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1. Electro-optic interface for ultrasensitive intracavity electric field measurements at microwave and terahertz frequencies

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.384160  

   Benea-Chelmus, Ileana-Cristina ; Salamin, Yannick ; Settembrini, Francesca Fabiana ; Fedoryshyn, Yuriy ; Heni, Wolfgang ; Elder, Delwin L. ; Dalton, Larry R. ; Leuthold, Juerg ; Faist, Jérôme ( May 2020 , Optica)

   Electro-optic quantum coherent interfaces map the amplitude and phase of a quantum signal directly to the phase or intensity of a probe beam. At terahertz frequencies, a fundamental challenge is not only to sense such weak signals (due to a weak coupling with a probe in the near-infrared) but also to resolve them in the time domain. Cavity confinement of both light fields can increase the interaction and achieve strong coupling. Using this approach, current realizations are limited to low microwave frequencies. Alternatively, in bulk crystals, electro-optic sampling was shown to reach quantum-level sensitivity of terahertz waves. Yet, the coupling strength was extremely weak. Here, we propose an on-chip architecture that concomitantly provides subcycle temporal resolution and an extreme sensitivity to sense terahertz intracavity fields below 20 V/m. We use guided femtosecond pulses in the near-infrared and a confinement of the terahertz wave to a volume of$V_{\mathrm{T}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}\sim <\#comment/>{10}^{-<\#comment/>9}({\mathrm{\lambda <\#comment/>}}_{\mathrm{T}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}/2{)}^3$in combination with ultraperformant organic molecules ($r_{33}=170\mathrm{p}\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{V}$) and accomplish a record-high single-photon electro-optic coupling rate of$g_{\mathrm{e}\mathrm{o}}=2\mathrm{\pi <\#comment/>}\times <\#comment/>0.043\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$, 10,000 times higher than in recent reports of sensing vacuum field fluctuations in bulk media. Via homodyne detection implemented directly on chip, the interaction results into an intensity modulation of the femtosecond pulses. The single-photon cooperativity is$C_0=1.6\times <\#comment/>{10}^{-<\#comment/>8}$, and the multiphoton cooperativity is$C=0.002$at room temperature. We show$><\#comment/>70\mathrm{d}\mathrm{B}$dynamic range in intensity at 500 ms integration under irradiation with a weak coherent terahertz field. Similar devices could be employed in future measurements of quantum states in the terahertz at the standard quantum limit, or for entanglement of subsystems on subcycle temporal scales, such as terahertz and near-infrared quantum bits.

    

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2. Wake dynamics of air filaments generated by high-energy picosecond laser pulses at 1 kHz repetition rate

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.439232  

   Higginson, A. ; Wang, Y. ; Chi, H. ; Goffin, A. ; Larkin, I. ; Milchberg, H. M. ; Rocca, J. J. ( October 2021 , Optics Letters)

   We investigated the filamentation in air of 7 ps laser pulses of up to 200 mJ energy from a 1.03 μm-wavelength Yb:YAG laser at repetition rates up to$f=1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$. Interferograms of the wake generated show that while pulses in a train of repetition rate$f=0.1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$encounter a nearly unperturbed environment, at$f=1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$, a channel with an axial air density hole of$\sim <\#comment/>20\mathrm{\%<\#comment/>}$is generated and maintained at all times by the cumulative effect of preceding laser pulses. Measurements at$f=1\mathrm{k}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$show that the energy deposited decreases proportional to the air channel density depletion, becoming more pronounced as the repetition rate and pulse energy increase. Numerical simulations indicate that contrary to filaments generated by shorter duration pulses, the electron avalanche is the dominant energy loss mechanism during filamentation with 7 ps pulses. The results are of interest for the atmospheric propagation of joule-level picosecond pulses from Yb:YAG lasers, of which average powers now surpass 1 kW, and for channeling other directed energy beams.

