Search results for "Kerr effect"
showing 10 items of 107 documents
Interacting Solitons in a High Index Glass
2010
We investigate the interaction of two coherent 2D+1 solitary beams in a high index glass.
Interpretation of negative birefringence observed in strong-field optical pump-probe experiments: High-order Kerr and plasma grating effects
2013
The analysis of negative birefringence optically induced in major air components (Loriot et al., [1, 2]) is revisited in light of the recently reported plasma grating-induced phase-shift effect predicted for strong field pump-probe experiments (Wahlstrand and Milchberg, [3]). The nonlinear birefrin- gence induced by a short and intense laser pulse in argon is measured by femtosecond time-resolved polarimetry. The experiments are performed with degenerate colors, where the pump and probe beam share the same spectrum, or with two different colors and non-overlapping spectra. The in- terpretation of the experimental results is substantiated using a numerical 3D+1 model accounting for nonlinear…
Observation of collapse arrest in pure kerr media sustained by a parametric interaction
2013
We demonstrate a parametric interaction based on four wave mixing that can arrest the collapse and stabilize solitary propagation in a pure Kerr material by controlling the wavelength of the interacting beams.
Colloidal and molecular electro-optics
2010
The Kerr effect, also known as the quadratic electro-optic effect, was discovered more than a hundred years ago by John Kerr, a Scottish physicist [1]. It describes the change in the refractive index of a material in response to an applied electric field. Around 1950 its application swayed from simple to complex fluids. A strong contribution was made through a number of seminal papers by the French polymer scientist H Benoit [2–4]. These and others initiated wide interest from researchers working on macromolecular solutions or colloidal dispersions. Experimental activities were further boosted by the advent of the laser and theoretical approaches strongly drew from growing computer power. U…
Laser-induced field-free alignment of the OCS molecule
2007
We investigate the dynamical alignment of jet-cooled OCS molecules induced by a short laser pulse. The alignment is measured through the orientational contribution of the optical Kerr effect using a second weak laser pulse as a probe. Maximum alignment is observed at conditions close to saturation of ionization. The results are analysed with a quantum mechanical model solving for the rotational dynamics.
Optical kerr effect in the strong field regime
2013
The optical Kerr response of hydrogen atom submitted to a strong and short near infrared laser pulse excitation is studied by solving the full 3D time-dependent Schro¨dinger equation. The nonlinear polarization evaluated at the driving field frequency is compared to the canonical expression derived from perturbation theory. A discrepancy between the two models is observed at large intensity affecting the nonlinear propagation of short and intense laser pulses.
Incoherent modulation instability in instantaneous nonlinear Kerr media
2005
We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally in an optical fiber system that partially temporally incoherent light exhibits modulational instability during its propagation in an instantaneous response nonlinear medium. We show that the modulation frequency and gain are substantially increased with respect to the corresponding values of coherent modulational instability.
Switching Dynamics of Dark Solitons in Kerr Microresonators
2019
Dissipative Kerr solitons (DKS) are localized structures in optical resonators that arise from a double balance between dispersion and Kerr effect, and linear loss and parametric gain [1]. The periodic nature of DKS corresponds to frequency combs. DKS can be generated in high-Q microresonators for diverse applications, from coherent communications to precision frequency synthesis [1]. Most studies of DKS have focused on microresonator cavities operating in the anomalous dispersion regime, where the waveforms correspond to bright soliton pulses. Coherent microresonator combs can also be formed in the normal dispersion regime [2]. The time-domain waveform corresponds to a localized dark-pulse…
Dynamics of the transition from polarization disorder to antiphase polarization domains in vector fiber lasers
2014
We demonstrate that nonlinear polarization coupling in a fiber ring laser without polarization-selective elements, subject to the effects of average anomalous dispersion, Kerr effect, and nonlinear gain saturation, can lead to the antisynchronization of spatiotemporal chaos into a wide variety of ordered laminar states of orthogonal polarization temporal domains. These antiphase polarization domains include stable lattices of soliton trains with high duty cycle at repetition rates of hundreds of MHz, as well as sparse trains of coupled dark and bright solitary waves.
Kerr effect as a tool for the investigation of dynamic heterogeneities
2006
We propose a dynamic Kerr effect experiment for the distinction between dynamic heterogeneous and homogeneous relaxation in glassy systems. The possibility of this distinction is due to the inherent nonlinearity of the Kerr effect signal. We model the slow reorientational molecular motion in supercooled liquids in terms of non-inertial rotational diffusion. The Kerr effect response, consisting of two terms, is calculated for heterogeneous and for homogeneous variants of the stochastic model. It turns out that the experiment is able to distinguish between the two scenarios. We furthermore show that exchange between relatively 'slow' and 'fast' environments does not affect the possibility of …