Haizhe Zhong

Effect of initial frequency chirp on Airy pulse propagation in an optical fiber

We study both analytically and numerically the propagation dynamics of an initially chirped Airy pulse in an optical fiber. It is found that the linear propagation of an initially chirped Airy pulse depends considerably on whether the second-order dispersion parameter β(2) and chirp C have the same or opposite signs. For β(2)C<0, the chirped Airy pulse first undergoes an initial compression phase, then reaches a breakup area as depending on the values of C, and then experiences a lossy inversion transformation such that it continues to propagate with an opposite acceleration. The chirped Airy pulse is always dispersed during propagation in the case of β(2)C>0. The impact of truncation coefficient and Kerr nonlinearity on the chirped Airy pulse propagation is also disclosed separately.

Manipulation of Raman-induced frequency shift by use of asymmetric self-accelerating Airy pulse.

We investigate the evolution of asymmetric self-accelerating finite energy Airy pulses (FEAP) in optical fibers with emphasis on the role of Raman scattering. We show that the Raman-induced frequency shift (RIFS) of soliton initiated by an asymmetric self-accelerating FEAP depends not only on the launched peak power but also on the truncation coefficient imposed on the asymmetric self-accelerating FEAP. We find that the RIFS of asymmetric self-accelerating FEAP increases with a decrease in the truncation coefficient, while the peak power and spectrum width of the outermost red shift of the shedding soliton spectrum are almost unchanged. The time and frequency shifts of the shedding soliton are found to be sensitive to the truncation coefficient when the truncation coefficient is in the range of 0 to 0.1. These excellent features would lead to the realization of a RIFS-based tunable light source by launching self-accelerating FEAP with different truncation coefficient into an optical fiber.

Modulation instability of finite energy Airy pulse in optical fiber

We have investigated and analyzed the modulation instability (MI) of finite energy Airy pulse (FEAP) in an optical fiber in order to reveal the impact of truncation coefficient on the nonlinear propagation dynamics of FEAP with or without amplitude perturbation. We have also characterized the difference between the propagation process of smooth FEAP and that of modulated FEAP. It is shown that, for a smooth FEAP, the side lobes prior to the main lobe first undergo compression and then break up into multiple sub-pulses during propagation in the case of small truncation coefficient; while the opposite occurs in the case of large truncation coefficient. For a FEAP with amplitude modulation, the breakup of the main lobe induced by MI precedes that of side lobes for arbitrary values of truncation coefficients; but the evolution of secondary lobes is made by a transition from splitting process to a simple compression process with increasing truncation coefficient. The propagation dynamics of secondary lobes with number symbol larger 2, marked the secondary lobes starting number 1 from near to far according the distance between itself and the main lobe, is insensitive to the truncation coefficients variation in both cases. Finally, the MI gain spectra of FEAP with different truncation coefficients are obtained by numerically solving the nonlinear Schrödinger equation and the results have been compared with the theoretical predictions.

Propagation dynamics of super-Gaussian beams in fractional Schrödinger equation: from linear to nonlinear regimes.

We have investigated the propagation dynamics of super-Gaussian optical beams in fractional Schrödinger equation. We have identified the difference between the propagation dynamics of super-Gaussian beams and that of Gaussian beams. We show that, the linear propagation dynamics of the super-Gaussian beams with order m > 1 undergo an initial compression phase before they split into two sub-beams. The sub-beams with saddle shape separate each other and their interval increases linearly with propagation distance. In the nonlinear regime, the super-Gaussian beams evolve to become a single soliton, breathing soliton or soliton pair depending on the order of super-Gaussian beams, nonlinearity, as well as the Lévy index. In two dimensions, the linear evolution of super-Gaussian beams is similar to that for one dimension case, but the initial compression of the input super-Gaussian beams and the diffraction of the splitting beams are much stronger than that for one dimension case. While the nonlinear propagation of the super-Gaussian beams becomes much more unstable compared with that for the case of one dimension. Our results show the nonlinear effects can be tuned by varying the Lévy index in the fractional Schrödinger equation for a fixed input power.

Engineering deceleration and acceleration of soliton emitted from Airy pulse with quadratic phase modulation in optical fibers without high-order effects.

Soliton propagation direction can be engineered in optical fibers in the presence of high-order effects (HOEs). It is well known that Raman effects can decelerate the soliton. Here we investigate the manipulation of the deceleration or acceleration of soliton emitted from Airy pulse whose spectrum is imposed an initial quadratic phase modulation (QPM) in optical fibers in the absence of HOEs. We show that, under the action of the anomalous second-order dispersion (SOD) and Kerr nonlinearity, Airy pulse with QPM is able to emit soliton with acceleration or deceleration depending on whether the QPM is negative or positive, and at a rate that is determined by the magnitude of QPM. The reason is that the acceleration behaviors of incident Airy pulse is altered depending on whether SOD and QPM have the same or opposite signs. Our study shows the possibility of controlling and manipulating the soliton propagation and interaction in optical fibers without HOEs, by purposely choosing appropriate QPM parameter of an Airy pulse.

