New J. Phys. 4 (2002) 19
PII: S1367-2630(02)31714-2
Theory of incoherent self-phase modulation of non-stationary pulses
S B Cavalcanti
Departamento de Física, Universidade Federal de
Alagoas, Maceió AL, 57072-970, Brazil
Email: solange@lux.ufal.br
New Journal of Physics 4 (2002) 19.1-19.11
Received 7 December 2001
Published 27 March 2002
| Abstract. A theory describing propagation of partially coherent pulse trains in Kerr media is proposed. It is shown that changes in the statistical properties of chaotic modulated pulses propagating under self-phase modulation (SPM) are easily obtained within the framework of cyclostationary processes. Specific applications for laser light and thermal light are considered showing that in contrast with laser light, the thermal light spectrum on propagation suffers a significant change which smears out the characteristic peaks of the SPM spectrum. |
For a long time the fluctuations of light beams have been the subject of extensive investigation [1]. In the last decade, the lack of perfect coherence of optical fields in wave propagation through nonlinear Kerr media has been addressed by some authors [2]-[5]. Recently, experimental studies have demonstrated the existence of incoherent spatial solitons [6,7] and theories to explain them have also been established [8]-[10]. However, the work done on the propagation of optical pulses that can be represented by nonstationary processes through Kerr media, does not address the problem of finding the spectra. Studies on spectral properties has been largely limited to those cases where the input field belongs to the restricted class of stationary random processes. Nonstationarity is a difficult feature to handle, and most difficult of all is to define theoretically the spectrum of nonstationary optical fields [11]. The difficulty lies in the fact that for nonstationary processes average values, such as correlation functions, are not time translation invariant and hence depend on two time variables. In such cases, the Wiener-Khintchine theorem cannot be used as it involves only one time variable. The easiest way out of this situation is to use the notion of inducing stationarity into the nonstationary process by random translation, whenever this is possible as, for example, for periodic nonstationary processes [12,13]. Here, by a periodic nonstationary process we mean a process for which the joint probability distribution is invariant under translations that are integer multiples of a period T. In fact, work in this direction has been developed in other areas of study such as electrical engineering where such processes are known as cyclostationary processes [14,15].
The purpose of this work is to theoretically investigate self-phase modulation (SPM) of incoherent stationarizable optical beams. To this end we develop a theory of incoherent SPM in section 2 by assuming a general periodic random input for the nonlinear Kerr medium. Next, we apply the developed theory to some interesting practical cases in section 3, and finally in section 4 we conclude after discussing the results.
The propagation of a partially coherent optical pulse through a Kerr medium,
depends on the statistical properties of the input as well as on
the nonlinear properties of the medium. Within the conventional
model of SPM, the nonlinear properties of the medium are
governed by the wave equation
![]() |
(1) |
where A(z, t) is the slowly varying envelope amplitude, k is
the wavenumber, n2 is the nonlinear Kerr coefficient
and
is the group velocity dispersion (GVD)
parameter. A review on the theory of self-phase modulation
including other effects, is provided
in [16]-[18]. Here we intend to
illustrate the effects of SPM on a noisy pulse beyond the usual
stationary distribution approach and so we shall limit ourselves
to pure SPM supposing that wave dispersion in (1) may be
neglected. It should be noted that the interplay between GVD and
SPM can lead to a qualitatively different behaviour from that
expected from SPM alone. In particular, for anomalous dispersion
(
) these effects balance each other so that
equation (1) admits soliton solutions. In optical fibres for example,
one may define the dispersion length
and the nonlinear length
to set the length scales over
