Compression-free and single-beam generation of a carrier-envelope phase-stable optical pulse
AssigneeFastlite
InventorNicolas Forget
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is notably directed to methods and systems for generating a CEP-stable optical pulse of optical carrier frequency fi from input optical pulses, the input optical pulses having an optical carrier frequency fp and pulse duration Tp. A birefringent medium, a non nonlinear medium, a dispersive optical system, a parametric device (DFG) are successively used to achieve the generation.
Claims20
A single-beam beam and compression-free optical system for generating carrier-envelope phase-stable optical pulses of optical carrier frequency fi from input optical pulses, the input optical pulses having an optical carrier frequency fp and a pulse duration τp, the system comprising:
- a birefringent medium
- for receiving, as input, the input optical pulses;
- and
- for providing as output pairs of linearly-polarized pulses, each pair of linearly-polarized pulses having orthogonal polarization along a first and second directions with a relative optical group delay at approximatively equal to or greater than the pulse duration τp of the input optical pulses;
- a nonlinear medium
- for receiving, as input, the output of the birefringent medium;
- and
- for providing as output the pairs of linearly-polarized pulses with at least one of the two pulses of each pair that is spectrally broadened;
- a transparent dispersive optical system
- for receiving, as input, the output of the nonlinear medium;
- and
- for providing as output the pairs of linearly-polarized pulses with total or partial temporal overlap between the two pulses of each pair;
- a parametric device
- for receiving, as input, the output of the transparent dispersive optical system;
- and
- for providing as output a frequency-difference between frequency components of the linearly-polarized pulse polarized along the first direction and frequency components of the linearly-polarized pulse polarized along the second direction.
A method for generating carrier-envelope phase-stable optical pulses of optical carrier frequency fi from input optical pulses, the input optical pulses having an optical carrier frequency fp and a pulse duration τp, comprising:
- providing the input optical pulses having an optical carrier frequency fp and a pulse duration τp;
- generating from the provided input optical pulses, by a birefringent medium, pairs of linearly-polarized pulses, each pair of linearly-polarized pulses having orthogonal polarization along a first and second directions with a relative optical group delay at approximatively equal to or greater than the pulse duration τp of the input optical pulses;
- triggering filamentation, by a nonlinear medium, of at least one of the two pulses of each pair, the at least one of the two pulses of each pair being spectrally broadened as a result of filamentation;
- temporally overlapping, by a dispersive optical system, the two pulses of each pair from the output of said nonlinear medium;
- and
- generating, by a parametric device and from an output of the dispersive optical system, a frequency-difference between frequency components of the linearly-polarized pulse polarized along the first direction and frequency components of the linearly-polarized pulse polarized along the second direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.