Frequency-doubling pulse compressor for picosecond high-power neodymium laser pulses

Three-wave mixing mediated femtosecond pulse compression in β-barium borate

Nonlinear pulse compression mediated by three-wave mixing is demonstrated for ultrashort Ti:sapphire pulses in a type II phase-matched β-barium borate (BBO) crystal using noncollinear geometry. 170 μJ pulses at 800 nm with a pulse duration of 74 fs are compressed at their sum frequency to 32 fs with 55 μJ of pulse energy. Experiments and computer simulations demonstrate the potential of sum-frequency pulse compression to match the group velocities of the interacting waves to crystals that were initially not considered in the context of nonlinear pulse compression.

Asymmetric spectral broadening and temporal evolution of cross-phase-modulated third harmonic pulses

The influence of cross-phase modulation on third-harmonic generation is theoretically studied. Generalized phase-matching conditions for third-harmonic generation including pump-intensity-dependent phase shifts related to self- and cross-phase modulation effects are discussed. The phase mismatch between the pump and third-harmonic pulses is shown to vary from the leading edge of the pump pulse to its trailing edge, resulting in an asymmetric spectral broadening of the third harmonic.

High-energy pulse compression by use of negative phase shifts produced by the cascade chi((2)):chi((2)) nonlinearity

We report a simple optical pulse-compression technique based on quadratic nonlinear media. Negative nonlinear phase shifts are generated by phase-mismatched second-harmonic generation, and the phase-modulated pulses are then compressed by propagation through materials with normal dispersion. Millijoule-energy pulses from a Ti:sapphire amplifier are compressed from 120 to 30 fs, and calculations indicate that compression ratios of >10 are realistically achievable by use of this approach with optimal materials. The insertion loss of the compressor can be less than 10% of the pulse energy, and scaling to higher pulse energies will be straightforward.

Three-wave interaction solitons in optical parametric amplification

This paper applies three-wave interaction (TWI)-soliton theory to optical parametric amplification when the signal, idler, and pump wave can all contain TWI solitons. We use an analogy between two different velocity regimes to compare the theory with output from an experimental synchronously pumped optical parametric amplifier. The theory explains the observed inability to compress the intermediate group-velocity wave and 20-fold pulse compression in this experiment. The theory and supporting numerics show that one can effectively control the shape and energy of the optical pulses by shifting the TWI solitons in the pulses.

Nonlinear second-harmonic pulse compression with tilted pulses

We demonstrate that the group velocities of interacting pulses can be adjusted by pulse tilting to optimize second-harmonic pulse compression for a variety of nonlinear crystals and wavelengths. As an experimental proof we present results of ninefold compression of 1.3-ps Nd:glass laser pulses in beta -barium borate crystal.

Second-harmonic pulse compression in the soliton regime

Analytical soliton solutions of the three-wave interaction equations are shown to exhibit high power conversion for a range of nonlinear materials with no satellite peaks and energy conversion close to 100%. Related numerical solutions that yield power conversion up to 10 times those of the initial waves with less than 3% energy in the small satellite peaks and high-energy efficiency are exhibited for KDP crystals; substantial compression of the fundamental pulses is observed in this case.

Fundamental-frequency pulse compression through cascaded second-order processes in a type II phase-matched second-harmonic generator

We show that cascading of the second-order processes under large group-velocity mismatch can lead to the efficient compression of pulses at fundamental frequency in the type II phase-matched second-harmonicgeneration process. We demonstrate that any of three interacting pulses can be compressed if the proper ratio of intensities of the o- and e-polarized pump pulses is chosen on input. We experimentally achieved compression of o-polarized pulses from 1.3 ps down to 280 fs with energy conversion close to 50% when a conventional second-harmonic compressor with unbalanced intensities of the pump pulses was used.

Generation of compressed 600-720-nm tunable femtosecond pulses by transient frequency mixing in a beta-barium borate crystal

We demonstrate the feasibility of the compression of tunable pulses by means of sum-frequency generation under special group-velocity mismatch conditions. beta-Barium borate crystal has been shown to support the upconversion process, resulting in 160-fs pulses tunable within 600-720 nm when mixing 1.3-ps 1055-nm pulses from a Nd:glass laser with 0.95-ps pulses tunable within 1400-2200 nm from a traveling-wave parametric generator. A similar compression of ~150-fs Ti:sapphire pulses predicted for the sum-frequency tuning range of 520-590 nm.