which dispersive and nonlinear effects become important for
pulse propagation along a fibre of length L. In this way, the
present theory should be applicable to fibre lengths such that
and
which defines the
nonlinearity dominant regime
. This
condition is satisfied for wide pulses with T0 > 100 ps and
large peak powers
W. According to [19]
where experimental measurements of SPM spectra
generated with picosecond laser pulses at 532 and 1064 nm
propagating in optical fibres, the fibre lengths used were a few
kilometres. Without the dispersion term, equation (1) is readily
solved to yield the following expression for the complex
amplitude:
| A(z, t) = A(0, t)exp[in2kz|A(0, t)|2]. | (2) |
Due to the convenient form of equation (2), the statistical
evolution is determined solely by the statistical properties of
the signal input, i.e. the statistical properties of the output
signal, such as the power spectrum are completely determined by
the initial conditions. This formulation of the statistics has
been referred to in the literature as the homogeneous
approach [20]. Next, we consider that the input field is
a cyclostationary process described by
| (3) |
where
represents a random process and f(0,t) a
periodic function with period T0, that is
| f (t + T0) = f (t). | (4) |
To determine the coherence properties of the transmitted field,
we need to calculate its autocorrelation function defined as
| (5) |
where the angular brackets stand for an ensemble average. The
evaluation of
G(z, t1, t2) is somewhat involved even in
the case where A(0, t) is a Gaussian random process, since
A(z, t) is not likely to remain Gaussian on propagation because
of the nonlinear nature of the Kerr medium. However, in the
particular case of pure SPM described by equation (2) it turns
out that
G(z, t1, t2) can be evaluated analytically
without making any approximations as follows. Inserting
equations (2) and (3) into (5) we find
| (6) |
Here, fi and
stand for f (0, ti) and
, respectively, with i = 1,2. To define a power
spectral density for the process A(z, t), we note that it is a
periodic random process with period T0, according to
equation (3). This means that a shift in A(t) by an
arbitrary amount
a(0 < a < T0) takes us to the periodic
process A(t + a) whose averages are different from those of
the original process A(t). It is said that these two processes
have different phases. The statistical properties of a periodic
nonstationary process are only invariant under shifts by a
multiple of a particular period T0, that is, under shifts
of a = nT0, with n an integer. Therefore, the
autocorrelation function of the process A(t) will, in general,
depend on the absolute time as well as on time differences.
However, the dependence on the absolute time is periodic. Hence,
supposing a to be random, independent of A(t) with uniform
distribution, i.e.
![]() |
(7) |
| (8) |
the correlation function
G(z, t1, t2) may be averaged with
respect to a to obtain the stationarized auto-correlation
function
, that is
![]() |
(9) |
As a result of this averaging process, the only dependence which
remains is that involving the time difference
, so that we have replaced a cyclostationary
process by a stationary one, corresponding to a random phase
spread. In this way, using equation (6) and averaging first
with respect to
and then with respect to a we find
the following expression for
:
![]() |
(10) |
The Wiener-Khintchine theorem may now be used to obtain the
output power spectrum:
![]() |
(11) |
It should be noted here that equation (10) is suited for systems that do not respond to the phase and instead carry out a time average. To see whether our theory works we turn to some practical applications.
3. Phase and amplitude modulation of laser light
To illustrate the above outlined procedure, let us consider an
incoherent model that describes certain idealized properties of
laser light. The model consists of a monochromatic oscillator of
known amplitude A0, known frequency
and a
fluctuating phase arising from noise inherent in the output of
any noise-driven nonlinear oscillator. This means that the
random process may be written as
| (12) |
where I0 and
are the stationary
values for the amplitude and phase of a field where the average
beam intensity I0.