    

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3. Quasi-static optical parametric amplification

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OPTICA.442550  

   Jankowski, Marc ; Jornod, Nayara ; Langrock, Carsten ; Desiatov, Boris ; Marandi, Alireza ; Lončar, Marko ; Fejer, Martin M. ( March 2022 , Optica)

   High-gain optical parametric amplification is an important nonlinear process used both as a source of coherent infrared light and as a source of nonclassical light. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate an approach to optical parametric amplification that enables extremely large parametric gains with low energy requirements. In conventional nonlinear media driven by femtosecond pulses, multiple dispersion orders limit the effective interaction length available for parametric amplification. Here, we use the dispersion engineering available in periodically poled thin-film lithium niobate nanowaveguides to eliminate several dispersion orders at once. The result is a quasi-static process; the large peak intensity associated with a short pump pulse can provide gain to signal photons without undergoing pulse distortion or temporal walk-off. We characterize the parametric gain available in these waveguides using optical parametric generation, where vacuum fluctuations are amplified to macroscopic intensities. In the unsaturated regime, we observe parametric gains as large as 71 dB (118 dB/cm) spanning 1700–2700 nm with pump energies of only 4 pJ. When driven with pulse energies$><\#comment/>10\mathrm{p}\mathrm{J}$, we observe saturated parametric gains as large as 88 dB ($><\#comment/>146\mathrm{d}\mathrm{B}/\mathrm{c}\mathrm{m}$). The devices shown here achieve saturated optical parametric generation with orders of magnitude less pulse energy than previous techniques.

    

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4. Emissions in short-gated ns/ps/fs-LIBS for fuel-to-air ratio measurements in methane-air flames

   https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.418453  

   Gragston, Mark ; Hsu, Paul ; Jiang, Naibo ; Roy, Sukesh ; Zhang, Zhili ( May 2021 , Applied Optics)

   A study of short-gated 10 nanosecond (ns), 100 picosecond (ps), and 100 femtosecond (fs) laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) was conducted for fuel-to-air ratio (FAR) measurements in an atmospheric Hencken flame. The intent of the work is to understand which emission lines are available near the optical range in each pulse width regime and which emission ratios may be favorable for generating equivalence ratio calibration curves. The emission spectra in the range of 550–800 nm for ns-LIBS and ps-LIBS are mostly similar with slightly elevated atomic oxygen lines by ps-LIBS. Spectra from fs-LIBS show the lowest continuum background and prominent individual atomic lines, though have significantly weaker ionic emission from nitrogen. A qualitative explanation based on assumed local thermodynamic equilibrium and electron temperatures calculated by the${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}}(565\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})$and${\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}}(594\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})$emissions is presented. In studying line emission ratios for FAR calculation, it is found that${\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{\alpha <\#comment/>}}(656\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})/{\mathrm{N}}_{\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}}(568\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})$is best for FAR measurements with ns-LIBS and remains viable for ps-LIBS, while${\mathrm{H}}_{\mathrm{\alpha <\#comment/>}}(656\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})/{\mathrm{O}}_{\mathrm{I}}(777\mathrm{n}\mathrm{m})$is optimal for the ps-LIBS and fs-LIBS cases. Due to low continuum background and short time delay for spectra collection, fs-LIBS is very promising for high-speed FAR measurements using short-gated LIBS.

    

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5. Direct chip-scale optical frequency divider via regenerative harmonic injection locking

   https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.413335  

   Bustos-Ramirez, Ricardo ; Trask, Lawrence R. ; Bhardwaj, Ashish ; Hoefler, Gloria E. ; Kish, Fred A. ; Delfyett, Peter J. ( February 2021 , Optics Letters)

   A novel optical frequency division technique, called regenerative harmonic injection locking, is used to transfer the timing stability of an optical frequency comb with a repetition rate in the millimeter wave range ($\sim <\#comment/>300\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$) to a chip-scale mode-locked laser with a$\sim <\#comment/>10\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}$repetition rate. By doing so, the 300 GHz optical frequency comb is optically divided by a factor of$30\times <\#comment/>$to 10 GHz. The stability of the mode-locked laser after regenerative harmonic injection locking is$\sim <\#comment/>{10}^{-<\#comment/>12}$at 1 s with a$1/\mathrm{\tau <\#comment/>}$trend. To facilitate optical frequency division, a coupled opto-electronic oscillator is implemented to assist the injection locking process. This technique is exceptionally power efficient, as it uses less than$100\text{µ<\#comment/>}\mathrm{W}$of optical power to achieve stable locking.

    

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