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Light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) in free space or within optical fibers have a wide range of applications in optics; however, exciting these modes with both high purity and low loss generally requires demanding optimization of excitation conditions in a high dimensional space. Furthermore, mechanical drift can significantly degrade the mode purity over time, which may limit practical deployment of OAM modes in concrete applications. Here, combining an iterative wavefront matching approach and a genetic algorithm, we demonstrate rapid and automated excitation of OAM modes with optimized purity and reduced loss. Our approach allows for systematic computational realignment of the system enabling drift compensation over extended durations. Our experimental results indicate that OAM purity can be optimized and maintained over periods exceeding 24 h, paving the way for the applications of stable OAM beams in optics.

Identifying the underlying processes that locally dominate physical interactions is the key to understanding nonlinear dynamics. Machine-learning techniques have recently been shown to be highly promising in automating the search for dominant physics, adding important insights that complement analytical methods and empirical intuition. Here we apply a fully unsupervised approach to the search for dominant balance during nonlinear and dispersive propagation in an optical fiber and show that we can algorithmically identify dominant interactions in cases of optical wavebreaking, soliton fission, dispersive wave generation, and Raman soliton emergence. We discuss how dominant balance manifests both in the temporal and spectral domains.

We report the generation of a broadband supercontinuum (SC) from 790 to 2900 nm in a tellurite graded-index (GRIN) multimode fiber with a nanostructured core. We study the SC dynamics in different dispersion regimes and observe near-single-mode spatial intensity distribution at high input energy values. Numerical simulations of the (3 + 1)D generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation are in good agreement with our experiments. Our results open a new avenue for the generation of high-power mid-infrared SC sources in soft-glass fibers.

Ghost imaging in the time domain allows for reconstructing fast temporal objects using a slow photodetector. The technique involves correlating random or pre-programmed probing temporal intensity patterns with the integrated signal measured after modulation by the temporal object. However, the implementation of temporal ghost imaging necessitates ultrafast detectors or modulators for measuring or pre-programming the probing intensity patterns, which are not available in all spectral regions especially in the mid-infrared range. Here, we demonstrate a frequency downconversion temporal ghost imaging scheme that enables to extend the operation regime to arbitrary wavelengths regions where fast modulators and detectors are not available. The approach modulates a signal with temporal intensity patterns in the near-infrared and transfers the patterns to an idler via difference-frequency generation in a nonlinear crystal at a wavelength where the temporal object can be retrieved. As a proof-of-concept, we demonstrate computational temporal ghost imaging in the mid-infrared with operating wavelength that can be tuned from 3.2 to 4.3 μm. The scheme is flexible and can be extended to other regimes. Our results introduce new possibilities for scan-free pump-probe imaging and the study of ultrafast dynamics in spectral regions where ultrafast modulation or detection is challenging such as the mid-infrared and THz regions., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

We report the generation of a spectrally tailored supercontinuum using Fourier-domain pulse shaping of femtosecond pulses injected into a highly nonlinear fiber controlled by a genetic algorithm. User-selectable spectral enhancement is demonstrated over the 1550-2000-nm wavelength range, with the ability to both select a channel with target central wavelength and bandwidth in the range of 1-5 nm. The spectral enhancement factor relative to unshaped input pulses is typically ∼5-20 in the range 1550-1800 nm and increases for longer wavelengths, exceeding a factor of 160 around 2000 nm. We also demonstrate results where the genetic algorithm is applied to the enhancement of up to four spectral channels simultaneously.

We report real-time monitoring of coarse aerosol particle distribution in a 9 m wide full-scale industrial boiler using a broadband supercontinuum lidar. The technique utilizes the light backscattered from the aerosol to map the extinction profile using the Klett inversion method, with measured extinction values of 0.04 - 0.2 m -1 across the furnace. The technique further exploits differential absorption of water molecules in the 1.25 - 1.5 µm region to map the water vapor concentration profile in the furnace up to a distance of 3.9 m with a spatial resolution of 30 cm. We also take advantage of the strong reflection from the boiler back-wall to simultaneously measure the average water vapor temperature and concentration in the boiler in good agreement with reference readings from the boiler. Our results open novel perspectives for versatile 3D profiling of flue gas parameters and other industrial process analysis.

