Table of contents

In this letter, laser operation is demonstrated with a Eu,Yb: KY(WO₄)₂ crystal on the ⁵D₀  →  ⁷F₄ transition of the Eu³⁺ ion. When pumping into the ⁷F₁  →  ⁵D₁ absorption band by a diode-pumped Nd³⁺:KGd(WO₄)₂/KTP laser power-scaled at 533.6 nm up to a watt-level, we achieved 2.5 mW of the continuous wave (CW) red output at ~702.1 nm. At quasi-CW pumping with a duty cycle of 10%, the peak power of the ms-long pulses arrived at ~19 mW, corresponding to a green-to-red conversion efficiency of 0.8%.

The discovery of χ⁽³⁾–nonlinear lasing by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in natural monoclinic crystal of petalite, LiAlSi₄O₁₀, is reported. All recorded Stokes and anti-Stokes lasing sidebands under picosecond laser pumping in the visible are identified and attributed to the two occurring SRS-promoting phonon modes with ω_SRS1  ≈  490 cm⁻¹ and ω_SRS2  ≈  357 cm⁻¹. A short review of known SRS-active crystalline minerals and observed manifestations of their χ⁽²⁾– and χ⁽³⁾–nonlinear interactions is given as well.

We report on the influence of core NA on thermal-induced mode instabilities (MI) in high power fiber amplifiers. The influence of core NA and the V-parameter on MI has been investigated numerically. It shows that core NA has a larger influence on MI for fibers with a smaller core-cladding-ratio, and the influence of core NA on the threshold is more obvious when the amplifiers are pumped at 915 nm. The dependence of the threshold on the V-parameter revealed that the threshold increases linearly as the V-parameter decreases when the V-parameter is larger than 3.5, and the threshold shows an exponential increase as the V-parameter decreases when the V-parameter is less than 3.5. We also discussed the effect of linewidth on MI, which indicates that the influence of linewidth can be neglected for a linewidth smaller than 1 nm when the fiber core NA is smaller than 0.07 and the fiber length is shorter than 20 m. Fiber amplifiers with different core NA were experimentally analyzed, which agreed with the theoretical predictions.

High-pulse-energy harmonic mode-locking in 2 μm Tm-doped fiber lasers (TDFLs) is realized, for the first time, by using a short piece of anomalous dispersion gain fiber and the dissipative soliton mode-locking mechanism. Appropriately designing the cavity dispersion map and adjusting the cavity gain, stable harmonic mode-locking of the dissipative soliton TDFL from the 2nd to the 4th order is achieved, with the pulsing repetition rates and pulse energy being 43.4, 65.1, 86.8 MHz, and 6.27, 4.32 and 3.29 nJ, respectively. The harmonic laser pulse has a pulse width of ~30 ps and a center wavelength of ~1929 nm with a spectral bandwidth of ~3.26 nm, giving a highly chirped laser pulse. Two types of soliton molecules are also observed in this laser system.

We propose a scheme for optical high-order sideband generation and efficient sideband information transfer from one optical mode to the other in a hybrid system consisting of a quantum dot coupled to both modes of a lossy bimodal photonic crystal cavity. Here one mode of the cavity is coherently driven by a two-tone continuous-wave laser field and the two cavity modes are not coupled to each other due to their orthogonal polarizations. The influences of the system parameters including the cavity-waveguide coupling rate and all kinds of relative detunings on optical high-order sideband generation and transfer efficiency are discussed. In addition to numerical simulations demonstrating this effect, a physical explanation of the underlying mechanism and an experimental feasibility of the proposed bimodal cavity scheme are also presented. Due to an intrinsic highly multimode sideband structure in the proposed scheme, the ability to engineer and convert photons between different frequencies in a solid-state approach has extensive technological implications not only for classical communication systems, but also future integrated quantum networks.

We study the interaction of the microwave fields with an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. It is shown that the different four-level configurations i.e. cascade, N-type, diamond, Y-type and inverted Y-type systems can be obtained in the superconducting phase quantum circuits by keeping the third order of the Josephson junction potential expansion whereas by dropping the third order term, just the cascade configuration can be established. We study the propagation and amplification of a microwave field in a four-level cascade quantum system, which is realized in an array of superconducting phase quantum circuits. We find that by increasing the microwave pump tones feeding the system, the normal dispersion switches to the anomalous and the gain-assisted superluminal microwave propagation is obtained in an array of many superconducting phase quantum circuits. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the stimulated microwave field is generated via four-wave mixing without any inversion population in the energy levels of the system (amplification without inversion) and the group velocity of the generated pulse can be controlled by the external oscillating magnetic fluxes. We also show that in some special set of parameters, the absorption-free superluminal generated microwave propagation is obtained in superconducting phase quantum circuit system.

Both cavity quantum electrodynamics and photons are promising candidates for quantum information processing. Here we present two efficient schemes for universal quantum gates, that is, Fredkin gates and $\sqrt{\text{SWAP}}$ gates on atomic systems, assisted by Faraday rotation catalyzed by an auxiliary single photon. These gates are achieved by successfully reflecting an auxiliary single photon from an optical cavity with a single-trapped atom. They do not require additional qubits and they only need some linear-optical elements besides the nonlinear interaction between the flying photon and the atoms in the optical cavities. Moreover, these two universal quantum gates are robust. A high fidelity can be achieved in our schemes with current experimental technology. They may be very useful in quantum information processing in future, with the great progress on controlling atomic systems.

