Self-Guided Propagation of Ultrashort Laser Pulses in the Anomalous Dispersion Region of Transparent Solids: A New Regime of Filamentation

Durand, Magali; Jarnac, Amélie; Houard, Aurélien; Liu, Yi; Grabielle, S.; Forget, Nicolas; Durécu, Anne; Couairon, Arnaud; Mysyrowicz, A.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.110.115003

Cited by 122 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…A more recent study demonstrated the filamentation of incident pulses with a much longer wavelength (3.1 μm) in the YAG crystal, yielding more than a 3-octave spanning SC spectrum with the unprecedented wavelength coverage from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared range [80]. Eventually, simultaneous time and space compression was demonstrated to favour a new type of filamentation, which produces quasistationary three-dimensional self-compressed light bullets that preserve a narrow beam diameter and a short pulsewidth over a considerable propagation distance in a nonlinear dispersive medium [81]. To this end, the formation of self-compressed spatiotemporal light bullets was experimentally observed in various nonlinear media, such as fused silica, sapphire and BBO, and under a variety of operating conditions [82][83][84][85][86].…”

Section: Anomalous Gvdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafast supercontinuum generation in bulk condensed media

Dubietis¹,

Tamošauskas²,

Šuminas³

et al. 2017

Lith. J. Phys.

167

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Nonlinear propagation of intense femtosecond laser pulses in bulk transparent media leads to a specific propagation regime, termed femtosecond filamentation, which in turn produces dramatic spectral broadening, or superbroadening, termed supercontinuum generation. Femtosecond supercontinuum generation in transparent solids represents a compact, efficient and alignment-insensitive technique for generation of coherent broadband radiation at various parts of the optical spectrum, which finds numerous applications in diverse fields of modern ultrafast science. During recent years, this research field has reached a high level of maturity, both in understanding of the underlying physics and in achievement of exciting practical results. In this paper we overview the state-of-the-art femtosecond supercontinuum generation in various transparent solid-state media, ranging from wide-bandgap dielectrics to semiconductor materials and in various parts of the optical spectrum, from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared spectral range. A particular emphasis is given to the most recent experimental developments: multioctave supercontinuum generation with pumping in the mid-infrared spectral range, spectral control, power and energy scaling of broadband radiation and the development of simple, flexible and robust pulse compression techniques, which deliver few optical cycle pulses and which could be readily implemented in a variety of modern ultrafast laser systems.

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Section: Anomalous Gvdmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafast supercontinuum generation in bulk condensed media

Dubietis¹,

Tamošauskas²,

Šuminas³

et al. 2017

Lith. J. Phys.

167

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In a filament, these conditions cannot be exactly fulfilled [1,2] due to a high number of inherent perturbations [27], but the observations in Ref. [17] demonstrate unexpected long light-bullet propagation and reveal also another interesting point. The propagation dynamics are accompanied by the generation of blueshifted radiation [28], a phenomenon which is observed also under different conditions [8,[29][30][31][32] even for short filament lengths.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ref. [17], another new kind of significantly different filamentation process has been observed in bulk fused silica by pumping into the anomalous dispersion regime. This regime is known to exhibit much more complicated dynamics but also to include the advantage of solitary solutions with full spatiotemporal localization and stationarity, known as light bullets [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Regularizing Aperiodic Cycles of Resonant Radiation in Filament Light Bullets

et al. 2017

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We demonstrate an up to now unrecognized and very effective mechanism which prevents filament collapse and allows persistent self-guiding propagation retaining a large portion of the optical energy on axis over unexpected long distances. The key ingredient is the possibility of continuously leaking energy into the normal dispersion regime via the emission of resonant radiation. The frequency of the radiation is determined by the dispersion dynamically modified by photogenerated plasma, thus allowing us to excite new frequencies in spectral ranges which are otherwise difficult to access.

