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Photonics

High-Transmittance Femtosecond Optical Kerr Gate with Double Gate Pulses Based on Birefringence Effect

Zhenqiang Huang, Wenjiang Tan, Jinhai Si, Shijia Zeng, Zhen Kang, Xun Hou

Published Jan 27, 2022• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

An optical Kerr gate (OKG) is an ultrafast optical switch based on the optical Kerr effect. The performance of a conventional OKG depends mainly on Kerr materials. Traditional Kerr materials do not demonstrate both large optical nonlinearity and an ultrafast response time. Therefore, the performance of a conventional OKG is limited by an inherent trade-off between high signal transmittance and fast switching time, which limits its application in many fields. We propose an improved femtosecond OKG with double gate pulses, based on the use of a birefringent crystal to realize an ultrashort switching time, even with a slow-response optical Kerr medium. We assessed the dependence of the double gate pulsed OKG (D-OKG)’s performance on the intensity ratio of the double gate pulses. A transmittance of 50% and a switching time of 142 fs were achieved. The D-OKG is convenient to construct, and its integrated performance is superior to that of a conventional OKG.

DOI
10.3390/photonics9020071

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IEEE Photonics Technology Letters•Nov 23, 2023•1 citation
An optical Kerr gate (OKG) is an ultrafast optical switch based on the optical Kerr effect. The performance of a conventional OKG depends mainly on Kerr materials. Traditional Kerr materials do not demonstrate both large optical nonlinearity and an ultrafast response time. Therefore, the performance of a conventional OKG is limited by an inherent trade-off between high signal transmittance and fast switching time, which limits its application in many fields. We propose an improved femtosecond OKG with double gate pulses, based on the use of a birefringent crystal to realize an ultrashort switching time, even with a slow-response optical Kerr medium. We assessed the dependence of the double gate pulsed OKG (D-OKG)’s performance on the intensity ratio of the double gate pulses. A transmittance of 50% and a switching time of 142 fs were achieved. The D-OKG is convenient to construct, and its integrated performance is superior to that of a conventional OKG.
We proposed an improved femtosecond optical Kerr gate with double gate pulses (DOKG) using a femtosecond laser, in which an ultrashort switching time can be realized even when a relatively slow response optical Kerr medium of carbon disulfide was used. The results showed that when the time delay and the light intensity ratio of the two pump pulses were adjusted to be about 140 fs and 1:0.9, the switching time and the maximum transmission efficiency of the DOKG could be optimized to be about 130 fs and 37%. The DOKG is convenient to be built and offers a good choice for applications based on ultrafast optical switch.
Effect of relaxation time on the performance of photonic crystal optical bistable switches based on Kerr nolinearity is discussed. This paper deals with optical pulses with the duration of about 50 ps. In such cases the steady state response of the optical device can be used to approximate the pulse evolution if the nonlinearity is assumed instantaneous, hence analytical solutions such as the coupled mode theory can be used to obtain the time evolution of the electromagnetic fields. However if the relaxation time of the material nonlinear response is also considered, changes in the power levels and in the shape of the hystersis loop is observed. In this case, we use the nonlinear finite difference time domain method (NL-FDTD) to follow the system dynamics and get the bistability hystersis loop. Codes are developed to analyze the instantaneous Kerr materials and the Kerr materials with finite response times. Depending on the material, the relaxation times of the order of 1-10fs should be considered in studying bistability to obtain the right shape of the output pulses. It is observed that the relaxation leads to larger input power and threshold and hence degrades the performance of the switch in pulse shaping.
A novel ultrafast all-optical switching based on metal-insulator-metal nanoplasmonic waveguide with a Kerr nonlinear resonator is proposed and investigated numerically. With the finite-difference time-domain simulations, it is demonstrated that an obvious optical bistability of the signal light appears by varying the control-light intensity, and an excellent switching effect is achieved. This bistability originates from the intensity-dependent change induced in the dielectric constant of Kerr nonlinear material filled in the nanodisk resonator. It is found that the proposed all-optical switching exhibits femtosecond-scale feedback time.
A split-step birefringence simulation method is proposed to investigate the gating efficiency and intensity distribution of the Kerr signal field considering the evolution of the switch beam and probe beam in their path. Using this simulation method, we investigated the switch-beam power-dependent gating efficiency and conducted an experiment to prove its reliability. Furthermore, we analyzed the optical intensity distribution of the Kerr signal exiting the Kerr medium under different switch-beam powers. This study provides an effective theoretical tool for the design and optimization of optical Kerr gates.
We experimentally demonstrate an all-optical switching (AOS) scheme based on double slow light (DSL) pulses, in which one pulse is switched by another due to the cross-Kerr nonlinearity. The interaction time is prolonged by optically dense atomic media and matched group velocities. The interaction strength is maintained at a high level by keeping both fields at their electromagnetically-induced-transparency resonances to minimize the linear loss. In the AOS without the DSL scheme, the group velocity mismatch sets an upper limit on the switching efficiency of two photons per atomic cross section as discussed by Harris and Hau [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4611 (1999)]. Compared to that limit, we have obtained an enhanced switching efficiency by a factor of 3 with our DSL scheme. The nonlinear efficiency can be further improved by increasing the optical depth of the medium. Our work advances low-light-level nonlinear optics and provides essential ingredients for quantum many-body physics using strongly interacting photons.
Traditional optical Kerr gates (OKG) often suffer from leakage fluorescence background when sampling and measuring fluorescence spectra due to the limited extinction of the polarizers used in optical Kerr gates. In this letter, we propose a cascaded optical Kerr gate (COKG) for measuring fluorescence spectroscopy with a high signal-to-noise ratio by suppressing this leakage fluorescence background. Our proposed COKG consists of an optical Kerr gate with a fast-switching time at the front stage and an optical Kerr gate with a high transmission at the back stage. The experimental results show that the signal-to-noise ratio for the COKG can be improved by about two orders of magnitude compared to the single OKG.