We analyze the dynamics of modulation instability in optical fiber (or any other nonlinear Schrödinger equation system) using the machine-learning technique of data-driven dominant balance. We aim to automate the identification of which particular physical processes drive propagation in different regimes, a task usually performed using intuition and comparison with asymptotic limits. We first apply the method to interpret known analytic results describing Akhmediev breather, Kuznetsov-Ma, and Peregrine soliton (rogue wave) structures, and show how we can automatically distinguish regions of dominant nonlinear propagation from regions where nonlinearity and dispersion combine to drive the observed spatio-temporal localization. Using numerical simulations, we then apply the technique to the more complex case of noise-driven spontaneous modulation instability, and show that we can readily isolate different regimes of dominant physical interactions, even within the dynamics of chaotic propagation., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

The noise-like pulse regime of optical fiber lasers is highly complex, and associated with multiscale emission of random sub-picosecond pulses underneath a much longer envelope. With the addition of highly nonlinear fiber in the cavity, noise-like pulse lasers can also exhibit supercontinuum broadening and the generation of output spectra spanning 100's of nm. Achieving these broadest bandwidths, however, requires careful optimization of the nonlinear polarization rotation based saturable absorber, which involves a very large potential parameter space. Here we study the spectral characteristics of a broadband noise-like pulse laser by scanning the laser operation over a random sample of 50,000 polarization settings, and we quantify that these broadest bandwidths are generated in only [Formula: see text] 0.5% of cases. We also show that a genetic algorithm can replace trial and error optimization to align the cavity for these broadband operating states., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

We report multipass broadband photoacoustic spectroscopy of trace gases in the mid-infrared. The measurement principle of the sensor relies on supercontinuum-based Fourier transform photoacoustic spectroscopy (FT-PAS), in which a scanning interferometer modulates the intensity of a mid-infrared supercontinuum light source and a cantilever microphone is employed for sensitive photoacoustic detection. With a custom-built external Herriott cell, the supercontinuum beam propagates ten times through a miniature and acoustically non-resonant gas cell. The performance of the FT-PAS system is demonstrated by measuring the fundamental C-H stretch bands of various hydrocarbons. A noise equivalent detection limit of 11 ppb is obtained for methane (40 s averaging time, 15 μW cm -1 incident power spectral density, 4 cm -1 resolution), which is an improvement by a factor of 12 compared to the best previous FT-PAS systems. High linearity and good stability of the sensor provide reliable identification of individual species from a gas mixture with strong spectral overlap, laying the foundation for sensitive and selective multi-species detection in small sample volumes.

We show using numerical simulations that data driven discovery using sparse regression can be used to extract the governing differential equation model of ideal four-wave mixing in a nonlinear Schrödinger equation optical fibre system. Specifically, we consider the evolution of a strong single frequency pump interacting with two frequency detuned sidebands where the dynamics are governed by a reduced Hamiltonian system describing pump-sideband coupling. Based only on generated dynamical data from this system, sparse regression successfully recovers the underlying physical model, fully capturing the dynamical landscape on both sides of the system separatrix. We also discuss how analysing an ensemble over different initial conditions allows us to reliably identify the governing model in the presence of noise. These results extend the use of data driven discovery to ideal four-wave mixing in nonlinear Schrödinger equation systems., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Neural networks have been recently shown to be highly effective in predicting time-domain properties of optical fiber instabilities based only on analyzing spectral intensity profiles. Specifically, from only spectral intensity data, a suitably trained neural network can predict temporal soliton characteristics in supercontinuum generation, as well as the presence of temporal peaks in modulation instability satisfying rogue wave criteria. Here, we extend these previous studies of machine learning prediction for single-pass fiber propagation instabilities to the more complex case of noise-like pulse dynamics in a dissipative soliton laser. Using numerical simulations of highly chaotic behaviour in a noise-like pulse laser operating around 1550 nm, we generate large ensembles of spectral and temporal data for different regimes of operation, from relatively narrowband laser spectra of 70 nm bandwidth at the -20 dB level, to broadband supercontinuum spectra spanning 200 nm at the -20 dB level and with dispersive wave and long wavelength Raman extension spanning from 1150-1700 nm. Using supervised learning techniques, a trained neural network is shown to be able to accurately correlate spectral intensity profiles with time-domain intensity peaks and to reproduce the associated temporal intensity probability distributions.

