OSA's Digital Library

Optics Express

Optics Express

  • Editor: C. Martijn de Sterke
  • Vol. 19, Iss. 2 — Jan. 17, 2011
  • pp: 757–763

Optics InfoBase > Optics Express > Volume 19 > Issue 2 > Page 757

Energy and spectral enhancement of femtosecond supercontinuum in a noble gas using a weak seed

Trenton R. Ensley, Dmitry A. Fishman, Scott Webster, Lazaro A. Padilha, David J. Hagan, and Eric W. Van Stryland  »View Author Affiliations


Optics Express, Vol. 19, Issue 2, pp. 757-763 (2011)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.19.000757


View Full Text Article

Enhanced HTML    Acrobat PDF (1825 KB)


Advanced Search

Browse Journals / Lookup Meetings

Browse by Journal and Year


   


Lookup Conference Papers

Close Browse Journals / Lookup Meetings

Article Tools

Share
Citations

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate that the use of a weak seed pulse of energy less than 0.4% of the pump results in a spectral energy enhancement that spans over 2 octaves and a total energy enhancement of more than 3 times for supercontinua generated by millijoule level femtosecond pulses in Krypton gas. Strong four-wave mixing of the pump-seed pulse interacting in the gas is observed. The spectral irradiance generated from the seeding process is sufficiently high to use white-light continuum as an alternative to conventional tunable sources of radiation for applications such as nonlinear optical spectroscopy.

© 2011 OSA

OCIS Codes
(190.4380) Nonlinear optics : Nonlinear optics, four-wave mixing
(320.7110) Ultrafast optics : Ultrafast nonlinear optics
(190.4975) Nonlinear optics : Parametric processes
(320.6629) Ultrafast optics : Supercontinuum generation

ToC Category:
Ultrafast Optics

History
Original Manuscript: November 15, 2010
Revised Manuscript: December 16, 2010
Manuscript Accepted: December 17, 2010
Published: January 5, 2011

Citation
Trenton R. Ensley, Dmitry A. Fishman, Scott Webster, Lazaro A. Padilha, David J. Hagan, and Eric W. Van Stryland, "Energy and spectral enhancement of femtosecond supercontinuum in a noble gas using a weak seed," Opt. Express 19, 757-763 (2011)
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/oe/abstract.cfm?URI=oe-19-2-757


