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APL Photonics

Second-harmonic generation of temporally low-coherence light

Xiaohui Zhao, Lailin Ji, Dong Liu, Yanqi Gao, Daxing Rao, Yong Cui, Wei Feng, Fujian Li, Haitao Shi, Chong Shan, Weixin Ma, Zhan Sui

Published Sep 1, 2020• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In this Letter, we study the second-harmonic (SH) generation of temporally low-coherence light using the statistical optics method. By introducing the statistical characteristics of low-coherence light into the nonlinear coupled wave equation, we predict the self-convolution relationship between the power spectral density of the second-harmonic and that of the fundamental wave and demonstrate it in experiments. The effects of phase matching and group velocity matching on the second-harmonic bandwidth and conversion efficiency are analyzed, which is beneficial to improve the efficiency of low-coherent SH light. Combining the statistics optics and nonlinear optics, our research provides a suitable mathematical model for the study of nonlinear frequency conversion processes of temporally low-coherence light. Due to its statistical characteristics and temporal incoherence, low-coherence SH light would have further applications in uniform illumination, quantum optics, metrology, and so on.

DOI
10.1063/5.0022307

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IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics•Apr 1, 1995•41 citations
In this Letter, we study the second-harmonic (SH) generation of temporally low-coherence light using the statistical optics method. By introducing the statistical characteristics of low-coherence light into the nonlinear coupled wave equation, we predict the self-convolution relationship between the power spectral density of the second-harmonic and that of the fundamental wave and demonstrate it in experiments. The effects of phase matching and group velocity matching on the second-harmonic bandwidth and conversion efficiency are analyzed, which is beneficial to improve the efficiency of low-coherent SH light. Combining the statistics optics and nonlinear optics, our research provides a suitable mathematical model for the study of nonlinear frequency conversion processes of temporally low-coherence light. Due to its statistical characteristics and temporal incoherence, low-coherence SH light would have further applications in uniform illumination, quantum optics, metrology, and so on.
In this paper, we reveal that some kinds of optical nonlinearities are further enhanced when incoherent light, instead of a laser, is used as a pump light. This idea was confirmed both theoretically and experimentally in the case of sum-frequency generation (SFG) using the optical second nonlinearity. The conversion efficiency of the SFG with incoherent light pumping increased as the bandwidth of the incoherent pump light decreased, finally reaching twice the conversion efficiency of conventional second harmonic generation (SHG) by laser pumping. This method dramatically relaxes the severe requirements of phase matching in the nonlinear optical process. The conversion efficiency became less sensitive to misalignment of the wavelength of pump light and also of device operation temperature when the bandwidth of the incoherent pump light was sufficiently broad, although the improvement of the conversion efficiency had an inverse relationship with the insensitivity to the phase-matching condition. The temperature tuning range was enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude in comparison with the conventional SHG method. As an example of a promising application of this new idea, we performed the generation of quantum entangled photon-pairs using cascaded optical nonlinearities (SFG and the subsequent spontaneous parametric down conversion) in a single periodically poled LiNbO3 waveguide device, in which the incoherent light was used as the pump source for both the parametric processes. We have achieved high fidelity exceeding 99% in quantum-state tomography experiments.
Abstract We study the spectral and temporal coherence effects in the passage of a Gaussian Schell-model (GSM) scalar, plane-wave pulse train through a slab of nonlinear optical crystal exhibiting second-harmonic generation. We show that due to the nonlinear interaction the temporal and spectral degrees of coherence of the fundamental (F) and second-harmonic (SH) pulse trains at the exit facet may deviate markedly from the GSM and the global degree of coherence of the SH wave generally decreases with increasing incident F beam intensity. In addition, we find that due to the partial coherence of the incident GSM field the transmitted SH wave may show a double-peaked intensity distribution.
The effect of slow light on second-harmonic generation in a periodically poled ${\ensuremath{\chi}}^{(2)}$ nonlinear medium is investigated theoretically. A linear $\ensuremath{\pi}$ phase-shifted grating is used to slow the group velocity of the fundamental frequency, and the resulting field enhancement greatly increases the second-harmonic conversion efficiency. A second linear grating at the input end ensures that all output is in the forward direction. We show that almost 100% conversion efficiency can be achieved for continuous wave pumping at low intensities that generate negligible conversion in the absence of the slow-light grating.
The effect of the quantum properties of light on nonlinear processes has been well studied theoretically. It has been shown that the efficiency of n-photon nonlinear processes in many cases scales as the normalized n-th order correlation function. For light with high intensity correlation function, the efficiency of the n-th harmonic generation will be considerably higher than for coherent light. The experimental observation of this effect remained difficult until recently, because of the absence of bright sources with strong and fast intensity fluctuations. For the experimental demonstration of statistical effects in optical harmonic generation we use as a pump the radiation of high-gain parametric down conversion. Such light shows quantum properties (e.g. quadrature or two-mode squeezing) and has large number of photons in one mode. The normalized n-th order correlation function for this light is (2n - 1)!!, which makes it more attractive for nonlinear processes than both coherent and thermal light. For the generation of optical harmonics we used broadband parametric down conversion around frequency-degeneracy (1600 nm) produced in 1cm BBO crystal from Ti:Sapphire laser (800 nm, 1.6ps, 5kHz, 3W mean intensity). Due to spectral filtering and post-selection technique we could vary the statistics of light from coherent to super-bunched, which allowed us to demonstrate the efficiency enhancement for second-, third-, and fourth-harmonic generation. The obtained experimental results show a good agreement with the theory.
Nonlinear parametric processes involving ultrashort pulses are typically carried out in time domain, which mathematically corresponds to a convolution of their frequency spectra. In contrast, this spectral convolution changes into a multiplication operation when performing the nonlinear interaction in frequency domain. Here, we extend the scope of frequency-domain nonlinear optics by demonstrating its ability to perform a temporal convolution. Through this approach, nonlinear optical operations that are inaccessible in time domain can be realised: specific optical information can be coherently advanced by picoseconds within a pulse sequence-a newly generated second harmonic pulse carries the amplitude and phase information of two input pulses. This central pulse is isolated when using an input field consisting of two cross-polarized input pulses in combination with type-II second harmonic generation. The effects of nonlinear temporal convolution can be viewed from the aspect of signal processing and pulse shaping, where the nonlinear interaction in the parametric crystal plays the role of a dynamic linear optical filter-in contrast to conventional static filters-with a shaping mask instantaneously adapting to the laser field.
Both static and dynamical analyses of quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation by backward propagating interaction, where the second-harmonic wave is generated in reflection, are presented. It is shown that bistability appears in the generated second-harmonic power if the amount of phase mismatch is suitably chosen. The bistability also appears in the output fundamental wave, since the cascaded second-order nonlinear process gives rise to the effective self-modulation of the fundamental wave, which can be applied to all-optical signal processing. The output second-harmonic and fundamental powers can be switched between two bistable states by controlling the intensity or phase of the input fundamental wave.>