The generation of a two-octave supercontinuum from the visible to mid-infrared (700-2800 nm) in a non-silica graded-index multimode fiber is reported. The fiber design is based on a nanostructured core comprised of two types of drawn lead-bismuth-gallate glass rods with different refractive indices. This yields an effective parabolic index profile and ten times increased nonlinearity when compared to silica fibers. Using femtosecond pulse pumping at wavelengths in both normal and anomalous dispersion regimes, a detailed study is carried out into the supercontinuum generating mechanisms and instabilities seeded by periodic self-imaging. Significantly, suitable injection conditions in the high power regime are found to result in the output beam profile showing clear signatures of beam self-cleaning from nonlinear mode mixing. Experimental observations are interpreted using spatio-temporal 3+1D numerical simulations of the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and simulated spectra are in excellent agreement with experiment over the full two-octave spectral bandwidth. Experimental comparison with the generation of supercontinuum in a silica graded-index multimode fiber shows that the enhanced nonlinear refractive index of the lead-bismuth-gallate fiber yields a spectrum with a significantly larger bandwidth. These results demonstrate a new pathway towards the generation of bright, ultrabroadband light sources in the mid-infrared., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

We present an erratum to our Letter [Opt. Lett.47, 802 (2022)10.1364/OL.448571]. This erratum corrects an error in the sign of one of the higher-order dispersion coefficient used in the simulations of Figs. 2 and 4, as well as in Figs. S1 and S3. The simulations in the original Letter were performed using the correct value, and therefore this correction does not affect any of the results and conclusions of the original Letter.

We investigate the noise transfer mechanism from the light source intensity fluctuations to the acoustic signal in Fourier transform photoacoustic spectroscopy (FT-PAS). This noise coupling is expected to be reduced in FT-PAS compared with conventional Fourier transform spectroscopy, as only the specific spectral components that are absorbed by the probed sample contribute to the noise level. We employ an incoherent supercontinuum (SC) light source in our experiments and observe a linear relation between the sample gas concentration and the detected noise level, which significantly reduces the influence of the SC noise on the detection limit. Based on our experimental results, we derive a model for the noise level, which establishes the foundation for practical sensitive implementation of FT-PAS.

The nonlinear propagation of ultrashort pulses in optical fibers depends sensitively on the input pulse and fiber parameters. As a result, the optimization of propagation for specific applications generally requires time-consuming simulations based on the sequential integration of the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation (GNLSE). Here, we train a feed-forward neural network to learn the differential propagation dynamics of the GNLSE, allowing emulation of direct numerical integration of fiber propagation, and particularly the highly complex case of supercontinuum generation. Comparison with a recurrent neural network shows that the feed-forward approach yields faster training and computation, and reduced memory requirements. The approach is generic and can be extended to other physical systems.

Understanding dynamical complexity is one of the most important challenges in science. Significant progress has recently been made in optics through the study of dissipative soliton laser systems, where dynamics are governed by a complex balance between nonlinearity, dispersion, and energy exchange. A particularly complex regime of such systems is associated with noise-like pulse multiscale instabilities, where sub-picosecond pulses with random characteristics evolve chaotically underneath a much longer envelope. However, although observed for decades in experiments, the physics of this regime remains poorly understood, especially for highly-nonlinear cavities generating broadband spectra. Here, we address this question directly with a combined numerical and experimental study that reveals the physical origin of instability as nonlinear soliton dynamics and supercontinuum turbulence. Real-time characterisation reveals intracavity extreme events satisfying statistical rogue wave criteria, and both real-time and time-averaged measurements are in quantitative agreement with modelling., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

We experimentally demonstrate the generation of a short-wave infrared supercontinuum in an uncladded silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) waveguide with extreme polarization sensitivity at the pumping wavelength of 2.1 µm. The air-clad waveguide is specifically designed to yield anomalous dispersion regime for transverse electric (TE) mode excitation and all-normal-dispersion (ANDi) at near-infrared wavelengths for the transverse magnetic (TM) mode. Dispersion engineering of the polarization modes allows for switching via simple adjustment of the input polarization state from an octave-spanning soliton fission-driven supercontinuum with fine spectral structure to a flat and smooth ANDi supercontinuum dominated by a self-phase modulation mechanism (SPM). Such a polarization sensitive supercontinuum source offers versatile applications such as broadband on-chip sensing to pulse compression and few-cycle pulse generation. Our experimental results are in very good agreement with numerical simulations.

