- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review Research

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Open Access

Tunable visible comb using Raman self-frequency shift, intermodal phase matching and cascading of nonlinearities in an all-fiber platform

Akhileshwar Mishra, Seth Mathew V, and Ravi Pant*

  • Laboratory of Phoxonics and Nonlinear Optics in Nanostructures (PHONON), School of Physics, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala 695551, India

  • *rpant@iisertvm.ac.in
PDF

Phys. Rev. Research 5, L022020 – Published 1 May, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L022020

Abstract

Up-conversion of IR frequency combs from compact erbium fiber mode-locked lasers (MLLs) around 1550 nm is enabling the development of small-footprint visible combs for ultralow-power spectroscopy and quantum optics. Limited tunability of the IR MLLs, due to the small gain bandwidth (∼30 nm) of erbium fiber amplifiers, and difficulty in achieving broadband phase matching for up-conversion in a nonlinear crystal or waveguide restricts the visible comb wavelengths to second- and third-harmonic wavelengths. Here, we harness the soliton self-frequency shift (SSFS) of sub-nJ energy mode-locked IR pulses in a standard single-mode silica fiber and combine it with the up-conversion, through cascading of optical nonlinearities, in a dispersion-engineered silica nanowire to achieve wideband tuning of the second-, third-, fourth-, and sixth-harmonic generated (SHG, THG, FHG, SiHG) signals. By varying the fiber length and the IR pump power, we Raman shift the pump wavelength from 1560 to ∼1750 nm using the SSFS and use it to tune the wavelengths of the THG and SHG signals in a 10-mm-long silica nanowire from 520 to 578 nm and 780 to ∼850 nm, respectively. Four-wave mixing between the THG and SHG signals creates a tunable signal close to the fourth-harmonic (390 nm), and SHG of THG creates a tunable SiHG in the deep UV (260 nm). The generation and tuning of deep UV (∼260 nm) to near-IR combs (∼780 nm) using redshifted IR solitons demonstrate that the cascading of optical nonlinearities in a silica nanowire enables spectral translation between wavelength regimes that are more than five octaves apart.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

Supplemental Material

References (38)

