Chaotic chirped-pulse oscillators

Atmospheric dispersion management in mid-IR mode-locked oscillators

The atmospheric dispersion in the mid-infrared transparency windows presents an important albeit often neglected factor when developing ultrashort-pulsed lasers. We show that it can amount to hundreds of fs² in 2-3 µm window with typical laser round-trip path lengths. Using the Cr:ZnS ultrashort-pulsed laser as a test-bed, we demonstrate the atmospheric dispersion influence on femtosecond and chirped-pulse oscillator performance and show that the humidity fluctuations can be compensated by an active dispersion control, greatly improving stability of mid-IR few-optical cycle laser sources. The approach can be readily extended to any ultrafast source in the mid-IR transparency windows.

High peak power and energy scaling in the mid-IR chirped-pulse oscillator-amplifier laser systems

The paper introduces a new route towards the ultrafast high laser peak power and energy scaling in a hybrid mid-IR chirped pulse oscillator-amplifier (CPO-CPA) system, without sacrificing neither the pulse duration nor energy. The method is based on using a CPO as a seed source allowing the beneficial implementation of a dissipative soliton (DS) energy scaling approach, coupled with a universal CPA technique. The key is avoiding a destructive nonlinearity in the final stages of an amplifier and compressor elements by using a chirped high-fidelity pulse from CPO. Our main intention is to realize this approach in a Cr²⁺:ZnS-based CPO as a source of energy-scalable DSs with well-controllable phase characteristics for a single-pass Cr²⁺:ZnS amplifier. A qualitative comparison of experimental and theoretical results provides a road map for the development and energy scaling of the hybrid CPO-CPA laser systems, without compromising pulse duration. The suggested technique opens up a route towards extremely intense ultra-short pulses and frequency combs from the multi-pass CPO-CPA laser systems that are particularly interesting for real-life applications in the mid-IR spectral range from 1 to 20 μm.

Oscillatory dissipative solitons stabilized by nonlinear gradient terms: The transition to localized spatiotemporal disorder

We investigate properties of oscillatory dissipative solitons (DSs) in a cubic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation stabilized by nonlinear gradient terms. As a main result we find a transition to dissipative solitons with spatiotemporal disorder as a function of the diffusion coefficient. This transition proceeds via quasiperiodicity and shows incommensurate satellites next to the fundamental frequency and its harmonics indicating a possible route to localized spatiotemporal chaos. The transition back to oscillatory DSs follows a similar scenario.

Coexistence of dissipative soliton and stretched pulse in dual-wavelength mode-locked Tm-doped fiber laser with strong third-order dispersion

Mode-locked lasers with strong high order dispersion exhibit rich nonlinear dynamics. Here we numerically and experimentally demonstrate coexistence of dissipative soliton (DS) and stretched pulse (SP) in a dual-wavelength mode-locked Tm-doped fiber laser with strong third-order dispersion (TOD), where the DS and SP show completely different pulse duration and peak power. Wavelength-dependent feature of the net cavity group-velocity dispersion (GVD) leaded by the strong TOD plays a key role for the coexistence patterns. To our best knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the coexistence of different mode-locked pulse regimes with strong laser cavity TOD.

Transitions of stationary to pulsating solutions in the complex cubic-quintic Ginzburg-Landau equation under the influence of nonlinear gain and higher-order effects

In this paper we study the transitions of stationary to pulsating solutions in the complex cubic-quintic Ginzburg-Landau equation (CCQGLE) under the influence of nonlinear gain, its saturation, and higher-order effects: self-steepening, third-order of dispersion, and intrapulse Raman scattering in the anomalous dispersion region. The variation method and the method of moments are applied in order to obtain the dynamic models with finite degrees of freedom for the description of stationary and pulsating solutions. Having applied the first model and its bifurcation analysis we have discovered the existence of families of subcritical Poincaré-Andronov-Hopf bifurcations due to the intrapulse Raman scattering, as well as some small nonlinear gain and the saturation of the nonlinear gain. A phenomenon of nonlinear stability has been studied and it has been shown that long living pulsating solutions with relatively small fluctuations of amplitude and frequencies exist at the bifurcation point. The numerical analysis of the second model has revealed the existence of Poincaré-Andronov-Hopf bifurcations of Raman dissipative soliton under the influence of the self-steepening effect and large nonlinear gain. All our theoretical predictions have been confirmed by the direct numerical solution of the full perturbed CCQGLE. The detailed comparison between the results obtained by both dynamic models and the direct numerical solution of the perturbed CCQGLE has proved the applicability of the proposed models in the investigation of the solutions of the perturbed CCQGLE.

Dissipative soliton and synchronously dual-wavelength mode-locking Yb:YSO lasers

We experimentally demonstrate the dissipative soliton mode-locking operation of a Yb:YSO laser by using an all-normal dispersion cavity. Strongly chirped pulses are obtained with pulse duration of 9.3 ps at a repetition rate of 113.4 MHz. The central wavelength is 1082 nm with 3.1 nm FWHM bandwidth. A dual-wavelength synchronously mode-locking operation at central wavelengths of 1059.2 nm and 1082.2 nm is also reported. Stable mode-locked pulses are achieved with pulse duration of 10 ps and total average output power of 164 mW. Periodic ultrashort beat pulses with pulse duration of 169 fs at an ultrahigh repetition rate of 1.4 THz can be distinctly observed from the measured autocorrelation trace. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of dual-wavelength synchronously mode-locking operation from a Yb:YSO laser.

Dissipative Raman solitons

A new type of dissipative solitons--dissipative Raman solitons--are revealed on the basis of numerical study of the generalized complex nonlinear Ginzburg-Landau equation. The stimulated Raman scattering significantly affects the energy scalability of the dissipative solitons, causing splitting to multiple pulses. We show, that an appropriate increase of the group-delay dispersion can suppress the multipulsing instability due to formation of the dissipative Raman soliton, which is chirped, has a Stokes-shifted spectrum, and chaotic modulation on its trailing edge. The strong perturbation of a soliton envelope caused by the stimulated Raman scattering confines the energy scalability preventing the so-called dissipative soliton resonance. We show, that in practical implementations, a spectral filter can extend the stability regions of high-energy pulses.

Graphene mode-locked Cr:ZnS chirped-pulse oscillator

We report the first to our knowledge high-energy graphene mode-locked solid-state laser operating in the positive dispersion regime. Pulses with 15.5 nJ energy and 42 nm spectral bandwidth with 0.87 ps duration were obtained at 2.4 μm wavelength. The output can be compressed down to 189 fs. The graphene absorber damage threshold was established at fluence approaching 1 mJ/cm².

Focus issue introduction: nonlinear optics 2013

Nonlinear Optics has continued to develop over the last few years at an extremely fast pace, with significant advances being reported in nonlinear optical metamaterials, optical signal processing, quantum optics, nonlinear optics at subwavelength scale, and biophotonics. These exciting new developments have generated significant potential for a broad spectrum of technological applications in which nonlinear-optical processes play a central role.