We demonstrate computational spectral-domain ghost imaging by encoding complementary Fourier patterns directly onto the spectrum of a superluminescent laser diode using a programmable spectral filter. Spectral encoding before the object enables uniform spectral illumination across the beam profile, removing the need for light collection optics and yielding increased signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, the use of complementary Fourier patterns allows reduction of deleterious of parasitic light effects. As a proof-of-concept, we measure the wavelength-dependent transmission of a Michelson interferometer and a wavelength-division multiplexer. Our results open new perspectives for remote broadband spectral measurements.

Supercontinuum generation is a highly nonlinear process that exhibits unstable and chaotic characteristics when developing from long pump pulses injected into the anomalous dispersion regime of an optical fiber. A particular feature associated with this regime is the long-tailed "rogue wave"-like statistics of the spectral intensity on the long-wavelength edge of the supercontinuum, linked to the generation of a small number of "rogue solitons" with extreme red-shifts. Whilst the statistical properties of rogue solitons can be conveniently measured in the spectral domain using the real-time dispersive Fourier transform technique, we cannot use this technique to determine any corresponding temporal properties since it only records the spectral intensity and one loses information about the spectral phase. And direct temporal characterization using methods such as the time-lens has resolution of typically 100's of fs, precluding the measurement of solitons which possess typically much shorter durations. Here, we solve this problem by using machine learning. Specifically, we show how supervised learning can train a neural network to predict the peak power, duration, and temporal walk-off with respect to the pump pulse position of solitons at the edge of a supercontinuum spectrum from only the supercontinuum spectral intensity without phase information. Remarkably, the network accurately predicts soliton characteristics for a wide range of scenarios, from the onset of spectral broadening dominated by pure modulation instability to near octave-spanning supercontinuum with distinct rogue solitons.

We demonstrate the generation of a low-noise, octave-spanning mid-infrared supercontinuum from 1700 to 4800 nm by injecting femtosecond pulses into the normal dispersion regime of a multimode step-index chalcogenide fiber with 100 µm core diameter. We conduct a systematic study of the intensity noise across the supercontinuum spectrum and show that the initial fluctuations of the pump laser are at most amplified by a factor of three. We also perform a comparison with the noise characteristics of an octave-spanning supercontinuum generated in the anomalous dispersion regime of a multimode fluoride fiber with similar core size and show that the normal dispersion supercontinuum in the multimode chalcogenide fiber has superior noise characteristics. Our results open up novel perspectives for many practical applications such as long-distance remote sensing where high power and low noise are paramount.

Ghost imaging in the time domain has opened up new possibilities to retrieve ultrafast waveforms. A pre-requisite to ghost imaging in the time domain is a light source with random temporal intensity fluctuations that are fully uncorrelated over the duration of the temporal waveform being imaged. Here, we show that random fiber lasers are excellent candidates for ghost imaging in the time domain. We study the temporal correlations of the intensity fluctuations of a random fiber laser in different operating regimes and compare its performance in temporal ghost imaging configurations with that of a conventional multi-mode cavity-based fiber laser. Our results demonstrate that random fiber lasers can achieve superior performance for ghost imaging as compared to cavity-based fiber lasers where strong correlations at the cavity round-trip time can yield artefacts for waveforms of long duration.

Numerical simulations of a dissipative soliton-similariton laser are shown to reproduce a range of instabilities seen in recent experiments. The model uses a scalar nonlinear Schrödinger equation map, and regions of stability and instability are readily identified as a function of gain and saturable absorber parameters. Studying evolution over multiple round trips reveals spectral instabilities linked with soliton molecule internal motion, soliton explosions, chaos, and intermittence. For the case of soliton molecules, the relative phase variation in the spectrum is shown to be due to differences in nonlinear phase evolution between the molecule components over multiple round trips.

