that significant broadening and rough control of the supercontinuum spectrum are possible without loss of input energy. This serves as a proof-of-concept demonstration that spatial effects can controllably influence the supercontinuum spectrum, leading to possibilit…
We describe a two-color pump-probe scanning magneto-optical Kerr effect (MOKE) microscope which we have developed to investigate electron spin phenomena in semiconductors at cryogenic temperatures with picosecond time and micrometer spatial resolution. The key innovation of our microscope is the usage of an ultrafast `white light' supercontinuum fiber-laser source which provides access to the whole visible and near-infrared spectral range. Our Kerr microscope allows for the independent selection of the excitation and detection energy while avoiding the necessity to synchronize the pulse trains…
Blue-enhanced, broadband supercontinuum generation in a 50 um core fluorine-doped graded-index multimode fiber is demonstrated by pumping with a 1064 nm picosecond source. Multi-octave supercontinuum spectrum extending from ~400 nm to 2,400 nm is achieved in a relatively short fiber. The measured spectrum and multimode nonlinear properties are compared to those of a germanium-doped graded-index multimode fiber. It is shown that engineering the glass composition and thus its chromatic dispersion and absorption characteristics, provides a novel and effective approach to further controlling the n…
This paper describes the demonstration of linearly polarized picosecond pulse shaping with variable profiles including symmetric and non-symmetric intensity distributions. Important characteristics such as stability and transmission were studied, resulting in highly reliable performance of this fan-type birefringent shaping system. This variable temporal shaping technique is applicable over a wide range of laser parameters and may lead to new opportunities for many potential applications. A new double-pass variable temporal shaping method that significantly reduces the required crystal quantit…
We present a new spatial-spectral mapping technique permitting to measure the beam intensity at the output of a graded-index (GRIN) multimode fiber with sub-nanometric spectral resolution. We apply this method to visualize the fine structure of the beam shape of a sideband generated at 1870 nm by geometric parametric instability (GPI) in a GRIN fiber. After spatial-spectral characterization, we amplify the GPI sideband with a Tm-doped fiber amplifier to obtain a microjoule-scale picosecond pump whose spectrum is finally broadened in a segment of InF3 optical fiber to achieve supercontinuum ran…
Supercontinuum generation is performed in the bulk semiconductor tellurium (Te) with a high-power picosecond CO$_2$ laser at peak intensities up to 20 GW/cm$^2$. The spectrum spans from the second harmonic of the pump at 5.3 $μ$m to 32 $μ$m. Stimulated Raman scattering along with self-phase modulation and four wave mixing are found to be the main nonlinear optical processes leading to the spectral broadening. Numerical simulations using the experimental conditions indicate that the nonlinear refractive index of Te, $n_{2,\textrm{eff}}$(Te) is about (40 $\pm$ 10) $n_{2,\textrm{eff}}$(GaAs), mak…
This paper reports the study and demonstration of a new variable temporal shaping method capable of generating linearly polarized picosecond laser pulses with arbitrary predefined shapes, which are highly desired by various applications including low emittance high brightness electron bunch generation in photocathode guns. It is found that both high transmittance and high stability of the shaped pulses can be achieved simultaneously when birefringent stages (BSs) are set at specific phase delay. Such variable temporal shaping technique may lead to new opportunities for many potential applicati…
A long sought-after goal for photocathode electron sources has been to improve performance by temporally shaping the incident exitation laser pulse. The narrow bandwidth, short wavelength, and picosecond pulse duration make it challenging to employ conventional spectral pulse shaping techniques. We present a novel and efficient intensity-envelope shaping technique achieved during nonlinear upconversion through opposite-chirp sum-frequency mixing. We also present a numerical case-study of the LCLS-II photoinjector where transverse electron emittance is improved by at least 25%.
