Nonlinear Optics

Wolfgang Demtröder

Masamichi Yamanishi

A new concept on optical nonlinearity due to virtual transitions in quantum well structure with electric field, named virtual charge-induced optical nonlinearity, is proposed, with a showing of some examples of theoretical result on the nonlinearity. The switching time of the nonlinearity is expected to be extremely short, 100 fs. The nonlinearity seems to be observable and quite useful for the design of an ultrafast optical gate. A possibility of optical bistability without external optical feedback, based on the proposed nonlinearity, is pointed out.

Shen Yuanrang

This article presents a brief introduction to the birth and early investigations of nonlinear optics, such as second harmonic generation,sum and difference frequency generation, stimulated Raman scattering,and self-action of light etc. Several important research achievements and applications of nonlinear optics are presented as well, including nonlinear optical spectroscopy, phase conjugation and adaptive optics, coherent nonlinear optics, and high-order harmonic generation. In the end, current and future research topics in nonlinear optics are summarized. (authors)

Werner H. Lauterborn, Thomas Kurz, Martin Wiesenfeldt

Bruno E. Schmidt, Philippe Lassonde, Guilmot Ernotte +4 more

We demonstrate how Fourier Nonlinear Optics elegantly merges the simplicity of linear optics with the power of conventional nonlinear optics to achieve the decoupling of frequencies, amplitudes and phases in nonlinear processes.

Werner H. Lauterborn, Thomas Kurz