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arXiv · 1910.10314

The pure-quartic soliton laser

Antoine F. J. Runge·Darren D. Hudson·Kevin K. K. Tam·C. Martijn de Sterke·Andrea Blanco-Redondo
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Abstract

The generation of ultrashort pulses hinges on the careful management of dispersion. Traditionally, this has exclusively involved second-order dispersion, while higher-order dispersion was treated as a nuisance to be minimized. Here we show that high-order dispersion can be strategically leveraged to access an uncharted regime of ultrafast laser operation. In particular, we demonstrate a mode-locked laser, with an intra-cavity spectral pulse-shaper, that emits pure-quartic soliton pulses, which arise from the interaction of the fourth-order dispersion and the Kerr nonlinearity. Using phase-resolved measurements we demonstrate that the energy of these pulses is proportional to the third power of the inverse pulse duration. This implies a dramatic increase in the energy of ultrashort pulses compared to those emitted by soliton lasers to date. These results not only demonstrate a novel approach to ultrafast lasers, but more fundamentally, they clarify the use of higher-order dispersion for optical pulse control, opening up a plethora of possibilities in nonlinear optics and its applications.

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Antoine F. J. Runge, Darren D. Hudson, Kevin K. K. Tam, C. Martijn de Sterke, Andrea Blanco-Redondo. 2019-10-23. The pure-quartic soliton laser. https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.10314

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