represents small
fluctuations from the average value
in such a way
that
. Here, we are essentially
using a well known model of the laser in which the optical field
is represented as the sum of a constant phasor and a weak
Gaussian-noise phasor whose phase varies randomly over the
entire
range. In this case, the phase fluctuations of
the total field
can be shown [21] to
represent a real Gaussian random process with zero average, that
is
. Furthermore, we choose a
phase diffusion model in which phase fluctuations have a
variance that grows linearly with time, and frequency
fluctuations corresponding to white noise [22]. In this way we write
the periodic input in the form
| (13) |
and evaluate the correlation function upon use of equation (6),
which gives
| (14) |
where
with
. Note how the statistical average has become completely
independent of the periodic process so that the second-order
coherence function may be written in the following particularly simple way:
![]() |
(15) |
Here
represents the chaotic autocorrelation
function and
the autocorrelation function of the
deterministic periodic process [12]. This product
form is a consequence of the fact that one is considering only
phase fluctuations of the optical input field. As SPM is an
amplitude-dependent effect, the coherence function becomes a
product of autocorrelation functions. In the particular
case we are considering here a random Gaussian process for which the
average in
is easily calculated via,
![]() |
(16) |
The spectral lineshape of most lasers is suitably represented by
a Lorentzian profile [21]-[23] corresponding
to white noise. For such lasers the spectral density of phase
fluctuations may be written as
where
is the full width at half maximum (FHWM) of
the Lorentzian spectral lineshape. By using periodic functions
such as
the average of the periodic process yields
![]() |
(17) |
where J0 represents a Bessel function of zeroth order
and where we have introduced the second-order coherence function
defined as
. Therefore, for a phase
diffusion model equation (15) reads
![]() |
(18) |
Note that in this phase modulated case we find the trivial
result that the coherence function is not influenced at all by
propagation. This fact is also a consequence of the
intensity-dependent effect of SPM. Let us then turn to the
amplitude modulated case and write for the input field
| (19) |
which gives the following coherence function:
![]() |
(20) |
Equation (21) describes how the oscillating coherence function of the periodic process is attenuated by the linewidth of the incoherent process.
Let us now consider the case of a Gaussian pulse train which is
a more realistic model for the output of a mode-locked laser. We
represent the Gaussian pulse train by the convolution of a
Gaussian function with a comb function, defined as
comb
:
![]() |
(21) |
where Tp stands for the Gaussian width and T0
represents the period under the single-pulse
effect condition, so that
. Substituting equation (21) in
(10) and evaluating its Fourier transform, one may
study the evolution of the spectrum of the Gaussian pulse train
through the nonlinear medium. Considering essentially single-pulse effects where
, we illustrate the changes in the spectrum in figures 1
and 2
where we have plotted the Fourier transform for the input
spectrum (
in
figures 1(a) and 2(a)) and the output
broadened spectrum (
in
figures 1(b) and 2(b)) for different
values of the normalized input linewidth
, so that figure 1 corresponds to
and figure 2 to
. It should be noted here, that we have
dropped the primes in the figures. Note that, as expected from
laser light, the typical SPM spectrum [24] for an
initial small linewidth is not influenced significantly by
incoherence although some degree of incoherence is present due to
the fact that total intra-pulse destructive interference is not
possible and the oscillations in the spectrum do not touch the
horizontal axes. Furthermore, one can see that the relative
partial coherence linewidth does influence the output spectrum
in the sense that these interference effects are almost
completely suppressed.
| Figure 1.
Spectral evolution of a
laser field with normalized linewidth
|
| Figure 2.
The same as in figure 1, except
for a different linewidth, i.e.
