Optical solitons in graded-index multimode fibres

Renninger, William H.; Wise, Frank W.

doi:10.1038/ncomms2739

Cited by 350 publications

(221 citation statements)

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confidence: 94%

“…MMFs could provide a solution to meet increasing demands of new breakthrough technologies for light control and manipulation in communications, high-power fibre lasers and metrology [1,2,16]. In fundamental physics, MMFs may provide a natural tool for investigating spatiotemporal soliton dynamics [5,6], and for unveiling new, exciting nonlinear phenomena [3,4,9,13].…”

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Spatial beam self-cleaning in multimode fibres

et al. 2017

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Multimode optical fibres are enjoying a renewed attention, boosted by the urgent need to overcome the current capacity crunch of single-mode fibre systems and by recent advances in multimode complex nonlinear optics [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. In this work, we demonstrate that standard multimode fibres can be used as ultrafast all-optical tool for transverse beam manipulation of high power laser pulses. Our experimental data show that the Kerr effect in a graded-index multimode fibre is the driving mechanism for overcoming speckle distortions, leading to a somewhat counter-intuitive effect resulting in a spatially clean output beam robust against fibre bending. Our observations demonstrate that nonlinear beam reshaping into the fundamental mode of a multimode fibre can be achieved even in the absence of a dissipative process such as stimulated scattering (Raman or Brillouin) [14,15].Beam propagation in multimode fibres (MMFs) is subject to a complex interplay of spatio-temporal processes. However, only few studies addressed nonlinear pulse propagation in MMFs, leaving this field largely untapped for the past thirty years. Very recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in MMFs for both fundamental and applied research. MMFs could provide a solution to meet increasing demands of new breakthrough technologies for light control and manipulation in communications, high-power fibre lasers and metrology [1,2,16]. In fundamental physics, MMFs may provide a natural tool for investigating spatiotemporal soliton dynamics [5,6], and for unveiling new, exciting nonlinear phenomena [3,4,9,13].It is well known that light experiences an inherent randomization when propagating along MMFs, whereby input laser beams of high spatial quality fade into irregular granularities called speckles. Fibre stress or bending, as well as technological irregularities of the fibre, couple different guided modes and introduce supplementary randomization of the transmission features. For this reason, MMFs are not ideally suited for beam delivery and were replaced by single-mode fibres (SMFs) since the early days of optical communications. Recent works demonstrated that specific signal-processing algorithms could be used to predict or manage the beam shape at the output of a MMF by controlling its input field [17][18][19]. In particular, the application of multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) digital signal processing techniques enables the use of spatial-division multiplexing based on MMFs [2]. For high-power beam delivery applications, the spontaneous recovery of spatial beam quality in MMFs has so far been experimentally achieved exclusively through nonlinear dissipative processes such as stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) [14] or stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) [20]. However, these techniques do not lead to any self-cleaning of the input laser beam. It is now known that for powers above a critical level (few MWs) self-phase modulation (SPM) may overcome diffraction for any size of the beam, and this may in turn c...

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confidence: 99%

Spatial beam self-cleaning in multimode fibres

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“…In this perspective, MMFs are currently receiving a renewed attention, as they may provide higher capacity for optical communications via space-division-multiplexing, and higher power for diffraction-limited laser sources [1]. Graded-index multimode fibers (GRIN MMFs) are of particular interest: only recently these fibers have permitted to experimentally observe multimode optical solitons, dispersive waves and supercontinuum generation when pumping with femtosecond light pulses in the anomalous dispersion regime [2][3][4][5].…”

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confidence: 99%

Spatial and spectral nonlinear shaping of multimode waves

Krupa

Tonello

Bendahmane

et al. 2016

2016 IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC)

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“…The MMFs with large core can potentially be used for rather different, albeit important high-power applications. However, a similar challenge in this case is to control the spatial coherence and resulting beam size.Recent studies of MMFs suggest that interesting dynamics can occur in the nonlinear regime [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. In this regime, the waveguide modes, which may number from a few to up to thousands, strongly affect each other through nonlinear processes [20,25].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In this regime, the waveguide modes, which may number from a few to up to thousands, strongly affect each other through nonlinear processes [20,25]. The output spatial and temporal properties of light are defined by nonlinear interactions of optical paths corresponding to different spatial modes in MMFs.…”

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Coexistence of collapse and stable spatiotemporal solitons in multimode fibers

et al. 2018

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We analyze spatiotemporal solitons in multimode optical fibers and demonstrate the existence of stable solitons, in a sharp contrast to earlier predictions of collapse of multidimensional solitons in three-dimensional media. We discuss the coexistence of blow-up solutions and collapse stabilization by a low-dimensional external potential in graded-index media, and also predict the existence of stable higher-order nonlinear waves such as dipole-mode spatiotemporal solitons. To support the main conclusions of our numerical studies we employ a variational approach and derive analytically the stability criterion for input powers for the collapse stabilization. [3,4]. Wave collapse (also known as blow-up or selffocusing) occurs in a range of physical systems including nonlinear optics, plasmas, fluid dynamics, physics of atmosphere and ocean, and solid state physics [5]. Typically, wave collapse is associated with multidimensional physical problems [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. From a broader perspective, wave collapse is the process of the singularity formation in a finite time (or at a finite distance), which is typically arrested by higher-order effects not accounted for in the original model. Effect of wave collapse can be exploited for compression of optical pulses [8][9][10][11] and optical pulse fusion [11,12]. An arrest of wave collapse and emergence of stable coherent structures in higher-dimensional systems have been studied in various physical contexts (see, e.g. the review paper [14] and references therein). Solitons localized in time and one transverse spatial dimension have been observed in quadratic media [15], and such solitons suffer from modulation instability which breaks elliptical beams into filaments. Three-dimensional spatiotemporal solitons were demonstrated in arrays of weakly coupled optical waveguides [16,17], but such solitons are largely controlled by the lattice discreteness being stable for a weak coupling.For long time, the use of single-mode optical fibers was the solution of choice for long-haul communication systems, allowing to avoid spatial scattering of light for delivering optical signals without spatial-mode dispersion over thousands of kilometers. However, a fast-growing demands on capacity of fiber systems and challenges imposed by nonlinear signal interaction attracted the recent attention to the technology of spatial-division multiplexing (SDM) for future high-capacity optical communications (see, e.g. Refs. [18,19] and references therein). A solution based on the use of multiple systems over parallel fibres while always possible, is not attractive due to linearly scaled (with growing capacity) transmission costs and power consumption. Potentially, the SDM technology might offer a cost-per-bit reduction and improved energy efficiency. One of the considered possibilities for implementing the SDM technology is the use of multimode fibers (MMFs) for parallel communication channels. In MMFs optical pathways are defined by different spatial modes, and spatial signal pr...

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Optical solitons in graded-index multimode fibres

Cited by 350 publications

References 38 publications

Spatial beam self-cleaning in multimode fibres

Spatial beam self-cleaning in multimode fibres

Spatial and spectral nonlinear shaping of multimode waves

Coexistence of collapse and stable spatiotemporal solitons in multimode fibers

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