  1. N. Picquéand T. W. Hänsch, Photon-level broadband spectroscopy and interferometry with two frequency combs, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 117, 26688 (2020).
  2. B. Xu, T. W. Hänsch, and N. Picqué, Near-ultraviolet dual-comb spectroscopy with photon-counting, in CLEO: Science and Innovations (Optica Publishing, San Jose, California United States, 2022), pp. SM1D–4.
  3. C. J. Sansonetti, C. E. Simien, J. D. Gillaspy, J. N. Tan, S. M. Brewer, R. C. Brown, S. Wu, and J. V. Porto, Absolute Transition Frequencies and Quantum Interference in a Frequency Comb Based Measurement of the 6,7LiD Lines, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 023001 (2011).
  4. C. Lee, S. T. Chu, B. E. Little, J. Bland-Hawthorn, and S. Leon-Saval, Portable frequency combs for optical frequency metrology, Opt. Express 20, 16671 (2012).
  5. P. D. Reid and D. M. Ferrera, Compact visible frequency combs: The missing link in a vision of pervasive quantum timekeeping, Eng. Phys. Sci. Res. Council (2016).
  6. K. Nakamura, K. Kashiwagi, S. Okubo, and H. Inaba, Erbium-doped-fiber-based broad visible range frequency comb with a 30 GHz mode spacing for astronomical applications, arXiv:2110.03823.
  7. A. J. Benedick, G. Chang, J. R. Birge, L.-J. Chen, A. G. Glenday, C.-H. Li, D. F. Phillips, A. Szentgyorgyi, S. Korzennik, G. Furesz et al., Visible wavelength astro-comb, Opt. Express 18, 19175 (2010).
  8. A. G. Glenday, C.-H. Li, N. Langellier, G. Chang, L.-J. Chen, G. Furesz, A. A. Zibrov, F. Kärtner, D. F. Phillips, D. Sasselov et al., Operation of a broadband visible-wavelength astro-comb with a high-resolution astrophysical spectrograph, Optica 2, 250 (2015).
  9. S. Miller, K. Luke, Y. Okawachi, J. Cardenas, A. L. Gaeta, and M. Lipson, On-chip frequency comb generation at visible wavelengths via simultaneous second-and third-order optical nonlinearities, Opt. Express 22, 26517 (2014).
  10. X. Guo, C.-L. Zou, H. Jung, Z. Gong, A. Bruch, L. Jiang, and H. X. Tang, Efficient Generation of a Near-visible Frequency Comb via Cherenkov-like Radiation from a Kerr Microcomb, Phys. Rev. Appl. 10, 014012 (2018).
  11. J. Szabados, D. N. Puzyrev, Y. Minet, L. Reis, K. Buse, A. Villois, D. V. Skryabin, and I. Breunig, Frequency Comb Generation via Cascaded Second-Order Nonlinearities in Microresonators, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 203902 (2020).
  12. M. L. Davenport, S. Liu, and J. E. Bowers, Integrated heterogeneous silicon/III-V mode-locked lasers, Photon. Res. 6, 468 (2018).
  13. A. Mishra and R. Pant, Deep UV to NIR frequency combs via cascaded harmonic generation in a silica nanowire using nanojoule pulse energies, Optica 8, 1210 (2021).
  14. F. M. Mitschke and L. F. Mollenauer, Discovery of the soliton self-frequency shift, Opt. Lett. 11, 659 (1986).
  15. J. P. Gordon, Theory of the soliton self-frequency shift, Opt. Lett. 11, 662 (1986).
  16. I. T. Sorokina, E. Sorokin, E. Wintner, A. Cassanho, and H. P. Jenssen, Raman induced pulse self-frequency shift in the sub-20 fs Kerr-lens mode-locked cr:lisgaf and cr:lisaf lasers, in Advanced Solid State Lasers, edited by F. X. Kärtner (Springer, 1998), p. TS8.
  17. J. Santhanam and G. P. Agrawal, Raman-induced spectral shifts in optical fibers: General theory based on the moment method, Opt. Commun. 222, 413 (2003).
  18. J. H. Lee, J. van Howe, C. Xu, and X. Liu, Soliton self-frequency shift: Experimental demonstrations and applications, IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 14, 713 (2008).
  19. I. Cormack, D. Reid, W. Wadsworth, J. Knight, and P. S. J. Russell, Observation of soliton self-frequency shift in photonic crystal fibre, Electron. Lett. 38, 167 (2002).
  20. R. Pant, A. C. Judge, E. C. Magi, B. T. Kuhlmey, M. de Sterke, and B. J. Eggleton, Characterization and optimization of photonic crystal fibers for enhanced soliton self-frequency shift, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 27, 1894 (2010).
  21. A. C. Judge, S. A. Dekker, R. Pant, C. M. de Sterke, and B. J. Eggleton, Soliton self-frequency shift performance in As2S3 waveguides, Opt. Express 18, 14960 (2010).
  22. D. V. Skryabin and A. V. Gorbach, Colloquium: Looking at a soliton through the prism of optical supercontinuum, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 1287 (2010).
  23. S. A. Dekker, A. C. Judge, R. Pant, I. Gris-Sánchez, J. C. Knight, C. M. de Sterke, and B. J. Eggleton, Highly-efficient, octave spanning soliton self-frequency shift using a specialized photonic crystal fiber with low oh loss, Opt. Express 19, 17766 (2011).
  24. H. Liu, J. Yao, and A. Puri, Second and third harmonic generation in BBO by femtosecond Ti: sapphire laser pulses, Opt. Commun. 109, 139 (1994).
  25. D. J. Jones, S. A. Diddams, J. K. Ranka, A. Stentz, R. S. Windeler, J. L. Hall, and S. T. Cundiff, Carrier-envelope phase control of femtosecond mode-locked lasers and direct optical frequency synthesis, Science 288, 635 (2000).
  26. G. Rodriguez, J. P. Roberts, and A. J. Taylor, Ultraviolet ultrafast pump–probe laser based on a Ti:sapphire laser system, Opt. Lett. 19, 1146 (1994).
  27. T. Takaya, C. Su, K. de La Harpe, C. E. Crespo-Hernández, and B. Kohler, UV excitation of single DNA and RNA strands produces high yields of exciplex states between two stacked bases, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 105, 10285 (2008).
  28. E. E. Serebryannikov, A. B. Fedotov, A. M. Zheltikov, A. A. Ivanov, M. V. Alfimov, V. I. Beloglazov, N. B. Skibina, D. V. Skryabin, A. V. Yulin, and J. C. Knight, Third-harmonic generation by Raman-shifted solitons in a photonic-crystal fiber, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23, 1975 (2006).
  29. J. Lægsgaard, Theory of surface second-harmonic generation in silica nanowires, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 27, 1317 (2010).
  30. G. P. Agrawal, Nonlinear Fiber Optics, 5th ed (Academic press, United States, 2012).
  31. F. Le Kien, V. Balykin, and K. Hakuta, Atom trap and waveguide using a two-color evanescent light field around a subwavelength-diameter optical fiber, Phys. Rev. A 70, 063403 (2004).
  32. H. Xin, R. Xu, and B. Li, Optical trapping, driving and arrangement of particles using a tapered fibre probe, Sci. Rep. 2, 818 (2012).
  33. E. Vetsch, D. Reitz, G. Sagué, R. Schmidt, S. Dawkins, and A. Rauschenbeutel, Optical Interface Created by Laser-Cooled Atoms Trapped in the Evanescent Field Surrounding an Optical Nanofiber, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 203603 (2010).
  34. S. Spillane, G. Pati, K. Salit, M. Hall, P. Kumar, R. Beausoleil, and M. Shahriar, Observation of Nonlinear Optical Interactions of Ultralow Levels of Light in a Tapered Optical Nanofiber Embedded in a Hot Rubidium Vapor, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 233602 (2008).
  35. See Supplemental Material at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L022020 for contains analysis of the soliton self-frequency shift, harmonic generation, combs confirmation, and experimental details.
  36. Y. Hu, A. Tehranchi, S. Wabnitz, R. Kashyap, Z. Chen, and R. Morandotti, Improved Intrapulse Raman Scattering Control via Asymmetric Airy Pulses, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 073901 (2015).
  37. A. Zheltikov, Multimode guided-wave non-3ω third-harmonic generation by ultrashort laser pulses, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22, 2263 (2005).
  38. A. Zheltikov, Third-harmonic generation with no signal at 3ω, Phys. Rev. A 72, 043812 (2005).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 5, L022020– Published 1 May, 2023
  • Received 4 May 2022
  • Accepted 29 March 2023
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation