Intersubband Rabi oscillations in asymmetric nanoheterostructures: implications for a tunable continuous-wave source of a far-infrared and THz radiation

A tunable continuous-wave source of a far-infrared and THz radiation based on a semiconductor nanoheterostructure with asymmetric quantum wells is suggested. It utilizes Rabi oscillations at a transition between quantum well subbands excited by external femtosecond pulses of a mid-infrared electromagnetic field. Due to quantum well broken inversion symmetry the subbands possess different average dipole moments, which enables the creation of polarization at the Rabi frequency as the subband populations change. It is shown that if this polarization is excited so that it is periodic in space, then, though being pulsed, it can produce continuous-wave output radiation. Changing the polarization space period and the time intervals between the exciting pulses, one can tune the frequency of this radiation throughout the far-infrared and THz range. In the present work a concrete multiple quantum well heterostructure design and a scheme of its space-periodic polarization are suggested. It is shown that for existing sources of mid-infrared femtosecond pulses the proposed scheme can provide a continuous-wave output power of order the power of far-infrared and THz quantum cascade lasers. Being added to the possibility of its output frequency tuning, this can make the suggested device attractive for fundamental research and various applications.     

Diffraction of spatiotemporally localized X-wave pulses from a screen containing two rectangular slits

The diffraction of X-waves from a screen containing two slits is investigated. It is shown that when the peak of the incident X-wave hits the screen midway between the slits, two pulses are generated from each slit. These pulses follow laterally skewed trajectories relative to the direction of propagation of the incident X-wave along the central axis of the configuration. One of the two pulses converges on the central axis and the other diverges away from it. A geometrical construction explaining the behavior of these pulses is provided. It is shown that the trajectory of each radiated pulse can be deduced from the intersection of two curved wavefronts emanating from the two edges of each slit. The pulses converging on the central axis meet at a certain range, thus suggesting a novel focusing scheme.     

Non-sequential double ionization of argon by elliptically polarized laser pulses

With a classical ensemble model, we investigated non-sequential double ionization (NSDI) of argon by elliptically polarized laser pulses. The results show that the correlation behaviors of two electrons depend strongly on the laser intensity. At relatively high laser intensity, the momentum spectra of two electrons along the long axis of the laser polarization plane are mainly distributed in the first and third quadrants and display V-like structures. However, at relatively low laser intensity, the momentum spectra of two electrons are mainly distributed in the second and fourth quadrants. By back analyzing the classical trajectories of NSDI, we find that all of the successful NSDI events still come from recollision in the cases of elliptically polarized laser pulses, and the final-state electron repulsion plays a decisive role for the V-like structure along the long axis of the laser polarization plane. In addition, we find that the initial velocity of the first electron at ionization along the short axis of the laser polarization plane are essential for the recollision, and the time delay between the first ionization and recollision depends on the ellipticity strongly.     

Prelase stabilization of the polarization state and frequency of a Q-switched, diode-pumped, Nd:YAG laser

We present an experimental investigation of the energy statistics of the linear polarization components of pulses from a Nd:YAG laser that is repetitively Q-switched with an acousto-optic modulator. Varying the modulator-induced diffraction losses leads to changes in the pulse polarization state and the energy statistics of the polarization components. For conventional Q-switching there is no laser oscillation during the low-Q intervals, and we find that the orthogonal components of the pulses can display large relative energy fluctuations even though the total pulse energy is quite stable. In the prelase mode, a weak continuous-wave background seeds the Q-switched pulses and results in the emission of highly linearly polarized, single-longitudinal-mode pulses with small relative energy fluctuations.     

Measurement of the surface profile of an axicon lens with a polarization phase-shifting shearing interferometer

We present a Twyman-Green interferometer (TGI)-based polarization phase-shifting shearing interferometric technique for testing the conical surface of an axicon (AX) lens. In this technique, the annular beam generated due to the passing of an expanded collimated laser beam traveling along the axis of revolution of the transparent glass AX element is split up into its reflected and transmitted components, having the plane of polarization in the orthogonal planes, by the polarization beam splitter (PBS) cube of the TGI-based optical setup. The split-up components are made to travel unequal paths along the two arms of the TGI and are recombined by the PBS. Because of the difference in path lengths traveled by the annular conical beams, a linear shear is introduced along the radial direction between the interfering components. Thus, the resulting interference pattern gives a map of the optical path difference (OPD) between two successive close points along a radial direction on the conical surface of the AX lens. The OPD map along radial directions, and hence the slopes/profiles of the conical surface, are obtained by applying polarization phase-shifting interferometry. Results obtained for an AX lens are presented.     

Demonstration of a folded Sagnac sensor array immune to polarization-induced signal fading

We demonstrate a new folded Sagnac sensor array design that combines a Faraday rotator mirror and a polarization beam splitter to eliminate the optical noise pulses otherwise generated in a folded Sagnac sensor array. A depolarization scheme compatible with this configuration is also proposed and demonstrated experimentally. It is shown that this new configuration passively eliminates polarization-induced signal fading on every sensor in the array. The minimum detectable phase was measured to be approximately 1.1 microrad/square root of Hz, in agreement with theory.     

Spectral properties of the nonspherically decaying radiation generated by a rotating superluminal source

The focusing of the radiation generated by a polarization current with a superluminally rotating distribution pattern is of a higher order in the plane of rotation than in other directions. Consequently, our previously published [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A24, 2443 (2007)] asymptotic approximation to the value of this field outside the equatorial plane breaks down as the line of sight approaches a direction normal to the rotation axis, i.e., is nonuniform with respect to the polar angle. Here we employ an alternative asymptotic expansion to show that, though having a rate of decay with frequency (mu) that is by a factor of order mu(2/3) slower, the equatorial radiation field has the same dependence on distance as the nonspherically decaying component of the generated field in other directions: It, too, diminishes as the inverse square root of the distance from its source. We also briefly discuss the relevance of these results to the giant pulses received from pulsars: The focused, nonspherically decaying pulses that arise from a superluminal polarization current in a highly magnetized plasma have a power-law spectrum (i.e., a flux density S infinity mu(alpha)) whose index (alpha) is given by one of the values -2/3, -2, -8/3, or -4.     

Separation of chaotic signals during their incoherent reception using a reference chaos generator

A new scheme of incoherent reception of chaotic radio pulses using a reference chaos generator is described. Analysis of the proposed scheme confirms its performance and efficiency. The scheme exhibits selectivity and can be used for separating pulses generated by several sources.     

Nontrivial polarization shaping of femtosecond pulses by reference to the results of dual-channel spectral interferometry

Adaptive shaping of time-dependent polarization pulses is performed by reference to the analyzed results of dual-channel spectral interferometry. The desired pulses can be generated only by use of such a polarization-characterization technique. We demonstrate the generation of shaped femtosecond pulses whose ellipticity increases at a constant rate. The relative error between the shaped pulse and the target pulse is less than 6% over the main part of the pulse. Shaped time-dependent polarization pulses have many potential applications.     

Modeling liquid-crystal devices with the three-dimensional full-vector beam propagation method

Simulation of light propagation within nematic liquid-crystal (LC) devices is considered, of which the director is aligned normal to the z axis. A three-dimensional full-vector finite-difference beam propagation method for an anisotropic medium is presented and an alternating direction implicit scheme is adopted. Simulations of light propagation in a bulk polarization converter, a waveguide with a LC covering layer, and an integrated polarization splitter and optical switch are presented. Comparison with an existing simulation method is carried out for beam behavior within the bulk polarization converter. The effect of strong surface anchoring of a LC cell on the beam behaviors within the integrated switch is also demonstrated.     

Tri-level Echo in the Case of Exciting Pulses with Arbitrary Shapes

In the limit of small exciting light-pulse areas the amplitude and polarization of the tri-level photon echo in gases formed by the exciting pulses with arbitrary shapes are obtained. It is shown that the dependence of the tri-level photon echo signal on the mutual orientation of the exciting pulse polarization vectors may be used to determine the optical coherence-matrix relaxation characteristics for an optically forbidden transition. The conditions under which a tri-level photon echo pulse repeats the shape of each of the exciting pulses are defined. It is proved that the tri-level photon-echo polarization properties do not depend on the shapes of the exciting pulses, either for small light-pulse areas or for the tri-level echo formation on narrow spectral lines.     

Polarization changes of partially coherent pulses propagating in optical fibers

We consider polarization changes of partially coherent pulses propagating through birefringent dispersive fibers in the linear regime. We show that the evolution of the degree of polarization across such pulses is determined not only by the coherence properties of the pulse in the source plane, but also by the spatial walk-off introduced by the group-velocity mismatch between the two polarization components. The interplay between these two factors determines the asymptotic value of the degree of polarization of an initially unpolarized statistical pulse. We compare our results with previously discussed coherence-induced polarization changes of partially coherent beams propagating in free space.     

Visible-regime polarimetric imager: a fully polarimetric,real-time imaging system

A fully polarimetric optical camera system has been constructed to obtain polarimetric information simultaneously from four synchronized charge-coupled device imagers at video frame rates of 60 Hz and a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. The imagers view the same scene along the same optical axis by means of a four-way beam-splitting prism similar to ones used for multiple-imager, common-aperture color TV cameras. Appropriate polarizing filters in front of each imager provide the polarimetric information. Mueller matrix analysis of the polarimetric response of the prism, analyzing filters, and imagers is applied to the detected intensities in each imager as a function of the applied state of polarization over a wide range of linear and circular polarization combinations to obtain an average polarimetric calibration consistent to approximately 2%. Higher accuracies can be obtained by improvement of the polarimetric modeling of the splitting prism and by implementation of a pixel-by-pixel calibration.     

