Abstract
We report structured interferometric features in femtosecond supercontinuum generation (FSG) with incident laser powers that are near threshold for FSG. We argue that near threshold, these structures arise from the coherent superposition of pulses that are split initially into two daughter pulses during FSG process. Increase in the input pulse energy generates multiple daughter fragments in the temporal domain to an extent that correlated interference structures are not measurable.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
R.R. Alfano, S.L. Shapiro, Emission in the region 4000–7000 Å via four-photon coupling in glass. Phys. Rev. Lett. 24, 584–587 (1970)
R.R. Alfano, The Supercontinuum Laser Source (Springer, New York, 2006)
P.B. Corkum, C. Rolland, Supercontinuum generation in gases. Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 2268–2271 (1986)
V. Kartazaev, R.R. Alfano, Supercontinuum generated in calcite with chirped femtosecond pulses. Opt. Express 32, 3293 (2007)
W. Lee Smith, P. Liu, N. Bloembergen, Superbroadening in H2O and D2O by self-focused picosecond pulses from a YAlG: Nd laser. Phys. Rev. A 15, 2396 (1977)
M.A. Foster, A.L. Gaeta, Ultra-low threshold supercontinuum generation in sub-wavelength waveguides. Opt. Express 12, 3137–3143 (2004)
A.M. Zheltikov, Let there be white light: supercontinuum generation by ultrashort laser pulses. Phys.-Usp. 49, 605–628 (2006)
S.A. Kovalenko, A.L. Dobryakov, J. Ruthmann, N.P. Ernsting, Femtosecond spectroscopy of condensed phases with chirped supercontinuum probing. Phys. Rev. A 59, 2369–2384 (1999)
E.T.J. Nibbering, O. Dühr, G. Korn, Generation of intense tunable 20-fs pulses near 400 nm by use of a gas-filled hollow waveguide. Opt. Lett. 22, 1335–1337 (1997)
P. Rairoux, H. Schillinger, S. Niedermeier, M. Rodriguez, F. Ronneberger, R. Sauerbrey, B. Stein, D. Waite, C. Wedekind, H. Wille, L. Wöste, C. Ziener, Remote sensing of the atmosphere using ultrashort laser pulses. Appl. Phys. B 71, 573–580 (2000)
V.V. Yakovlev, B. Kohler, K.R. Wilson, Broadly tunable 30-fs pulses produced by optical parametric amplification. Opt. Lett. 19, 2000–2002 (1994)
J. L. Hall, T. W. Hänsch, The development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2005/
S.T. Cundiff, J. Ye, Colloquium: femtosecond optical frequency combs. Rev. Mod. Phys. 75, 325 (2002)
A.L. Gaeta, Catastrophic collapse of ultrashort pulses. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 3582–3585 (2000)
G. Yang, Y.R. Shen, Spectral broadening of ultrashort pulses in a nonlinear medium. Opt. Lett. 9, 510–512 (1984)
R.R. Alfano, P.P. Ho, Self-, cross-, and induced-phase modulations of ultrashort laser pulse propagation. Quant. Electron. 24, 351–364 (1988)
A. Couairona, A. Mysyrowicz, Femtosecond filamentation in transparent media. Phys. Rep. 441, 47–189 (2007)
K.D. Moll, A.L. Gaeta, Role of dispersion in multiple-collapse dynamics. Opt. Lett. 29, 995–997 (2004)
J.K. Ranka, R.W. Schirmer, A.L. Gaeta, Observation of pulse splitting in nonlinear dispersive media. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 3783 (1996)
M. Kolesik, E.M. Wright, J.V. Moloney, Dynamic nonlinear X waves for femtosecond pulse propagation in water. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 253901 (2004)
J.K. Ranka, A.L. Gaeta, Breakdown of the slowly varying envelope approximation in the self-focusing of ultrashort pulses. Opt. Express 23, 534 (1998)
K. Cook, A.K. Kar, R.A. Lamb, White-light supercontinuum interference of self-focused filaments in water. Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 3861 (2003)
A.K. Dharmadhikari, J.A. Dharmadhikari, D. Mathur, Visualization of focusing–refocusing cycles during filamentation in BaF2. Appl. Phys. B 94, 259 (2009)
W. Watanab, K. Itoh, Spatial coherence of supercontinuum emitted from multiple filaments. Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 40, 592 (2001)
A.S. Sandhu, S. Banerjee, D. Goswami, Suppression of supercontinuum generation with circularly polarized light. Opt. Commun. 181(1), 101–107 (2000)
A. Srivastava, D. Goswami, Control of supercontinuum generation with polarization of incident laser pulses. Appl. Phys. B 77(2–3), 325–328 (2003)
S. Dinda, D. Goswami, On the generation and control of femtosecond supercontinuum. Sci. Lett. 4, 137 (2015)
A. Brodeur, S.L. Chin, Band-gap dependence of the ultrafast white-light continuum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4406–4409 (1998)
K. Cook, A.K. Kar, R.A. Lamb, White-light filaments induced by diffraction effects. Opt. Express 13, 2025 (2005)
J.H. Marburger, Self-focusing: theory. Prog. Quant. Electron. 4, 35 (1975)
V.P. Kandidov, O.G. Kosareva, I.S. Golubtsov, W. Liu, A. Becker, N. Akozbek, C.M. Bowden, S.L. Chin, Self-transformation of a powerful femtosecond laser pulse into a white-light laser pulse in bulk optical media (or supercontinuum generation). Appl. Phys. B 77, 149–165 (2003)
W. Liua, S. Petita, A. Beckera, N. Aközbekb, C.M. Bowdenb, S.L. Chin, Intensity clamping of a femtosecond laser pulse in condensed matter. Opt. Commun. 202, 189–197 (2002)
C. Corsi, A. Tortora, M. Bellini, Mutual coherence of supercontinuum pulses collinearly generated in bulk media. Appl. Phys. B 77, 285 (2003)
A. Tortora, C. Corsi, M. Bellini, Comb-like supercontinuum generation in bulk media. Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 1113 (2004)
M. Born, E. Wolf, Principles of Optics, 7th edn. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999)
P. Devi, V.V. Lozovoy, M. Dantus, Measurement of group velocity dispersion of solvents using 2-cycle femtosecond pulses: experiment and theory. AIP Adv. 1, 032166 (2011)
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the financial supports from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and University Grants Commission (UGC), India. Additionally, we thank Ms. S. Goswami for language corrections in the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dinda, S., Bandyopadhyay, S.N. & Goswami, D. On the interferometric coherent structures in femtosecond supercontinuum generation. Appl. Phys. B 122, 148 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-016-6432-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-016-6432-x