We demonstrate experimentally ghost optical coherence tomography using a broadband incoherent supercontinuum light source with shot-to-shot random spectral fluctuations. The technique is based on ghost imaging in the spectral domain where the object is the spectral interference pattern generated from an optical coherence tomography interferometer in which a physical sample is placed. The axial profile of the sample is obtained from the Fourier transform of the correlation between the spectrally resolved intensity fluctuations of the supercontinuum and the integrated signal measured at the output of the interferometer. The results are in excellent agreement with measurements obtained from a conventional optical coherence tomography system.

A central research area in nonlinear science is the study of instabilities that drive extreme events. Unfortunately, techniques for measuring such phenomena often provide only partial characterisation. For example, real-time studies of instabilities in nonlinear optics frequently use only spectral data, limiting knowledge of associated temporal properties. Here, we show how machine learning can overcome this restriction to study time-domain properties of optical fibre modulation instability based only on spectral intensity measurements. Specifically, a supervised neural network is trained to correlate the spectral and temporal properties of modulation instability using simulations, and then applied to analyse high dynamic range experimental spectra to yield the probability distribution for the highest temporal peaks in the instability field. We also use unsupervised learning to classify noisy modulation instability spectra into subsets associated with distinct temporal dynamic structures. These results open novel perspectives in all systems exhibiting instability where direct time-domain observations are difficult.

We demonstrate cantilever-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy in the mid-infrared using a supercontinuum source. The approach is broadband and allows for higher photoacoustic signal intensity and an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio as compared to systems employing conventional black body radiation sources. Using this technique, we perform spectroscopic measurements of the full ro-vibrational band structure of water vapor at 1900 nm and methane at 3300 nm with relative signal enhancement factors of 70 and 19, respectively, when compared to measurements that use the black body radiation source. Our results offer a novel perspective for photoacoustic detection opening the door to sensitive broadband analyzers in the mid-infrared spectral region.

Ghost imaging is a technique that generates high-resolution images by correlating the intensity of two light beams, neither of which independently contains useful information about the shape of the object. Ghost imaging has been demonstrated in both the spatial and temporal domains, using incoherent classical light sources or entangled photon pairs. Here we exploit the recent progress in ultrafast real-time measurement techniques to demonstrate ultrafast, scan-free, ghost imaging in the frequency domain using a continuous spectrum from an incoherent supercontinuum light source with random spectral fluctuations. We demonstrate the application of this technique to broadband spectroscopic measurements of methane absorption performed with sub-nanometer resolution. Our results offer novel perspectives for remote sensing in low light conditions, or in spectral regions where sensitive detectors are lacking.

We report experimental confirmation of the universal emergence of the Peregrine soliton predicted to occur during pulse propagation in the semiclassical limit of the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Using an optical fiber based system, measurements of temporal focusing of high power pulses reveal both intensity and phase signatures of the Peregrine soliton during the initial nonlinear evolution stage. Experimental and numerical results are in very good agreement, and show that the universal mechanism that yields the Peregrine soliton structure is highly robust and can be observed over a broad range of parameters.

Modulation instability is a fundamental process of nonlinear science, leading to the unstable breakup of a constant amplitude solution of a physical system. There has been particular interest in studying modulation instability in the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation, a generic model for a host of nonlinear systems including superfluids, fibre optics, plasmas and Bose-Einstein condensates. Modulation instability is also a significant area of study in the context of understanding the emergence of high amplitude events that satisfy rogue wave statistical criteria. Here, exploiting advances in ultrafast optical metrology, we perform real-time measurements in an optical fibre system of the unstable breakup of a continuous wave field, simultaneously characterizing emergent modulation instability breather pulses and their associated statistics. Our results allow quantitative comparison between experiment, modelling and theory, and are expected to open new perspectives on studies of instability dynamics in physics.

We measure experimentally the second-order coherence properties of supercontinuum generated in a photonic crystal fiber. Our approach is based on measuring separately the quasicoherent and quasistationary contributions to the cross-spectral density and mutual coherence functions using a combination of interferometric and nonlinear gating techniques. This allows us to introduce two-dimensional coherence spectrograms which provide a direct characterization and convenient visualization of the spectrotemporal coherence properties. The measured second-order coherence functions are in very good agreement with numerical simulations based on the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Our results pave the way towards the full experimental characterization of supercontinuum coherence properties. More generally, they provide a generic approach for the complete experimental measurement of the coherence of broadband sources.

