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Applied Physics Letters

Controlled picosecond gating and amplification of ultrafast optical signals

Greg L. Olson, George E. Busch

Published Dec 15, 1975• 6 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A positively gated ultrafast amplifying shutter is described. The population inversion created by the action of an intense picosecond pulse in a saturable absorbing dye provides the means for high gain amplification of optical signals. The introduction of a second pulse at a wavelength within the emission band of the dye rapidly depletes the inversion and thus terminates the gain. Gated amplifier gains from 50 to 100 are reported and control of delays between the pulses allows shutter aperture times to be reproducibly varied from ∼12 to ≳60 psec.

DOI
10.1063/1.88338

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A positively gated ultrafast amplifying shutter is described. The population inversion created by the action of an intense picosecond pulse in a saturable absorbing dye provides the means for high gain amplification of optical signals. The introduction of a second pulse at a wavelength within the emission band of the dye rapidly depletes the inversion and thus terminates the gain. Gated amplifier gains from 50 to 100 are reported and control of delays between the pulses allows shutter aperture times to be reproducibly varied from ∼12 to ≳60 psec.
Summary form only given. Self-diffraction by four-wave-mixing (FWM) in a nonlinear medium such as liquid crystals and photorefractive materials can contribute to perform energy transfer between the two incident beams. FWM in a saturable gain media has received an intense attention in recent years. Owing to the amplification experienced by all the interaction beams, the high diffraction efficiency is expected. This paper presents the demonstration of transient self-diffraction by pico-second FWM in a saturable amplifier Rhodamine 6G polymer dye. In this work, we extend our previous study of FWM in an inverted polymer dye in the transient regime by using signal and pump lasers with pulse duration of much less than the population relaxation time (several nanoseconds) in the polymer dye. The polymer dye saturable amplifier is shown to be an excellent nonlinear material with high diffraction efficiency and fast response time. It has a potential for applications such as real-time holography, phase conjugation, pulse shaping, and all optical temporal-spatial conversion.
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Nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) of picosecond optical pulses in semiconductor optical amplifiers is investigated theoretically, taking into account various carrier processes, probe depletion, and cross-gain modulation effects. Analytical solutions for greatly simplified coupled-wave mixing equations are obtained from which conditions where probe depletion and cross-gain modulation effects cannot be neglected are found. On the other hand, the frequency detuning dependence of optimum input pump pulse energy and shaping of output conjugate pulses are observed from numerical simulations. In particular, calculations show that the frequency symmetry of conjugate and probe pulses with respect to the pump pulse does not hold for optical pulse FWM. Two-photon absorption and ultrafast nonlinear refraction effects are shown to decrease the FWM conversion efficiency.
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The ultrafast detection of single photons is currently restricted by the limited time resolution (a few picoseconds) of the available single-photon detectors. Optical gates offer a faster time resolution, but so far they have been applied mostly to ensembles of emitters. Here, we demonstrate through a semi-analytical model that the ultrafast time-resolved detection of single quantum emitters can be possible using an optical Kerr shutter at gigahertz rates under focused illumination. This technique provides sub-picosecond time resolution, while keeping a gate efficiency at around 85%. These findings lay the ground for future experimental investigations on the ultrafast dynamics of single quantum emitters, with implications for quantum nanophotonics and molecular physics.
We consider transient stimulated Raman amplification of trains of picosecond pulses. In this regime the gain of a single pulse is reduced from its steady-state value because of the inability of the nonlinear polarization to follow the time variations of the pump pulse. In addition oscillatory behavior of the pump and Stokes pulse amplitudes have been predicted in the transient regime in conditions of high pump depletion. When the pump radiation is in the form of a train of pulses whose separation is comparable to or shorter than the dephasing time of the nonlinear medium, increased gain can be experienced by later pulses in the train because they can grow from the material polarization created by earlier pulses. We have analyzed this type of amplification as a function of pulse spacing, pump energy, and pump intensity in the regime of high pump depletion. In addition we have considered the effects of Stark shifts of the two-photon resonant Raman level on the Stokes conversion efficiency. We find that at constant pulse intensity the conversion efficiency increases with time through the pulse train, gradually approaching steady state at low conversion efficiencies at times long compared to T2. The maximum conversion efficiency increases as the pulse spacing is decreased. If the pump depletion is too high the peak conversion of the Stokes oscillates through the train in a manner similar to the oscillations of the intensity of a single pulse. A Stark shift of the resonant level can cause reduced gain as well as introduce phase shifts on the Stokes and pump beams. The effects of these processes on the conversion efficiency are discussed.