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“…Although such light bullets lend themselves to a tempting analogy with 1D fundamental solitons, recent work has shown that in fact 3D light bullets correspond to a form of polychromatic (weakly localised) Bessel beam that emerges spontaneously during the collapse phase of an initially Gaussian-shaped wavepacket [19]. Despite this difference, light bullets do exhibit remarkable similarities with 1D solitons: (i) they appear to propagate quasi-undistorted without pulse splitting as observed in the normal GVD regime; (ii) temporal compression may occur in a fashion similar to soliton compression and (iii) their propagation in the presence of higher-order dispersion perturbation is accompanied by the emission of a resonant radiation (RR) often referred to as a dispersive wave [18,20,21].In this letter, we report on the observation of optical rogue waves associated with the emission of extreme RR during the formation of 3D light bullets in a nonlinear crystal induced by the spatio-temporal coupling of fluctuations inherently present on the input beam. The deterministic spatio-temporal dynamics are central to the rogue characteristics of the RR emission as a result of the steep shock front that forms on the trailing edge of the pulse during the initial collapse phase and whose gradient is highly sensitive to fluctuations in both the input energy and spatial phase curvature.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…On the other hand, in the anomalous GVD all three dimensions contribute to the spatio-temporal collapse with formation of light bullets [18]. Although such light bullets lend themselves to a tempting analogy with 1D fundamental solitons, recent work has shown that in fact 3D light bullets correspond to a form of polychromatic (weakly localised) Bessel beam that emerges spontaneously during the collapse phase of an initially Gaussian-shaped wavepacket [19].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme events in resonant radiation from three-dimensional light bullets

et al. 2014

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We report measurements that show extreme events in the statistics of resonant radiation emitted from spatiotemporal light bullets. We trace the origin of these extreme events back to instabilities leading to steep gradients in the temporal profile of the intense light bullet that occur during the initial collapse dynamics. Numerical simulations reproduce the extreme valued statistics of the resonant radiation which are found to be intrinsically linked to the simultaneous occurrence of both temporal and spatial self-focusing dynamics. Small fluctuations in both the input energy and in the spatial phase curvature explain the observed extreme behaviour.The first direct measurement of extreme or rogue wave in the ocean [1] has triggered a large number of studies and renewed interest in what used to be believed as a "sailor's tale". Extreme events have since been observed in many other systems illustrating the wide range of underlying dynamics that can lead to their appearance [2,3]. In an optical context, the recent observation that solitons with extreme spectral red-shifts can emerge from an incoherent fibre supercontinuum [4] has attracted considerable attention and subsequent studies have highlighted the role of nonlinear noise amplification in the spontaneous emergence of highly localised structures [5,6] and the role of collisions in observing long tail statistics [7][8][9].While most rogue waves studies in optics have focussed on the 1+1D fibre case (one spatial dimension and one temporal dimension), the emergence of extreme events during full 3D propagation of light pulses with nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics has been much less studied [11][12][13][14]. In the normal group velocity dispersion (GVD) regime, the combined action of spatial and temporal selffocusing leads to the formation of a dynamically stable filament characterised by an intense, localised peak surrounded by a weaker reservoir that continuously refuels the central core region [10]. In this regime, long tail statistics in the fluctuations at the spectral edge of a single filament similar to that of an incoherent fibre supercontinuum have been observed [11,12,14]. More recently, extreme events in the multi-filament regime where localized structures emerge from filaments merging have been measured experimentally [13].Strictly speaking, 3D stable solitons do not exist and the physical structure closest to a soliton is the 2D Townes spatial profile [15,16] which is unstable and leads to self-similar collapse of the laser beam in the normal GVD regime when the beam power exceeds the critical power for self-focusing [17]. On the other hand, in the anomalous GVD all three dimensions contribute to the spatio-temporal collapse with formation of light bullets [18]. Although such light bullets lend themselves to a tempting analogy with 1D fundamental solitons, recent work has shown that in fact 3D light bullets correspond to a form of polychromatic (weakly localised) Bessel beam that emerges spontaneously during the collapse phase of an initially Gauss...

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Self-Guided Propagation of Ultrashort Laser Pulses in the Anomalous Dispersion Region of Transparent Solids: A New Regime of Filamentation

Cited by 122 publications

References 25 publications

Ultrafast supercontinuum generation in bulk condensed media

Ultrafast supercontinuum generation in bulk condensed media

Regularizing Aperiodic Cycles of Resonant Radiation in Filament Light Bullets

Extreme events in resonant radiation from three-dimensional light bullets

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