Temporal coherence properties of supercontinuum pulse trains generated in nonlinear fibers are analyzed within the framework of the second-order coherence theory of nonstationary light. Time-resolved Michelson's interference patterns are simulated, from which the full two-time mutual coherence function can (at least in principle) be determined experimentally. Standard time-integrated Michelson's interferograms are also simulated and shown to provide a rough estimate for the coherence time of the quasi-stationary contribution. A simple but illustrative analytical model representing supercontinuum pulse trains is presented, and numerically simulated realizations of such pulse trains are considered.

We demonstrate experimentally spectral-domain intensity optical coherence tomography using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with balanced detection. We show that the technique allows for a point spread function with reduced full-width at half maximum compared to conventional optical coherence tomography. The method further provides benefits similar to those of chirped-pulse interferometry in terms of dispersion cancellation but only requires a broadband incoherent source and standard detectors. The measurements are in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions. Finally, we propose an approach that enables the elimination of potential artefacts arising from multiple interfaces.

We report strong enhancement of second-harmonic generation in a hybrid nanostructure with gold gratings embedded in a silicon nitride film. Compared to a flat silicon nitride film, the enhancement factor can be as large as 10 2 to 10 3 for transverse magnetic and electric polarizations, respectively in good agreement with numerical results calculated using finite element method. For both polarizations, the enhancement arises from a resonance between the waveguide modes and grating.

We investigate incoherent broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy using a tailored supercontinuum source. By tailoring the supercontinuum spectrum to match the high reflectivity bandwidth of the mirrors, we achieve an unprecedented spectral brightness of more than 7 dBm/nm at wavelengths where the effective absorption path length in the cavity exceeds 40 km. We demonstrate the potential of the source in spectrally broadband measurement of weak overtone transitions of carbon dioxide and methane in the near-infrared 1590 nm - 1700 nm range and evaluate its performance against that of a typical superluminescent diode source. Minimum detectable absorption coefficients (3σ) of 2.2 × 10(-9) cm(-1) and 6.2 × 10(-9) cm(-1) are obtained with the supercontinuum and the superluminescent diode sources, respectively. We further develop a spectral fitting method based on differential optical absorption spectroscopy to fully and properly account for the combined effect of absorption line saturation and limited spectral resolution of the detection. The method allows to cope with high dynamic range of absorption features typical of real-world multi-component measurements.

There are many examples in physics of systems showing rogue wave behaviour, the generation of high amplitude events at low probability. Although initially studied in oceanography, rogue waves have now been seen in many other domains, with particular recent interest in optics. Although most studies in optics have focussed on how nonlinearity can drive rogue wave emergence, purely linear effects have also been shown to induce extreme wave amplitudes. In this paper, we report a detailed experimental study of linear rogue waves in an optical system, using a spatial light modulator to impose random phase structure on a coherent optical field. After free space propagation, different random intensity patterns are generated, including partially-developed speckle, a broadband caustic network, and an intermediate pattern with characteristics of both speckle and caustic structures. Intensity peaks satisfying statistical criteria for rogue waves are seen especially in the case of the caustic network, and are associated with broader spatial spectra. In addition, the electric field statistics of the intermediate pattern shows properties of an "optical sea" with near-Gaussian statistics in elevation amplitude, and trough-to-crest statistics that are near-Rayleigh distributed but with an extended tail where a number of rogue wave events are observed.

The nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) is a seminal equation of nonlinear physics describing wave packet evolution in weakly-nonlinear dispersive media. The NLSE is especially important in understanding how high amplitude "rogue waves" emerge from noise through the process of modulation instability (MI) whereby a perturbation on an initial plane wave can evolve into strongly-localised "breather" or "soliton on finite background (SFB)" structures. Although there has been much study of such structures excited under controlled conditions, there remains the open question of how closely the analytic solutions of the NLSE actually model localised structures emerging in noise-seeded MI. We address this question here using numerical simulations to compare the properties of a large ensemble of emergent peaks in noise-seeded MI with the known analytic solutions of the NLSE. Our results show that both elementary breather and higher-order SFB structures are observed in chaotic MI, with the characteristics of the noise-induced peaks clustering closely around analytic NLSE predictions. A significant conclusion of our work is to suggest that the widely-held view that the Peregrine soliton forms a rogue wave prototype must be revisited. Rather, we confirm earlier suggestions that NLSE rogue waves are most appropriately identified as collisions between elementary SFB solutions.

