Spectral polarization-encoding of broadband laser pulses by optical rotatory dispersion and its applications in spectral manipulation*

Abstract

We propose a kind of spectral polarization-encoding (SPE) for broadband light pulses, which is realized by inducing optical rotatory dispersion (ORD), and decoded by compensating ORD. Combining with polarization-sensitive devices, SPE can not only work to control polarization-dependent transmission for central wavelength or bandwidth-tunable filtering, but also can be used for broadband regenerative or multi-pass amplification with a polarization-dependent gain medium to improve output bandwidth. SPE is entirely passive thus very simple to be designed and aligned. By using an ORD crystal with a good transmission beyond 3-μm mid-infrared region, e.g., AgGaS2, SPE promises to be applied for the wavelength tuning lasers in mid-infrared region, where the tunning devices are rather under developed compared with those in visible and near-infrared region.