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Applied Physics Letters

A dispersive modulator

M. M. T. Loy

Published Feb 1, 1975• 21 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Amplitude modulation and temporal compression of 10−μ light at a frequency up to 80 MHz were demonstrated using a dispersive molulator—a NH3 vapor cell with a near−resonant time−dependent transition frequency controlled externally via the Stark effect. The peak output intensity was observed to be higher than the input intensity, showing that compression effects due to the time−dependent dispersion are essential in determining the output waveform.

DOI
10.1063/1.88095

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Amplitude modulation and temporal compression of 10−μ light at a frequency up to 80 MHz were demonstrated using a dispersive molulator—a NH3 vapor cell with a near−resonant time−dependent transition frequency controlled externally via the Stark effect. The peak output intensity was observed to be higher than the input intensity, showing that compression effects due to the time−dependent dispersion are essential in determining the output waveform.
The recent observations by Loy of amplitude modulation and compression of infrared laser pulses caused by passage through the dispersive modulator (a cell containing dilute NH3 vapor with a Stark−modulated resonant frequency) are explained. It is shown that there is a formal equivalence between (i) the passage of a near−resonant light beam through a vapor with a time−dependent resonant frequency, and (ii) the passage of a frequency−modulated light beam through a vapor with a constant resonant frequency. For low−intensity light this equivalence reduces the problem to the optical analog of chirp radar.
Using a technique similar to chirped pulse compression, we have compressed the 50-mW cw output of a diode laser into pulses of greater than 500-mW peak power and less than 400-ps duration. By applying a small current modulation to the diode, we induced a small wavelength modulation in the vicinity of the 6s(1/2)-to-6p(3/2) cesium resonance transition at 852 nm. Group-velocity dispersion on propagation through a cesium vapor cell then led to pulse compression. We developed a simple model to make predictions of output pulse shapes by using different modulation waveforms.