The nonlinear interaction of light in an optical fibre can mimic the physics at an event horizon. This analogue arises when a weak probe wave is unable to pass through an intense soliton, despite propagating at a different velocity. To date, these dynamics have been described in the time domain in terms of a soliton-induced refractive index barrier that modifies the velocity of the probe. Here we complete the physical description of fibre-optic event horizons by presenting a full frequency-domain description in terms of cascaded four-wave mixing between discrete single-frequency fields, and experimentally demonstrate signature frequency shifts using continuous wave lasers. Our description is confirmed by the remarkable agreement with experiments performed in the continuum limit, reached using ultrafast lasers. We anticipate that clarifying the description of fibre event horizons will significantly impact on the description of horizon dynamics and soliton interactions in photonics and other systems.

We perform a detailed characterisation of the second-order nonlinear optical response of nanocomposites consisting of alternating layers of silver-decorated silica glass nanoparticles and pure silica glass. The samples are fabricated using aerosol techniques and electron-beam dielectric coating, resulting in a bulk-like material with symmetry-breaking induced by the porosity of the alternating layers. The second-order nonlinear response increases with the number of layers. Further, by determining the components of the second-order susceptibility tensor of the samples, we show that the structural properties of the samples are well maintained as the sample thickness is increased. Our results form an important baseline for any further optimization of these types of structures, which can be fabricated using very straightforward methods.

We report control of the spectral and noise properties of spontaneous modulation instability (MI) in optical fiber using an incoherent seed with power at the 10(-6) level relative to the pump. We sweep the seed wavelength across the MI gain band, and observe significant enhancement of MI bandwidth and improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio as the seed coincides with the MI gain peak. We also vary the seed bandwidth and find a reduced effect on the MI spectrum as the seed coherence decreases. Stochastic nonlinear Schrödinger equation simulations of spectral and noise properties are in excellent agreement with experiment.

The transient appearance of bright spots in the beam profile of optical filaments formed in xenon is experimentally investigated. Fluence profiles are recorded with high-speed optical cameras at the kilohertz repetition rate of the laser source. A statistical analysis reveals a thresholdlike appearance of heavy-tailed fluence distributions together with the transition from single to multiple filamentation. The multifilament scenario exhibits near-exponential probability density functions, with extreme events exceeding the significant wave height by more than a factor of 10. The extreme events are isolated in space and in time. The macroscopic origin of these experimentally observed heavy-tail statistics is shown to be local refractive index variations inside the nonlinear medium, induced by multiphoton absorption and subsequent plasma thermalization. Microscopically, mergers between filament strings appear to play a decisive role in the observed rogue wave statistics.

We demonstrate the concept of a merged nanoscale photonic crystal slot waveguide that acts as a bandpass filter in the near infrared region of the spectrum. The device is based on the integration of a photonic crystal cavity in a slot waveguide on a silicon on insulator substrate. The device is further embedded in amorphous titanium dioxide using atomic layer deposition, which allows to reduce two-photon absorption losses and creates the possibility to combine nonlinear guided-wave optics resulting from the strong field confinement in the slot region with slow light effects in the photonic crystal cavity. Our approach is fully compatible with complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology and opens up new perspectives for the integration of all-optical signal processing functionalities in hybrid silicon nanophotonics platforms.

We present a supercontinuum (SC) light source designed for stroboscopic white light interferometry. The compact, cost-effective SC source is built from off-the-shelf optical components and operates both in the visible and near-IR at arbitrary repetition rates in the 10 kHz-1 MHz frequency range. We estimate that our source allows performing dynamic white-light interferometric characterization of rapidly oscillating objects up to several tens of megahertz. Its current potential is demonstrated by capturing the movement of a microelectromechanical system oscillating at 2.16 MHz with sub-100 nm accuracy.