Phase-locked ultra-broadband supercontinuum generation in a mid-infrared polarization gating

We theoretically investigate the UV-assisted high-order harmonic generation (HHG) process in a mid-infrared polarization gating (PG) field. The ionization and recombination steps of the HHG process can be controlled simultaneously by the UV and PG pulses. The influences of the delay between the UV and PG pulses on the phase-locking degree and the intensity of the harmonics are presented quantitatively. The results show that the harmonics are phase-locked as well as the intensity is significantly enhanced by 3 or 4 orders at a proper delay. Then a phase-locked ultra-broadband supercontinuum with a bandwidth of 240?eV is produced efficiently, supporting the generation of a Fourier-transform-limited pulse duration below one atomic unit of time. In addition, efficient isolated 110 as pulses with tunable central wavelengths can be obtained directly by selecting a different range of the supercontinuum.     

High peak-power single-frequency pulses using multiple stage, large core phosphate fibers and preshaped pulses

We have developed a monolithic high power pulsed fiber laser in a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) configuration, which is capable of reaching 0.38 mJ pulse energy and 128 kW peak power for 3 ns pulses at ~1550 nm while maintaining transform-limited linewidth. The fiber laser pulse seed was achieved by directly modulating a CW single-frequency fiber laser using an electro-optic modulator. We used an arbitrary waveform generator to preshape the fiber laser pulses before amplification to avoid pulse steepening and dynamic gain saturation. Single-mode, polarization maintaining highly Er/Yb codoped large core phosphate fibers were used in the power amplifier stages to scale the transform-limited fiber laser pulses, avoiding any nonlinearities.     

Dynamics of ultrashort light pulses in a semiconductor superlattice in the presence of a magnetic field

A system of equations that describes the propagation of ultrashort light pulses (optical solitons) in a semiconductor superlattice in the presence of a magnetic field is obtained using coupled Maxwell equations for the electromagnetic field and the Boltzmann equation written in the relaxation time approximation for the one-electron distribution function. It is shown that an initial linearly polarized light pulse induces a field with the orthogonal polarization in the sample. The dynamics of joint propagation of the initial and induced pulses in the sample is studied.     

Polarization-splitting common-path interferometer based on a zero-twist liquid crystal display

We present a compact optical polarization-splitting common-path interferometer based on a zero-twist liquid crystal display (LCD). The LCD is encoded with a diffraction grating pattern and illuminated with a polarization state with both horizontal and vertical components. The polarization component perpendicular to the director axis of the liquid crystal molecules is not affected by the LCD and forms the reference beam. However, the polarization component parallel to the director axis is diffracted at an angle determined by the period of the grating. By imposing an analyzer polarizer, these two beams create an interferogram that can either display retardance patterns encoded onto the LCD or analyze external birefringent optical elements. The programmability of the system allows new ways of increasing the utility of the interferograms. Experimental results are provided, including the visualization of optical vortices with different and opposite topological charges.     

Tunable dual-wavelength optical short-pulse generation by use of a fiber Bragg grating and a tunable optical filter in a self-seeding scheme

A simple self-seeding scheme is developed to generate tunable dual-wavelength optical short pulses in a flexible manner and with an increased wavelength-tuning range. The wavelength selection and tuning are achieved by simultaneous use of a fiber Bragg grating and a tunable optical filter. The side-mode suppression ratio of the output pulses is better than 30 dB over a wavelength-tuning range of 33.8 nm. The system is compact and convenient for dual-wavelength tuning.     

Double refraction of a Gaussian beam into a uniaxial crystal

For a linearly polarized three-dimensional Gaussian beam in air that is normally incident upon a plane interface with a uniaxial crystal with optic axis in an arbitrary direction, we present integral representations for the transmitted field suitable for asymptotic analysis and efficient numerical evaluation and derive analytical expressions for transmitted nontruncated Gaussian beams for the cases in which the incident beam is polarized parallel to the plane containing the optic axis and the interface normal and transverse to it. The general solution for an arbitrary polarization state of an incident Gaussian beam follows by superposition of these two solutions.     

Development of high-throughput, polarization-maintaining, near-field probes

A novel, chemical-etching technique produces very high throughput, polarization-maintaining probes for near-field, scanning, optical microscopy (NSOM). The process includes coating the tips with aluminum and forming the apertures with a focused ion beam (FIB). The elliptical core fibers used resulted in elliptical apertures for the probes. The throughput of the probes depends on the incident polarization. For polarization parallel to the minor axis, the tip presents an insertion loss of only 20 dB for aperture widths of 55 nm. Probes have a typical polarization extinction of 100 to 1 in the far field. These tips produced NSOM images of gold dots on a GaAs substrate in reflection mode.