Supercontinuum generation in optical fibers is one of the most dramatic nonlinear effects discovered, allowing short pulses to be converted into multi-octave spanning coherent spectra. However, generating supercontinua that are both coherent and broadband requires pulses that are simultaneously ultrashort with high peak power. This results in a reducing efficiency with increasing pulse repetition rate, that has hindered supercontinua at microwave line spacing, i.e. 10s of GHz. Soliton microcombs by contrast, can generate octave-spanning spectra, but with good conversion efficiency only at vast…
We phase-coherently measure the frequency of continuous-wave (CW) laser light by use of optical-phase modulation and f-2f nonlinear interferometry. Periodic electro-optic modulation (EOM) transforms the CW laser into a continuous train of picosecond optical pulses. Subsequent nonlinear-fiber broadening of this EOM frequency comb produces a supercontinuum with 160 THz of bandwidth. A critical intermediate step is optical filtering of the EOM comb to reduce electronic-noise-induced decoherence of the supercontinuum. Applying f-2f self-referencing with the supercontinuum yields the carrier-envelo…
Frequency combs with mode spacing in the range of 10 to 20 gigahertz (GHz) are critical for increasingly important applications such as astronomical spectrograph calibration, high-speed dual-comb spectroscopy, and low-noise microwave generation. While electro-optic modulators and microresonators can provide narrowband comb sources at this repetition rate, a significant remaining challenge is a means to produce pulses with sufficient peak power to initiate nonlinear supercontinuum generation spanning hundreds of terahertz (THz) as required for self-referencing in these applications. Here, we pr…
The field of attosecond science was first enabled by nonlinear compression of intense laser pulses to a duration below two optical cycles. Twenty years later, creating such short pulses still requires state-of-the-art few-cycle laser amplifiers to most efficiently exploit 'instantaneous' optical nonlinearities in noble gases for spectral broadening and parametric frequency conversion. Here, we show that nonlinear compression can in fact be much more efficient when driven in molecular gases by pulses substantially longer than a few cycles, due to enhanced optical nonlinearity associated with ro…
We report the study and demonstration of a new laser pulse shaping system capable of generating linearly polarized picosecond laser pulses with variable temporal profiles including symmetric intensity distributions such as parabolic, flattop, elliptical, triangular, as well as non-symmetric distributions, which are highly desired by various applications. It is found that both high transmittance and high stability of the shaped pulse can be achieved simultaneously when crystals are set at a specific phase delay through fine control of the crystal temperature. Although multi-crystal pulse stacki…
The use of photonic crystal fibers pumped by femtosecond pulses has enabled the generation of broad optical supercontinua with nano-joule input energies. This striking discovery has applications ranging from spectroscopy and metrology to telecommunication and medicine. Amongst the physical principles underlying supercontinuum generation are soliton fission, a variety of four-wave mixing processes, Raman induced soliton self-frequency shift, and dispersive wave generation mediated by solitons. Although all of the above effects contribute to supercontinuum generation none of them can explain the…
A new adaptive shaping method that can generate arbitrary optical waveforms with folded-type or fan-type birefringent variable shapers is proposed in this paper. Automatic arbitrary laser temporal shaping of picosecond and femtosecond lasers in shapers with material dispersion, nonidentical birefringent retarders are also studied and results are presented demonstrating the power of the method.
A tapered semiconductor amplifier is injection seeded by a femtosecond optical frequency comb at 780 nm from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. Energy gains over 17 dB (12 dB) are obtained for 1 mW (20 mW) of average input power when the input pulses are stretched into the picosecond range. A spectral window of supercontinuum light generated in a photonic fiber has also been amplified. Interferometric measurements show sub-hertz linewidths for a heterodyne beat between the input and amplified comb components, yielding no detectable phase-noise degradation under amplification. These amplifiers ca…
The spectrum of a CW field whose phase experiences a periodic sawtooth modulation is analyzed. Two types of the sawtooth phase modulation are considered. One is created by combining many harmonics of the fundamental frequency. The second is produced by electro-optic modulator fed by the relaxation oscillator, which generates a voltage slowly rising during charging the energy storage capacitor and dropping fast due to discharge by a short circuit. It is proposed to filter out the main spectral component of the sawtooth phase modulated field. This filtering produces short pulses from CW phase mo…
We overview recent advances in the research on spatiotemporal beam shaping in nonlinear multimode optical fibers. An intense light beam coupled to a graded index (GRIN) highly multimode fiber undergoes a series of complex nonlinear processes when its power grows larger. Among them, the lowest threshold effect is the Kerr-induced beam self-cleaning, that redistributes most of the beam energy into a robust bell-shaped beam close to the fundamental mode. At higher powers a series of spectral sidebands is generated, thanks to the phase matching induced by the long period grating due to the periodi…