|
4. Pulses of chaotic light: chopped thermal light source
Let us now study the specific case of thermal chopped light by
considering the following input:
| A(0, t) = [u(t) + iv(t)] f (t) | (22) |
where u(t) and v(t) are respectively, the real
and imaginary parts of a complex Gaussian stationary process and
f(t) is a periodic function. The processes u and v satisfy
the following relations:
![]() |
(23) |
where
is the variance and
the
normalized autocorrelation function associated with the processes
u and v. Introducing the variables u1 = u(t1),
v1 = v(t1),
u2 = u(t2) and
v2 = v(t2) and
using equation (6), one may evaluate the autocorrelation
function:
![]() |
(24) |
with the joint probability function
![]() |
(25) |
The probability density
p(v1, v2) is obtained from
equation (25) after replacing u by v. The four-fold
integration in equation (24) can be performed in a closed
form and the final result for the second-order nonstationary
autocorrelation function is given by
![]() |
(26) |
where
| (27) |
Averaging in a we finally obtain the stationary
autocorrelation function of the cyclostationary process as
![]() |
(28) |
Equation (28) represents an analytical expression for the output
coherence function in terms of the input optical field and shows
the effect of SPM on the coherence properties of a chaotic pulse
train such as a pulse train originating from a laser light which
is first passed through a moving diffuser. To illustrate the
effect of self-phase modulation we proceed to study specific
examples of chaotic modulated pulses. Consider an input field
A(0, t) obtained after a CW random signal has gone through a
frequency modulator. Supposing that we may write it as
| (29) |
with
denoting the modulation frequency and
a
constant, we can immediately write for the coherence function
![]() |
(30) |
which in the case of phase fluctuations turns out, as expected, to be
the product of the coherence function of the chaotic process
times the periodic process:
where
![]() |
and
is the coherence function for the
particular case of a chaotic amplitude described by a stationary
process, a result previously obtained in [2].
As before we now turn to the case where the periodic function is
represented by a Gaussian pulse train defined in equation (21)
and substitute it into equation (10). Next we evaluate its Fourier
transform, to study the evolution of the spectrum of a Gaussian
pulse train originating from a thermal source through the nonlinear
medium. In figures 3 and 4 we plot the
Fourier transform of a Gaussian pulse train for the input
spectrum (
in
figures 3(a) and 4(a)) and output
broadened spectrum (
in
figures 3(b) and 4(b)) for different
values of the normalized input linewidth
, so that
in
figure 3 and
in
figure 4. In contrast with the case of the laser light
we see that thermal light has the characteristic spikes smeared
off. This effect is even more pronounced when taking a larger
initial linewidth (figure 4(a)) which
completely erases all the spikes and oscillations which are
characteristic of a SPM broadened spectrum
(figure 4(b)).
| Figure 3.
Spectral evolution of a
thermal field with normalized linewidth
|
| Figure 4.
The same as in
figure 3, except for a different linewidth, i.e.
|
In conclusion, a theory on the propagation of noisy pulses through Kerr media has been developed by using cyclostationary processes to model chaotic modulated pulse trains. The basic idea is to approach the difficult task of assigning a theoretical spectrum to a chaotic pulse envelope which is described as a nonstationary process. The above outlined method is general enough to describe the statistical properties not only of cyclostationary processes but also of any discrete parameter process where stationarity might be also be induced. As a result we have been able to generalize the use of the Wiener-Khintchine theorem to a large class of nonstationary processes. Various examples have been provided. We have shown that, due to the intensity-dependent character of SPM, to see any relevant changes in the spectrum one must consider amplitude fluctuations and/or temporal variations of the pulse shape. A frequency modulated optical field is practically unaffected by phase fluctuations of the laser source. Considering amplitude variations of the envelope produced by the laser light we have found that even a small degree of incoherence does influence the spectrum along propagation. In the thermal case the effect of partial coherence is to smear out the oscillating structure with various peaks characteristic of SPM spectra. Particularly for large line width input processes, the multi-peak structure is completely erased from the spectrum. This erasing phenomenon may be understood in terms of the broadening occurring in each peak of the multi-structure making them coalesce into a unique peak structure. The results described here can be easily verified experimentally by using fields originated from mode-locked lasers. Although our results are obtained in the context of temporal partially incoherent light pulses, they exhibit general features of nonlinear media and are also applicable to other fields of study.
The author is indebted to G P Agrawal and M Yu for fruitful comments and numerous discussions. Thanks are also due to S Chávez-Cerda and E J S Fonseca for their encouragement. This research was partially supported by the following Brazilian agencies: CAPES, CNPq, FINEP and FAPEAL.
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