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URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium

Manipulating light by light

Ayhan Demircan, Shalva Amiranashvili

Published Aug 1, 2011• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose and verify a new concept of an all-optical transistor based on cross-phase modulation between a signal pulse (SP) and a control pulse (CP). An effective interaction is achieved if the CP is temporally locked to the SP in an optical event horizon. This enables modification of carrier frequency, energy, and pulse duration of a SP by a considerably weaker CP.

DOI
10.1109/ursigass.2011.6050606

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We propose and verify a new concept of an all-optical transistor based on cross-phase modulation between a signal pulse (SP) and a control pulse (CP). An effective interaction is achieved if the CP is temporally locked to the SP in an optical event horizon. This enables modification of carrier frequency, energy, and pulse duration of a SP by a considerably weaker CP.
A novel concept for an all-optical transistor is proposed and verified numerically. This concept relies on cross-phase modulation between a signal and a control pulse. Other than previous approaches, the interaction length is extended by temporally locking control and the signal pulse in an optical event horizon, enabling continuous modification of the central wavelength, energy, and duration of a signal pulse by an up to sevenfold weaker control pulse. Moreover, if the signal pulse is a soliton it may maintain its solitonic properties during the switching process. The proposed all-optical switching concept fulfills all criteria for a useful optical transistor in [Nat. Photon. 4, 3 (2010)], in particular, fan-out and cascadability, which have previously proven as the most difficult to meet.
We show by experiment that scattering of an optical pulse at an optical event horizon provides an unprecedented potential for controlling the properties of a light pulse with another light pulse. Most importantly, with proper parameter selection, a strong pulse can be switched by a 7 times less energetic pulse, which clearly sets our method apart from almost any other previously proposed optical transistor. Moreover, while a gate pulse may experience serious reshaping effects in the normal dispersion regime, a suitably chosen soliton does not dispersively spread or break up into multiple pulses, such that the solitonic switching scheme is cascadable.
Nonlinear degenerate four wave mixing and cross phase modulation are established approaches for all optical frequency manipulation in a silicon chip. These approaches require exact group velocity and/or phase velocity matching of pump, signal, and idler. On the other hand, several experimental demonstrations were presented recently, where frequency of light was changed by a free carrier front propagating in a silicon waveguide. This Doppler-like effect is less known, but has important advantages for frequency manipulation on chip. It requires no phase velocity matching and is not dependent on the shape and duration of the pump pulse. It also allows packet switching and can operate in a pump power independent regime. Here, we shortly review the work on front induced indirect transitions in silicon slow light waveguides. We consider three possible interaction regimes: transmission through the front, reflection from the front, and moving with the front called surfing. We derive analytical equations for the front with a linearly rising edge, which provide a unified description of the frequency shift in all three regimes. Finally, we compare the front induced dynamic frequency conversion to the frequency shifting based on nonlinear effects like cross-phase modulation and four wave mixing.
Dynamic manipulation of light has received considerable attention in recent years. The process of an optical signal undergoing a transition between two modes of a photonic structure is referred to as a photonic transition. We show that a signal wave interacting with a free carrier front in a slow light waveguide experiences indirect photonic transitions leading to reflection from the moving front. Theory and experimental results are presented. The front induced dynamic frequency conversion is also compared to the frequency shifting based on other nonlinear effects like cross-phase modulation and four wave mixing.
Abstract Ultrashort, coherent light pulses in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) wavelength region are excellent tools for a wide range of experiments. These XUV pulses are in particular used to characterize electron dynamics. Additionally, the high photon energy enables quantum control of short-lived transitions in atoms. These transitions are of interest for ultrafast quantum control as the bandwidth of the control pulses needs to be less than the transition frequency. Coherent XUV pulses would be even more useful if the tools to control and manipulate them existed. Presently, however, no modulators exist for these frequencies, which significantly reduces the number of possible ultrafast optics experiments and applications in the XUV regime. This Ph.D. tutorial addresses this problem and focuses on the control of XUV light in time and space. To enable control of XUV light we have developed a method for opto-optical modulation (OOM), which modulates the phase of XUV light emitted from a gas of atoms. The atoms are resonantly excited with a coherent XUV pulse generated through high order harmonic generation and emit light after the excitation pulse passed. By shifting the resonance frequencies through the AC Stark shift with a non-resonant infrared control pulse, the phase of the emitted light, and therefore its wavefront, is controlled. With OOM the direction of XUV light emitted from noble gases has been controlled, and the temporal dynamics of the emission studied. By varying the delay between the excitation and the control pulse, the time of redirection was controlled, which enabled high signal to noise study of the temporal dynamics of the emission. Furthermore, a proof-of-principle experiment with two control pulses was performed, resulting in a shaped XUV pulse with controlled duration. The technique of OOM presented in this article is still at a very early stage and in order to obtain complete control of the amplitude and phase of the XUV pulses further development is necessary. Such development would present new opportunities for ultrafast XUV quantum control.