Advances of quantum control technology have led to nearly perfect single-qubit control of nuclear spins and atomic hyperfine ground states. In contrast, quantum control of strong optical transitions, even for free atoms, are far from being perfect. Developments of such quantum control appears to be bottlenecked by available laser technology for generating isolated, sub-nanosecond optical waveforms with sub-THz programming bandwidth. Here we propose a simple and robust method for the desired pulse shaping, based on precisely stacking multiple delayed picosecond pulses. Our proof-of-principal de…
Synchrotrons are powerful and productive in revealing the spatiotemporal complexities in matter. However, X-ray pulses produced by the synchrotrons are predetermined in specific patterns and widths, limiting their operational flexibility and temporal resolution. Here, we introduce the on-chip picosecond synchrotron pulse shaper that shapes the sub-nm-wavelength hard X-ray pulses at individual beamlines, flexibly and efficiently beyond the synchrotron pulse limit. The pulse shaper is developed using the widely available silicon-on-insulator technology, oscillates in torsional motion at the same…
We present a novel, highly versatile, and self-referenced arrival time monitor for measuring the femtosecond time delay between a hard X-ray pulse from a free-electron laser and an optical laser pulse, measured directly on the same sample used for pump-probe experiments. Two chirped and picosecond long optical supercontinuum pulses traverse the sample with a mutually fixed time delay of 970 fs, while a femtosecond X-ray pulse arrives at an instant in between both pulses. Behind the sample the supercontinuum pulses are temporally overlapped to yield near-perfect destructive interference in the …
The ability to exploit the on-chip nonlinear generation of new frequencies has opened the door to a plethora of applications in fundamental and applied physics. Excitation of dispersive waves is a particularly interesting process that allows efficient nonlinear wavelength conversion by phase-matching of a soliton and waves in the normal dispersion regime. However, controlling the wavelength of dispersive waves in integrated waveguides remains an open challenge, hampering versatile shaping of the nonlinear spectral response. Here, we show that metamaterial silicon waveguides release new degrees…
The dream of physico-chemists to control molecular reactions with light beyond electronic excitations pushes the development of laser pulse shaping capabilities in the mid-infrared (MIR) spectral range. Here, we present a compact optical parametric amplifier platform for the generation and shaping of MIR laser pulses in the wavelength range between $8\,μ$m and $15\,μ$m. Opportunities for judiciously tailoring the electromagnetic waveform are investigated, demonstrating light field control with a spectral resolution of 60 GHz at a total spectral bandwidth of 5 THz. In experiments focusing on sp…
Spectro-temporal shaping of broadband optical wavepackets via programmable on-chip photonics
XLIM Research Institute, CNRS UMR 7252, Université de Limoges（利摩日大学 XLIM 研究所）；Adelaide University（阿德莱德大学）；City University of Hong Kong（香港城市大学）；QXP Technologies Inc.（QXP 科技有限公司）；Swinburne University of Technology（斯威本科技大学）；Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique - Centre Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications（国家科学研究学院 - 能源材料电信中心）
Nyquist wavelength division (de)multiplexing (N-WDM) is a highly promising technique for next-generation high-speed elastic networks. In N-WDM, Nyquist filtering is an essential function that governs the channel spectral efficiency. However, most Nyquist filter implementations to date require either expensive, power-hungry digital electronics or complex arrangements of bulky optical components, hindering their adoption for important functions such as Nyquist channel shaping and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) for Nyquist super-channels. Here, we present a distinctive solu…
We demonstrate that the intrinsic properties of monolayer graphene allow it to act as a more effective saturable absorber for mode-locking fiber lasers compared to multilayer graphene. The absorption of monolayer graphene can be saturated at lower excitation intensity compared to multilayer graphene, graphene with wrinkle-like defects, and functionalized graphene. Monolayer graphene has a remarkable large modulation depth of 95.3%, whereas the modulation depth of multilayer graphene is greatly reduced due to nonsaturable absorption and scattering loss. Picoseconds ultrafast laser pulse (1.23 p…
Since its first demonstration in the sixties, coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) has become a powerful spectroscopic sensing tool with broad applications in biology and chemistry. However, it is a complex nonlinear optical process that often leads to the lacks of quantitative data outputs. In this letter, we observe how CARS signal builds up gradually and demonstrate how to control its deferral with laser-pulse shaping. A time-resolved three-color CARS that involves a pair of driving broadband femtosecond pulses and delayed shaped probe pulse is realized experimentally. Driving pulse…