The concept of entanglement was originally introduced to explain correlations existing between two spatially separated systems, that cannot be described using classical ideas. Interestingly, in recent years, it has been shown that similar correlations can be observed when considering different degrees of freedom of a single system, even a classical one. Surprisingly, it has also been suggested that entanglement might be playing a relevant role in certain biological processes, such as the functioning of pigment-proteins that constitute light-harvesting complexes of photosynthetic bacteria. The aim of this work is to show that the presence of entanglement in all of these different scenarios should not be unexpected, once it is realized that the very same mathematical structure can describe all of them. We show this by considering three different, realistic cases in which the only condition for entanglement to exist is that a single excitation is coherently delocalized between the different subsystems that compose the system of interest.

We theoretically present a passive method for intra-cavity spectral shaping in a broadband Ti : S regenerative amplifier on optical rotatory dispersion (ORD). Besides a polarization-dependent Ti : S gain crystal, implementing the method requires a broadband half-wave plate and a wedge pair made of an optical rotator crystal for an adjustable ORD. Our calculations show inducing proper ORD allows the amplifier to boost an 800 nm pulse from sub-nJ up to 3.18 mJ with a bandwidth of 94.5 nm without peak wavelength shift or spectral narrowing. For a certain ORD, this method allows us to get tunable broadband amplification with almost constant output pulse energy by simply rotating the half-wave plate. In spite of its flexibility in controlling the output spectrum of the amplifier, this method is very simple to align.

The well-established PIF-01/S1/P43 picosecond streak tube, designed 30 years ago and still manufactured at the A.M. Prokhorov General Physics Institute, was modified by replacing its traditional P43 phosphor screen with a P47 one having approximately three orders of magnitude shorter decay time. The experimental measurements of this decay time were provided by PIF-01/S1/P47 image tube photocathode irradiation either with a single or a train of 8 ps laser pulses separated by 8 ns from each other at a 1.08 μm wavelength. The results of our preliminary measurements of P47-BH phosphor (manufactured by Phosphor Technology Ltd) indicate the possibility of employing the PIF-01/S1/P47 streak tube for synchrotron diagnostics at a units megahertz repetition rate without the negative influence of 'ghost images' from the previous streak records.

Raman spectroscopy has been found useful for monitoring the dengue patient diagnostic and recovery after infection. In the present work, spectral changes that occurred in the blood sera of a dengue infected patient and their possible utilization for monitoring of infection and recovery were investigated using 532 nm wavelength of light. Raman spectrum peaks for normal and after recovery of dengue infection are observed at 1527, 1170, 1021 cm⁻¹ attributed to guanine, adenine, TRP (protein) carbohydrates peak for solids, and skeletal C–C stretch of lipids acyl chains. Where in the dengue infected patient Raman peaks are at 1467, 1316, 1083, and 860 attributed to CH2/CH3 deformation of lipids and collagen, guanine (B, Z-marker), lipids and protein bands. Due to antibodies and antigen reactions the portions and lipids concentration totally changes in dengue viral infection compared to normal blood. These chemical changes in blood sera of dengue viral infection in human blood may be used as possible markers to indicate successful remission and suggest that Raman spectroscopy may provide a rapid optical method for continuous monitoring or evaluation of a protein bands and an antibodies population. Accumulate acquisition mode was used to reduce noise and thermal fluctuation and improve signal to noise ratio. This in vitro dengue infection monitoring methodology will lead in vivo noninvasive on-line monitoring and screening of viral infected patients and their recovery.

The optical biopsy could be a quick and painless support or alternative to a punch biopsy. In this letter the first in vivo vertical wide field two photon microscopy (2PM) images of healthy volunteers are shown. The 2PM images are fused images of two photon excited auto fluorescence (AF) and second harmonic generation (SHG) signals given as false-color images of 200 μm  ×  7 mm in size. By using these two nonlinear effects, the epidermis can be easily distinguished from the dermis at a glance. The auto fluorescence provides cellular resolution of the epidermal cells, and elastin fibers are partly visible in the dermis. Collagen, visible by SHG signal, is the dominant structure in the dermis. As contact agent water was evaluated to increase the AF signal, especially in the deeper layers of epidermis and dermis. For further improvement any terminal hairs should be removed by shaving and by taking tape strips of the first five layers of the stratum corneum. The first images illustrated that young skin compared to aged skin shows remarkably different dermal elastin and collagen signals in the dermis.

For the first time we excited four-phonon impulsive stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in tetragonal GdVO₄ single crystal under near-IR femtosecond pumping. All of its recorded χ⁽³⁾-nonlinear Stokes cascaded and cross-cascaded fully coherent lasing emissions were identified at internal vibrations of the [VO₄]³⁻ units of the studied vanadate. The obtained new fundamental knowledge could significantly enrich the functional potential of this crystal, which is a host crystal for trivalent lanthanide lasants and attractive gain media for Raman laser converters and self-SRS lasers.