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Applied Physics Letters

Optical pulse compression

D. Grischkowsky

Published Nov 15, 1974• 86 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Dramatic and controllable reshaping of frequency-modulated dye laser pulses has been observed. The pulses, nearly resonant with the 2P1/2 line (7948 Å) of Rb, first passed through a LiNbO3 frequency modulator, and then through a cell containing dilute Rb vapor where the reshaping took place. Large pulse compressions were obtained with only 400 MHz of frequency modulation due to the extremely large frequency dispersion of the group velocity.

DOI
10.1063/1.1655312

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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America•Jan 1, 1992•0 citations
Dramatic and controllable reshaping of frequency-modulated dye laser pulses has been observed. The pulses, nearly resonant with the 2P1/2 line (7948 Å) of Rb, first passed through a LiNbO3 frequency modulator, and then through a cell containing dilute Rb vapor where the reshaping took place. Large pulse compressions were obtained with only 400 MHz of frequency modulation due to the extremely large frequency dispersion of the group velocity.
Ultrafast laser pulses with complex envelopes (amplitude and frequency modulated) are used to excite an optically dense column of rubidium vapor. Pulse reshaping, stimulated emission dynamics, and residual electronic excitation in the Rb vapor are all shown to depend strongly on the laser pulse shape. Pulses that produce adiabatic passage in the optically thin limit exhibit more complex behavior in optically thick samples, including an unexpected dependence on the sign of the frequency sweep. Numerical solutions of the Maxwell-Bloch equations are shown to account for our results.
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.
By sweeping the frequency of a diode laser beam near the cesium resonance frequency, followed by propagation through a short length of cesium vapor, we obtained periodic peaks with peak-to-average ratios near 5 at pulse repetition rates up to a gigahertz. Light in the wings of a strong atomic absorption line of an alkali metal vapor encounters large group velocity dispersion. A frequency modulation in an off-resonance cw beam passing through the vapor consequently develops an amplitude modulation. For certain combinations of laser and vapor parameters, a sinusoidally frequency modulated beam can be made to develop peaks. We generated pulse trains in a frequency modulated single mode diode laser tuned to the cesium absorption line near 852 nm, which we observed by using a fast p-i-n photodiode and a sampling oscilloscope. The frequency of a diode laser was sinusoidally modulated with a sweep of about a gigahertz and a period of a few nansoseconds by introducing a small modulation into the laser pump current. We observed the formation of sharp peaks with a width of about one-tenth of the modulation period and a peak-to-background ratio of approximately 5.