M. V. Arkhipov

Generation of unipolar optical pulses in a Raman-active medium

Response of a Raman-active media (RAM) to the excitation by a series of ultrashort (few-cycle) optical pulses propagating at a superluminal velocity is studied theoretically. It is shown that under certain conditions rectangular unipolar pulses (video-pulses) can be generated as the RAM response. The duration, shape and amplitude of these video-pulses can be widely tuned by modifying the pump pulse parameters.

Transient Cherenkov radiation from an inhomogeneous string excited by an ultrashort laser pulse at superluminal velocity

The optical response of a one-dimensional string made of dipoles with a periodically varying density excited by a spot of light moving along the string at superluminal (subluminal) velocity is studied theoretically. The Cherenkov radiation in such a system is rather unusual, possessing both transient and resonant character. We show that, under certain conditions, in addition to the resonant Cherenkov peak, another Doppler-like frequency appears in the radiation spectrum. Both linear (small-signal) and nonlinear regimes as well as different string topologies are considered.

Generation of unipolar pulses in nonlinear media

Methods recently proposed for generating unipolar pulses in nonlinear media in terahertz and optical electromagnetic ranges are reviewed. Such pulses have nonzero “electric area” (time integral of the field strength over the entire duration of a pulse) and, correspondingly, a significant component of the field with zero frequency, thus exhibiting quasistatic properties. Effective generation of unipolar pulses would allow, e.g., transferring mechanical momentum to charged particles and, thereby, controlling the motion of wave packets of matter, which can be useful for compact accelerators of charged particles and for other applications.

All-optical control of unipolar pulse generation in a resonant medium with nonlinear field coupling

We study the optical response of a resonant medium possessing nonlinear coupling to an external field driven by a few-cycle pump pulse sequence. We demonstrate the possibility of directly producing unipolar half-cycle pulses from the medium possessing an arbitrary nonlinearity, by choosing the proper pulse-to-pulse distance of the pump pulses in the sequence. We examine various ways of shaping the medium response using different geometrical configurations of nonlinear oscillators and different wavefront shapes for the excitation pulse sequence. Our approach defines a general framework to produce unipolar pulses of controllable form.

On coherent mode-locking in a two-section laser

Currently existing lasers with passive mode-locking are two-section systems including an amplifier section and a saturable absorber section. The mechanism of generation of short pulses in them is based on the effects of saturation of the gain in the amplifier and absorption in the absorber, which prevent obtaining pulses with durations shorter than the relaxation time of the polarization in the amplifying and absorbing media. In this work, the new possibility of the generation of ultrashort pulses in a laser with passive mode-locking owing to the coherent character of the interaction of light with matter in the amplifying and absorbing media in ring and linear cavities has been theoretically analyzed. A practically interesting case where the amplifying and absorbing media are separated in the space of the cavity, rather than being homogeneously mixed in its volume, as was previously considered for such type of lasers, has been studied. It has been shown that the width of the spectrum of generated pulses can be much larger than the width of the amplification line and can vary depending on the parameters of the amplifying and absorbing media of the laser. The existence of nonsoliton scenarios of the regime of coherent passive mode synchronization, as well as the possibility of generation without injection of an auxiliary pulse, has been demonstrated.

Self-starting stable coherent mode-locking in a two-section laser

Abstract Coherent mode-locking (CML) uses self-induced transparency (SIT) soliton formation to achieve, in contrast to conventional schemes based on absorption saturation, the pulse durations below the limit allowed by the gain line width. Despite the great promise it is difficult to realize it experimentally because a complicated setup is required. In all previous theoretical considerations CML is believed to be non-self-starting. In this paper we show that if the cavity length is selected properly, a very stable (CML) regime can be realized in an elementary two-section ring-cavity geometry, and this regime is self-developing from the non-lasing state. The stability of the pulsed regime is the result of a dynamical stabilization mechanism arising due to finite-cavity-size effects.

Generation of unipolar pulses in a circular Raman-active medium excited by few-cycle optical pulses

We study theoretically a new possibility of unipolar pulse generation in a Raman-active medium excited by a series of few-cycle optical pulses. We consider the case when the Raman-active particles are uniformly distributed along a circle or helix, and demonstrate the possibility of obtaining rectangular unipolar pulses with an arbitrarily long duration above the minimum value equal to the natural period of the low-frequency vibrations in the Raman-active medium.

Mode-locking in a laser with a coherent absorber

Mode-locking in a cw narrowband tunable dye laser whose cavity contains absorbing cells with molecular iodine vapor has been studied experimentally. When the wavelength of radiation of the dye laser is tuned to absorption lines of molecular iodine vapor in a cell in the cavity, short pulses following with a period equal to or multiple of the round-trip time of light around the cavity appear. The duration of the generated pulses is about 1 ns, which is much shorter than the phase memory time in iodine vapor. In such a situation, modelocking occurs owing to the coherent character of the interaction of laser radiation with narrow absorption resonances in molecular iodine vapor.

Ultrafast creation and control of population density gratings via ultraslow polarization waves

In the regime of resonant coherent light-matter interaction, light pulses may interact with each other indirectly via a polarization wave created by the other pulse. We show that such interaction allows fast creation and erasing of high-contrast dynamic population density gratings, as well as control of their period in a few-cycle regime. Our scheme uses counter-propagating optical pulses, which do not cross each other in the medium. The mechanism is able to work with pulse durations up to the single-cycle limit. Somewhat surprisingly, ultrafast grating wave vector control requires the generation of polarization waves with the phase velocity much smaller than that of light.

Few-cycle pulse-driven excitation response of resonant medium with nonlinear field coupling

We study theoretically the optical response of the resonant medium on the few-cycle pulse-driven excitation for different types of the coupling strength to the field. It is demonstrated that the medium can exhibit a specific excitation response depending on the field coupling nonlinearity. Remarkably, the analysis of this response revealed the possibility of the controllable generation and shaping of unipolar optical pulses, which can be important in real-time observation and time-domain control of ultrafast processes in matter.