Temperature-insensitive frequency tripling for generating high-average power UV lasers

Aimed for generating high-average power ultraviolet (UV) lasers via third-harmonic generation (THG) consisting of frequency doubling and tripling stages, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate a novel frequency tripling scheme capable of supporting temperature-insensitive phase-matching (PM). Two cascaded tripling crystals, with opposite signs of the temperature derivation of phase-mismatch, are proposed and theoretically studied for improving the temperature-acceptance of PM. The proof-of-principle tripling experiment using two crystals of LBO and BBO shows that the temperature acceptance can be ~1.5 times larger than that of using a single tripling crystal. In addition, the phase shift caused by air dispersion, along with its influence on the temperature-insensitive PM, are also discussed. To illustrate the potential applications of proposed two-crystal tripling design in the high-average-power regime, full numerical simulations for the tripling process, are implemented based on the realistic crystals. The demonstrated two-crystal tripling scheme may provide a promising route to high-average-power THG in the UV region.

Group velocity mismatch-absent nonlinear frequency conversions for mid-infrared femtosecond pulses generation.

A novel group velocity mismatch (GVM) absent scheme for nonlinear optical parametric procedure in mid-infrared was developed with type-I quasi phase matching by use of an off-digital nonlinear optical coefficient d31. This was achieved by matching of the group velocities of the pump and the signal waves, while the phase velocities were quasi phase matched. The system employs MgO-doped periodically poled LiNbO3 as the nonlinear medium. Desired group-velocity dispersion would be obtained via appropriately temperature regulation. To demonstrate its potential applications in ultrafast mid-infrared pulses generation, aiming at a typical mid-infrared wavelength of ~3.2 μm, design examples of two basic nonlinear frequency conversion procedures are studied for both the narrow-band seeding mid-IR optical parametric amplification (OPA) and the synchronously pumped femtosecond optical parametric oscillation (SPOPO). Compared with the conventional scheme of type-0 QPM, the quantum-efficiency can be more than doubled with nearly unlimited bandwidth. The proposed GVM- absent phase matching design may provide a promising route to efficient and broadband sub-100 fs mid-infrared ultrafast pulses generation without group-velocity walk-off.

Discriminating the role of Raman effects in the propagation of decelerating and accelerating Airy pulses by time–frequency analysis

We present a numerical study of the propagation dynamics of accelerating and decelerating truncated Airy pulses (TAPs) in the anomalous dispersion region of optical fibres, with inclusion of the Raman scattering effects, by analysing their cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating traces. We identify the differences between the evolution dynamics of a decelerating and accelerating TAP. It is shown that the main lobe of the pulse is capable of shedding solitons, which are delayed due to the Raman effects. For the decelerating pulse, however, the soliton is dragged from the original pulse and never meets the input oscillatory Airy tail due to the deceleration of both the pulse and the soliton. The rest of the decelerating pulse rebuilds a new Airy waveform with a stronger degree of truncation compared with that of the incident pulse. For the accelerating TAP, the soliton collides continuously with the tail of the pulse and thus gains further energy by means of their nonlinear interaction. As a consequence, the remaining pulse cannot develop a new Airy waveform. In addition, under the same conditions, the Raman-induced frequency shift of the accelerating TAP is much larger compared with that of the decelerating one.

Degeneracy-analogous femtosecond dual-wavelength optical parametric oscillator at non-degenerate wavelengths

Synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) at degeneracy is ideal for generating ultrafast laser pulses. Normally, however, group velocity mismatch (GVM) is ubiquitous among the interacting pulses at widely separated wavelengths. A versatile quasi-phase-matching (QPM) technique is proposed for temporal synchronizing of the signal and idler pulses relied on a less common Type-II QPM (oe-o interaction). The proposed group-velocity regulation technology is advantageous to constructing a degeneracy-analogous femtosecond OPO for dual-wavelength operation. Qualitative prediction for the proposed design is conducted based on a commercial femtosecond pump source at 1064 nm while the signal/idler wavelengths are 3.2 μm and 1.59 μm respectively. Compared with the conventional Type-0 QPM based counterpart (ee-e interaction), the uncompensated temporal distortion caused by temporal walk-off is strongly suppressed while the idler spectrum gets significantly broader. The versatility of the proposed scheme is also clearly demonstrated by its fairly stable performance within a broad tuning range of 2.9-3.5 μm and 1.68-1.53 μm. The demonstrated configuration might be promising for synchronously obtaining dual-wavelength ultrafast pulses with higher spectral and temporal qualities.

Spectrum regulation for mid-infrared ultrafast pulses via a time-synchronization aperiodically poled LiNbO 3

Restricted to temporal separation during the coupled-waves interaction, aperiodically quasi-phase-matching (QPM) nonlinear crystals are primarily implemented for prechirped pulses, showing limited applications in ultrafast temporal scale. Under the proposed time-synchronization framework, pump and signal waves travel with identical group-velocity, which permits sustaining energy transfer in long aperiodically poled LiNbO3 crystals (APPLN) even with ultrafast pulse duration. With the help of this structure, adiabatic frequency conversion shows extra advantages compared with the common cases, which enables lower stretching ratio and smoother gain spectrum. Focusing on the typical mid-infrared wavelength of ~3 μm, we numerically study the potential performance of APPLN with chirp-free ultrabroad interacting waves. In contrast to the spectral shift and conversion efficiency degradation presented by its traditional Type-0 QPM counterpart, the proposed design demonstrated impressive ability to obtain arbitrary spectrum via a simple femtosecond OPA/OPO. Peculiarly, the QPM chirp rate sign plays a significant role to the output spectrum, and a positive chirp rate is preferential in delivering a bandwidth-controllable spectrum. The proposed design provides a promising technical route to achieve spectrum manipulation in ultrafast temporal scale.