We demonstrate a thousand-fold enhancement of second-harmonic generation in an all-dielectric silicon nitride (SiN) resonant waveguide grating compared to a flat SiN film. The strong second-harmonic output measured at 532 nm results from the combination of the enhanced local fields in the nanostructure and the large second-order susceptibility of SiN. The second-harmonic conversion efficiency in the resonant structure is found to be of the order of 10(-8), which is significantly larger than that typically observed from plasmonic metal nanostructures.

Aerosol techniques were used to synthesize spherical and monodisperse silver nanoparticles for plasmonic materials. The particles were generated with an evaporation-condensation technique followed by size selection and sintering with a differential mobility analyzer and a tube furnace, respectively. Finally, the nanoparticles were collected on a glass substrate with an electrostatic precipitator. The particle size distributions were measured with a scanning mobility particle sizer and verified with a transmission electron microscope. A spectrophotometer was used to measure the optical extinction spectra of the prepared samples, which contained particles with diameters of approximately 50, 90 and 130 nm. By controlling the particle size, the dipolar peak of the localized surface plasmon resonance was tuned between wavelengths of 398 and 448 nm. In addition, quadrupolar resonances were observed at shorter wavelengths as predicted by the simplified theoretical model used to characterize the measured spectra.

We apply the coherent-mode expansion to correlation functions used to describe the coherence properties of supercontinuum generated in nonlinear fibers. We show that the leading term of the expansion represents the quasi-coherent part of the field while the quasi-stationary part is embedded into the higher-order modes. The evolution of the modal expansion and the number of modes needed to describe the supercontinuum field are also discussed.

We report theoretical, numerical, and experimental studies of higher-order modulation instability in the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation. This higher-order instability arises from the nonlinear superposition of elementary instabilities, associated with initial single breather evolution followed by a regime of complex, yet deterministic, pulse splitting. We analytically describe the process using the Darboux transformation and compare with experiments in optical fiber. We show how a suitably low frequency modulation on a continuous wave field induces higher-order modulation instability splitting with the pulse characteristics at different phases of evolution related by a simple scaling relationship. We anticipate that similar processes are likely to be observed in many other systems including plasmas, Bose-Einstein condensates, and deep water waves., (© 2011 American Physical Society)

We report on the experimental observation of nonlinear mixing between Raman-shifting solitons and residual pump radiation in supercontinuum generation in the long-pulse regime. This resonant coherent process results in the generation of strong and isolated spectral components on the long-wavelength normal dispersion regime of a fiber with two zero-dispersion wavelengths. Our observations are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations and calculated phase-matching conditions., (© 2011 Optical Society of America)

We introduce a concept to control the spectral and dichroic properties of metamaterials. The approach is based on anisotropic metal nanoparticles and on varying their mutual orientation in a periodic lattice. Even seemingly inconsequential changes in particle ordering strongly modify the dichroic properties of the arrays and result in either very narrow resonances or ultrabroad extinction ranges. The results arise from long-range diffractive coupling between the particles, as determined by the dependence of the array unit cell size on particle ordering.

We consider the accuracy of modeling ultrashort pulse propagation and supercontinuum generation in optical fibers based on the assumption of a material Raman response that varies linearly with frequency. Numerical simulations in silica fiber using the linear Raman gain approximation are compared with simulations using the full Raman response, and differences in the spectral, temporal and stability characteristics are considered. A major finding is that for conditions typical of many experiments, although the input pulses may satisfy the criteria where the linear gain approximation is valid, the subsequent evolution and breakup of the input pulse can rapidly lead to a situation where the linear model leads to severe inaccuracies. Numerical artifacts within the linear model inducing unphysical pulse collapse are also identified.

We analyze the coherence properties of supercontinuum generated in photonic crystal fibers by applying the second-order coherence theory of nonstationary light. Using an ensemble of simulated realizations, we construct two-frequency cross-spectral density and two-time mutual coherence functions. This allows us to introduce measures of temporal and spectral coherence. We show that, in the long-pulse regime, supercontinuum light can be decomposed into a sum of coherent and quasi-stationary contributions. Our approach and findings are also applicable in the short-pulse regime.