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Spectrally periodic pulses for enhancement of optical nonlinear effects

Nature Physics volume 18, pages 59–66 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nonlinear optical effects are typically weak and enhancement techniques are often required for practical applications. Here we introduce a method to enhance such effects by engineering the linear dispersion, which can be used in addition to existing methods. This allows us to generate a family of highly complex pulses consisting of several, equally spaced spectral components that are nonlinearly bound and propagate as a single unit. Our theory shows that this leads to an enhancement of the effective nonlinear parameter that increases with the number of frequency components. We experimentally demonstrate an enhancement factor of up to 3.5 in a mode-locked fibre laser that incorporates an intracavity spectral pulse shaper, with scope for achieving even higher enhancements. Our approach enables the generation of low-energy ultrashort pulses that nonetheless exhibit strong nonlinear effects.

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Fig. 1: Linear dispersion relations and corresponding numerical solutions.
Fig. 2: Characterization of solitons with two frequency components.
Fig. 3: Experimental measurements of spectrally periodic solitons for J = 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Fig. 4: Nonlinear enhancement factor \({{{{\mathcal{E}}}}}_{J}\).

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Data availability

Source data are provided with this paper. The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

General: We thank K. K. K. Tam for fruitful discussions. Funding: J.P.L., A.F.J.R., D.D.H., A.B.-R. and C.M.d.S. are supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (DP180102234) and the Asian Office of Aerospace R&D (AOARD) (grant no. FA2386-19-1-4067).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Photonics and Optical Sciences (IPOS), The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Joshua P. Lourdesamy, Antoine F. J. Runge, Tristram J. Alexander & C. Martijn de Sterke

  2. CACI Photonics Solutions, Florham Park, NJ, USA

    Darren D. Hudson

  3. Nokia Bell Labs, New Providence, NJ, USA

    Andrea Blanco-Redondo

  4. The University of Sydney Nano Institute (Sydney Nano), The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    C. Martijn de Sterke

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  1. Joshua P. Lourdesamy
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Contributions

A.F.J.R., D.D.H. and A.B.-R. designed the experiment. J.P.L. performed the experiments and numerical simulations. J.P.L., A.F.J.R., T.J.A. and C.M.d.S. carried out the theoretical analysis. C.M.d.S. supervised the overall project. All the authors contributed to interpretation of the data and wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Antoine F. J. Runge.

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Peer review information Nature Physics thanks Alejandro Aceves, Thibaut Sylvestre and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work

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Lourdesamy, J.P., Runge, A.F.J., Alexander, T.J. et al. Spectrally periodic pulses for enhancement of optical nonlinear effects. Nat. Phys. 18, 59–66 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-021-01400-2

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