Sort:  Author  |  Year  |  Journal  |  Reset  

References

  1. R. R. Alfano and S. L. Shapiro, “Observation of self-phase modulation and small-scale filaments in crystals and glasses,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 24(11), 592–594 (1970). [CrossRef]
  2. P. B. Corkum, C. Rolland, and T. Srinivasan-Rao, “Supercontinuum generation in gases,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 57(18), 2268–2271 (1986). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  3. A. Brodeur and S. L. Chin, “Band-gap dependence of the ultrafast white-light continuum,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 80(20), 4406–4409 (1998). [CrossRef]
  4. M. Kolesik, G. Katona, J. V. Moloney, and E. M. Wright, “Physical factors limiting the spectral extent and band gap dependence of supercontinuum generation,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 91(4), 043905 (2003). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  5. P. B. Corkum and C. Rolland, “Femtosecond continua produced in gases,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 25(12), 2634–2639 (1989). [CrossRef]
  6. G. Yang and Y. R. Shen, “Spectral broadening of ultrashort pulses in a nonlinear medium,” Opt. Lett. 9(11), 510–512 (1984). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  7. Y. Kamali, J.-F. Daigle, F. Théberge, M. Châteauneuf, A. Azarm, Y. Chen, C. Marceau, S. C. Lessard, F. Lessard, G. Roy, J. Dubois, and S. L. Chin, “Remote sensing of trace methane using mobile femtosecond laser system of T&T Lab,” Opt. Commun. 282(10), 2062–2065 (2009). [CrossRef]
  8. A. Couairon, H. Chakraborty, and M. B. Gaarde, “From single-cycle self-compressed filaments to isolated attosecond pulses in noble gases,” Phys. Rev. A 77(5), 053814 (2008). [CrossRef]
  9. M. Sheik-Bahae, A. A. Said, T. H. Wei, D. J. Hagan, and E. W. Van Stryland, “Sensitive measurement of optical nonlinearities using a single beam,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 26(4), 760–769 (1990). [CrossRef]
  10. M. Sheik-Bahae, A. A. Said, T. H. Wei, D. J. Hagan, and E. W. Van Stryland, “Special 30th anniversary feature: sensitive measurement of optical nonlinearities using a single beam,” IEEE LEOS Newsletter 21, 17–35 (2007).
  11. M. Balu, J. Hales, D. J. Hagan, and E. W. Van Stryland, “White-light continuum Z-scan technique for nonlinear materials characterization,” Opt. Express 12(16), 3820–3826 (2004). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  12. M. Balu, L. A. Padilha, D. J. Hagan, E. W. Van Stryland, S. Yao, K. Belfield, S. Zheng, S. Barlow, and S. Marder, “Broadband Z-Scan characterization using a high-spectral-irradiance, high-quality supercontinuum,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 25(2), 159–165 (2008). [CrossRef]
  13. M. Balu, L. A. Padilha, D. J. Hagan, E. W. Van Stryland, S. Yao, K. Belfield, S. Zheng, S. Barlow, and S. Marder, “Broadband Z-Scan characterization using a high-spectral-irradiance, high-quality supercontinuum: erratum,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 26(8), 1663 (2009). [CrossRef]
  14. J. Kasparian, R. Sauerbrey, D. Mondelain, S. Niedermeier, J. Yu, J.-P. Wolf, Y.-B. André, M. Franco, B. Prade, S. Tzortzakis, A. Mysyrowicz, M. Rodriguez, H. Wille, and L. Wöste, “Infrared extension of the super continuum generated by femtosecond terawatt laser pulses propagating in the atmosphere,” Opt. Lett. 25(18), 1397–1399 (2000). [CrossRef]
  15. D. R. Solli, C. Ropers, and B. Jalali, “Active control of rogue waves for stimulated supercontinuum generation,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 101(23), 233902 (2008). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  16. J. H. Kim, M. K. Chen, C.-E. Yang, J. Lee, K. Shi, Z. Liu, S. S. Yin, K. Reichard, P. Ruffin, E. Edwards, C. Brantley, and C. Luo, “Broadband supercontinuum generation covering UV to mid-IR region by using three pumping sources in single crystal sapphire fiber,” Opt. Express 16(19), 14792–14800 (2008). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  17. C. Xiong, Z. Chen, and W. J. Wadsworth, “Dual-wavelength-pumped supercontinuum generation in an all-fiber device,” J. Lightwave Technol. 27(11), 1638–1643 (2009). [CrossRef]
  18. K. Wang, L. Qian, H. Luo, P. Yuan, and H. Zhu, “Ultrabroad supercontinuum generation by femtosecond dual-wavelength pumping in sapphire,” Opt. Express 14(13), 6366–6371 (2006). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  19. K. Y. Kim, A. J. Taylor, J. H. Glownia, and G. Rodriguez, “Coherent control of terahertz supercontinuum generation in ultrafast laser-gas interactions,” Nat. Photonics 2(10), 605–609 (2008). [CrossRef]
  20. P. B. Petersen and A. Tokmakoff, “Source for ultrafast continuum infrared and terahertz radiation,” Opt. Lett. 35(12), 1962–1964 (2010). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  21. F. Théberge, N. Aközbek, W. Liu, A. Becker, and S. L. Chin, “Tunable ultrashort laser pulses generated through filamentation in gases,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 97(2), 023904 (2006). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
  22. I. V. Fedotov, A. B. Fedotov, P. A. Zhokhov, A. A. Lanin, A. D. Savvin, and A. M. Zheltikov, “Parametric transformation and spectral shaping of supercontinuum by high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses,” JETP Lett. 88(3), 157–159 (2008). [CrossRef]
  23. I. V. Fedotov, P. A. Zhokhov, A. B. Fedotov, and A. M. Zheltikov, “Probing the ultrafast nonlinear-optical response of ionized atmospheric air by polarization-resolved four-wave mixing,” Phys. Rev. A 80(1), 015802 (2009). [CrossRef]
  24. C. S. Liu, V. B. Pathak, and V. K. Tripathi, “Cross-phase modulation between lasers in a tunnel ionizing gas,” Phys. Plasmas 16(5), 053102 (2009). [CrossRef]
  25. A. S. Joshi, P. A. Naik, S. Barnwal, Y. B. S. R. Prasad, and P. D. Gupta, “A novel technique for measurement of self-generated magnetic fields and the plasma density in laser produced plasmas from the Faraday rotation using two color probes,” Opt. Commun. 283(23), 4713–4716 (2010). [CrossRef]

Cited By

 Alert me when this paper is cited

OSA is able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating in CrossRef's Cited-By Linking service. CrossRef includes content from more than 3000 publishers and societies. In addition to listing OSA journal articles that cite this paper, citing articles from other participating publishers will also be listed.

Figures

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3
 
Fig. 4 Fig. 5
 

« Previous Article  |  Next Article »

OSA is a member of CrossRef.

CrossCheck Deposited