We present a new technique suitable for generating broadband phase- and frequency-locked frequency combs in the mid-infrared. Our source is based on a degenerate optical parametric oscillator (OPO) which rigorously both down-converts and augments the spectrum of a pump frequency comb provided by a commercial mode-locked near-IR laser. Low intracavity dispersion, combined with extensive cross-mi...

High-density optical data storage requires high-numerical-aperture (NA) lenses and short wavelengths. But, with increasing NA and decreasing wavelength, the depth of focus (DOF) decreases rapidly. We propose to use pure-phase superresolution apodizers to optimize the axial intensity distribution and extend the DOF of an optical pickup. With this kind of apodizer, the expected DOF can be 2-4.88 ...

Today's telecommunication is based on optical packets which transmit the information in optical fiber networks around the world. Currently, the processing of the signals is done in the electrical domain. Direct storage in the optical domain would avoid the transfer of the packets to the electrical and back to the optical domain in every network node and, therefore, increase the speed and possib...

The storage requirements of today’s organizations are exploding. As computers continue to escalate in processing power, applications grow in complexity and data files grow in size and in number. As a result, organizations are forced to procure more and more megabytes of storage space. This paper focuses on how to expand the storage capacity of a very large database (VLDB) cost-effectively withi...

A holographic optical element (HOE) is a kind of diffractive optical element. It can replace an optical system with multiple optical components such as lenses, mirrors, beamsplitters, and prisms. Thus, it is expected to be possible improve performance and reduce the number of optical parts of various optical systems, such as optical storage systems 1) like compact disk or digital versatile disk...

We report an experiment in which optical pulses stored in an atomic system can be controllably released into two different photonic channels. By controllably turning on the retrieve control pulses at either 795 or 780 nm to read the stored optical pulses in a four-level double -type atomic medium, we can obtain the released probe pulse at 795 or 780 nm, respectively. These readout pulses can be...

In the paper we consider a new approach for storage and cloning of quantum information by three level atomic (molecular) systems in the presence of the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) effect. For that, the various schemes of transformation into the bright and dark polaritons for quantum states of optical field in the medium are proposed. Physical conditions of realization of quan...

Passive fiber ring resonators synchronously pumped by cw trains of ultrashort pulses are shown to exhibit polarization symmetry breaking. Application of this feature to all-optical storage is considered. The proposed storage device operates in the flip-flop mode which makes possible all-optical writing and erasing operations on individual bits. Numerical simulations suggest that a storage capac...