In situ characterization and control of the phase of broadband femtosecond pulses in microscopy can be achieved with a novel simplified scheme based on spectral shear interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction (SPIDER): the use of a femtosecond pulse shaper eliminates the need for an interferometer setup, allows dispersion-free SPIDER operation and at the same time compression even...

Dispersion varying fibres have applications in optical pulse compression techniques. We investigate Akhmediev breathers, Kuznetsov–Ma (KM) solitons and optical rogue waves in a dispersion varying optical fibre based on a variable-coefficient nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Analytical solutions in the forms of Akhmediev breathers, KM solitons and rogue waves up to the second order of that equati...

Dispersive optical interference coatings (chirped mirrors - CMs) are designed by computer optimization of an analytically calculated initial multilayer. Traditionally, the relevant properties of the CM (reflectance and the frequency-dependence of the phase shift upon reflection) are optimized to match frequency-domain targets. We propose a novel target function that quantifies directly the capa...

In this paper, we report the experimental demonstration of an all-optical fiber-based 160-GHz femtosecond pulse source exhibiting a duty cycle as low as 1/17. The 380-fs wellseparated Gaussian pulses are generated thanks to the strong temporal compression of an initial beat-signal propagating into three distinct segments of optical fiber. Experimental results are supported by numerical simulati...

We present a diode-pumped regenerative amplifier based on an Yb:CaF(2) crystal optimized to produce short pulses for various repetition rates ranging from 100 Hz to 10 kHz. The shortest pulse duration generated is 178 fs, and the corresponding energy is 1.4 mJ before compression (620 microJ after), at a repetition rate of 500 Hz for 16 W of pump power. The bandwidth is 10 nm centered at 1040 nm...

An optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier fully based on Yb lasers at 500 kHz is described. Passive optical-synchronization is achieved between a fiber laser-pumped white-light and a 515 nm pump produced with a 200 W picosecond Yb:YAG InnoSlab amplifier. An output power up to 19.7 W with long-term stability of 0.3% is demonstrated for wavelength tunable pulses between 680 nm and 900 nm and ...

It is well-known that the process of optical parametric amplification (OPA) can be sensitive to the phases of the incident waves. In OPA realized by three-wave mixing, injection of all three waves into the same mode with appropriate phase relationship results in amplification of the signal phase, with an associated deamplification of the signal energy. Prospects for the use of this technique in...

A comprehensive theory is developed for describing the nonlinear propagation of optical pulses through silicon waveguides with nanoscale dimensions. Our theory includes not only the vectorial nature of optical modes but also the coupling between the transverse electric and magnetic modes occurring for arbitrarily polarized optical fields. We have studied the dependence of relevant nonlinear par...

Supercontinuum generation in a highly nonlinear fiber pumped by noise-like pulses from an erbium-doped fiber ring laser is investigated. To generate ultrabroad spectra, a fiber amplifier is used to boost the power launched into the highly nonlinear fiber. After amplification, not only the average power of the noise-like pulses is enhanced but the spectrum of the pulses is also broadened due to ...