Speckle filtering through nonlinear wave mixing.

Light scattering by disordered media is a ubiquitous effect. After passing through them, the light acquires a random phase, masking or destroying associated information. Filtering this random phase is of paramount importance to many applications, such as sensing, imaging, and optical communication, to cite a few, and it is commonly achieved through computationally extensive post-processing using statistical correlation. In this work, we show that mixing noisy optical modes of various complexity in a second-order nonlinear medium can be used for efficient and straightforward filtering of a random wavefront under sum-frequency generation processes without utilizing correlation-based calculations.

Scattering of partially coherent vortex beams by a $\mathcal {PT}$-symmetric dipole.

We investigated the statistical properties of partially coherent optical vortex beams scattered by a $\mathcal {PT}$ dipole, consisting of a pair of point particles having balanced gain and loss. The formalism of second-order classical coherence theory is adopted, together with the first Born approximation, to obtain the cross-spectral density of the scattered field. It is shown that the radiated pattern depends strongly on the coherence properties of the incident beam and on the non-Hermitian properties of the dipole. The spectral density for the scattered radiation is ruled by two terms, one associated to the vortex structure and the other independent of the topological charge, and the competition between these terms dictates the directional properties of the scattered radiation. When they have same order of magnitude, the scattered profile resembles that of an incoherent system, with radiation being emitted in all directions in the three-dimensional space, regardless of the dipole's gain and loss properties. Depending on the gain and loss present in the dipole, the system may scatter light in some preferable directions. All of these effects are accompanied by a change in the spectral degree of coherence of the scattered field.

Fabrication and characterization of gold-polymer nanocomposite plasmonic nanoarrays in a porous alumina template.

A facile, cost-effective, and manufacturable method to produce gold-polymer nanocomposite plasmonic nanorod arrays in high-aspect-ratio nanoporous alumina templates is reported, where the formation of gold nanoparticles and the polymerization of a photosensitive polymer by ultraviolet light are simultaneously performed. Transverse mode coupling within a two-dimensional array of the nanocomposite rods results in a progression of resonant modes in the visible and infrared spectral regions when illuminated at normal incidence, a phenomenon previously observed in nanoarrays of solid gold rods in an alumina template. Finite element full-wave analysis in a three-dimensional computational domain confirms our hypothesis that nanoparticles, arranged in a columnar structure, will show a response similar to that of solid gold rods. These studies demonstrate a new simple method of plasmonic nanoarray fabrication, apparently obviating the need for a cumbersome electrochemical process to grow nanoarrays.

Effect of an optical negative index thin film on optical bistability.

We investigate nonlinear transmission in a layered structure consisting of a slab of positive index material with Kerr-type nonlinearity and a subwavelength layer of linear negative index material (NIM) sandwiched between semi-infinite linear dielectrics. We find that a thin layer of NIM leads to significant changes in the hysteresis width when the nonlinear slab is illuminated at an angle near that of total internal reflection. Unidirectional diodelike transmission with enhanced operational range is demonstrated. These results may be useful for NIMs characterization and for designing novel NIMs-based devices.

Theory of incoherent optical solitons: beyond the mean-field approximation.

We present a general theory of partially coherent optical solitons in slow-responding nonlinear media that takes into account intensity fluctuations of the light sources generating such solitons. If intensity fluctuations of the source are negligible, the theory reduces to the previously reported mean-field theory of partially coherent solitons. However, when such fluctuations are significant, our theory shows that the properties of partially coherent solitons in saturable nonlinear media can be qualitatively different from those predicted by the mean-field theory.

Group-delay ripple correction in chirped fiber Bragg gratings.

Group-delay ripple (GDR) introduced by systematic and random errors in chirped fiber Bragg grating fabrication is the most significant impediment to application of these devices in optical communication systems. We suggest and demonstrate a novel iterative procedure for GDR correction by subsequent UV exposure by use of a simple solution of the inverse problem for the coupled-wave equation. Our method is partly based but does not fully rely on the accuracy of this solution. In the experiment we achieved substantial reduction of the low-frequency group-delay ripple, from +/- 15 to +/- 2 ps, which resulted in dramatic improvement of the optical signal-to-noise-ratio system penalty, from 7 to less than 1 dB, for a chirped fiber Bragg grating used as a dispersion compensator in a 40-Gbit/s carrier-suppressed return-to-zero system.

Antiresonant reflecting photonic crystal optical waveguides.

We propose a simple analytical theory for low-index core photonic bandgap optical waveguides based on an antiresonant reflecting guidance mechanism. We identify a new regime of guidance in which the spectral properties of these structures are largely determined by the thickness of the high-index layers and the refractive-index contrast and are not particularly sensitive to the period of the cladding layers. The attenuation properties are controlled by the number of high/low-index cladding layers. Numerical simulations with the beam propagation method confirm the predictions of the analytical model. We discuss the implications of the results for photonic bandgap fibers.

Resonance and scattering in microstructured optical fibers.

We present an investigation into the mechanism for guidance of microstructured optical fibers consisting of high-refractive-index cylinders embedded in a low-index background. A new guidance regime is identified in which the fibers' confinement losses depend strongly on wavelength and the positions of the loss minima and maxima depend on the scattering properties of individual cylinders and only weakly on their position and number. We point out similarities between these results and those reported recently for two-dimensional antiresonant reflecting waveguides.

Asymmetric partially coherent solitons in saturable nonlinear media.

We investigate theoretically properties of partially coherent solitons in optical nonlinear media with slow saturable nonlinearity. We have found numerically that such a medium can support spatial solitons which are asymmetric in shape and are composed of only a finite number of modes associated with the self-induced waveguide. It is shown that these asymmetric spatial solitons can propagate many diffraction lengths without changes, but that collisions change their shape and may split them apart.

Compression of optical pulses spectrally broadened by self-phase modulation with a fiber bragg grating in transmission.

We demonstrate experimentally the compression of optical pulses, spectrally broadened by self-phase modulation occurring in the rod of a mode-locked Q-switched YLF laser, with an unchirped, apodized fiber Bragg grating in transmission. The compression is due to the strong dispersion of the Bragg grating at frequencies close to the edge of the photonic bandgap, in the passband, where the transmission is high. With the systems investigated, an 80-ps pulse, which is spectrally broadened, owing to self-phase modulation, with a peak nonlinear phase shift of D? = 7, is compressed to approximately 15 ps, in good agreement with theory and numerical simulations. The results demonstrate that photonic bandgap structures are promising devices for efficient pulse compression.