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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Femtosecond Field‐Driven On‐Chip Unidirectional Electronic Currents in Nonadiabatic Tunneling Regime
    (Weinheim : Wiley VCH, 2021) Shi, Liping; Babushkin, Ihar; Husakou, Anton; Melchert, Oliver; Frank, Bettina; Yi, Juemin; Wetzel, Gustav; Demircan, Ayhan; Lienau, Christoph; Giessen, Harald; Ivanov, Misha; Morgner, Uwe; Kovacev, Milutin
    Recently, asymmetric plasmonic nanojunctions have shown promise as on-chip electronic devices to convert femtosecond optical pulses to current bursts, with a bandwidth of multi-terahertz scale, although yet at low temperatures and pressures. Such nanoscale devices are of great interest for novel ultrafast electronics and opto-electronic applications. Here, the device is operated in air and at room temperature, revealing the mechanisms of photoemission from plasmonic nanojunctions, and the fundamental limitations on the speed of optical-to-electronic conversion. Inter-cycle interference of coherent electronic wavepackets results in a complex energy electron distribution and birth of multiphoton effects. This energy structure, as well as reshaping of the wavepackets during their propagation from one tip to the other, determine the ultrafast dynamics of the current. It is shown that, up to some level of approximation, the electron flight time is well-determined by the mean ponderomotive velocity in the driving field.
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    Stability of quantum linear logic circuits against perturbations
    (Bristol : IOP Publ., 2020) Babushkin, Ihar; Morgner, Uwe; Demircan, Ayhan
    Here we study transformation of waveshapes of photons under the action of the linear logic circuits and other related architectures involving only linear optical networks and measurements. We show that the gates are working well not only in the case when all photons are separable and located in the same mode, but in some more general cases. For instance, the photonic waveshapes are allowed to be slightly different in different channels; in this case, Zeno effect prevents the photons from decoherence after the measurement, and the gate thus remains neutral to the small waveshape perturbations. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK
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    The Effect of Chirp on Pulse Compression at a Group Velocity Horizon
    (New York, NY : IEEE, 2016) Babushkin, Ihar; Amiranashvili, Shalva; Bree, Carsten; Morgner, Uwe; Steinmeyer, Gunter; Demircan, Ayhan
    Group-velocity matched cross-phase modulation between a fundamental soliton and a dispersive wave packet has been previously suggested for optical switching applications similar to an optical transistor. Moreover, the nonlinear interaction in the resulting group-velocity horizon can be exploited for adiabatic compression of the soliton down into the few-cycle regime. Here, we study the delicate phase- and frequency-matching mechanism of soliton/dispersive wave interaction by controlling the input chirp of the dispersive wave. We demonstrate that such a modification of the dispersive wave can significantly alter the soliton dynamics. In particular, we show that it allows a decrease of the fiber length needed for the best compression and, to some extent, control of the trajectory of the soliton. The mechanism of such an influence is related to the modification of the phase-matching condition between the soliton and dispersive wave.
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    All-optical supercontinuum switching
    (London : Springer Nature, 2020) Melchert, Oliver; Brée, Carsten; Tajalli, Ayhan; Pape, Alexander; Arkhipov, Rostislav; Willms, Stephanie; Babushkin, Ihar; Skryabin, Dmitry; Steinmeyer, Günter; Morgner, Uwe; Demircan, Ayhan
    Efficient all-optical switching is a challenging task as photons are bosons and cannot immediately interact with each other. Consequently, one has to resort to nonlinear optical interactions, with the Kerr gate being the classical example. However, the latter requires strong pulses to switch weaker ones. Numerous approaches have been investigated to overcome the resulting lack of fan-out capability of all-optical switches, most of which relied on types of resonant enhancement of light-matter interaction. Here we experimentally demonstrate a novel approach that utilizes switching between different portions of soliton fission induced supercontinua, exploiting an optical event horizon. This concept enables a high switching efficiency and contrast in a dissipation free setting. Our approach enables fan-out, does not require critical biasing, and is at least partially cascadable. Controlling complex soliton dynamics paves the way towards building all-optical logic gates with advanced functionalities. © 2020, The Author(s).
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    Transient pulse compression at a group velocity horizon
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Babushkin, Ihar; Amiranashvili, Shalva; Brée, Carsten; Morgner, Uwe; Steinmeyer, Günter; Demircan, Ayhan
    Group-velocity matched cross-phase modulation between a fundamental soliton and a dispersive wave-packet has been previously suggested for optical switching applications similar to an optical transistor. Moreover, the nonlinear interaction in the resulting groupvelocity horizon can be exploited for adiabatic compression of the soliton down into the fewcycle regime. Here we show that both mechanisms can be combined. In such a transient compressor, parameters of the dispersive wave may then serve to actively control the soliton compression and adjust the pulse duration in the presence of disturbances. While a certain amount of control is already enabled by the delay between soliton and dispersive wave, the means of controlling the compression process are substantially enhanced by additionally manipulating the chirp of the dispersive wave. Moreover, controlling the chirp of the dispersive wave also enables correction for limitations of the compression scheme due to a self-frequency shift of the soliton or for uncompensated dispersion in the scheme. This substantially widens the practicality of the compression scheme and other applications of the highly efficient nonlinear interaction at the group-velocity horizon.
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    Population difference gratings created on vibrational transitions by nonoverlapping subcycle THz pulses
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2021) Arkhipov, Rostislav; Pakhomov, Anton; Arkhipov, Mikhail; Babushkin, Ihar; Demircan, Ayhan; Morgner, Uwe; Rosanov, Nikolay
    We study theoretically a possibility of creation and ultrafast control (erasing, spatial frequency multiplication) of population density gratings in a multi-level resonant medium having a resonance transition frequency in the THz range. These gratings are produced by subcycle THz pulses coherently interacting with a nonlinear medium, without any need for pulses to overlap, thereby utilizing an indirect pulse interaction via an induced coherent polarization grating. High values of dipole moments of the transitions in the THz range facilitate low field strength of the needed THz excitation. Our results clearly show this possibility in multi-level resonant media. Our theoretical approach is based on an approximate analytical solution of time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) using perturbation theory. Remarkably, as we show here, quasi-unipolar subcycle pulses allow more efficient excitation of higher quantum levels, leading to gratings with a stronger modulation depth. Numerical simulations, performed for THz resonances of the H20 molecule using Bloch equations for density matrix elements, are in agreement with analytical results in the perturbative regime. In the strong-field non-perturbative regime, the spatial shape of the gratings becomes non-harmonic. A possibility of THz radiation control using such gratings is discussed. The predicted phenomena open novel avenues in THz spectroscopy of molecules with unipolar and quasi-unipolar THz light bursts and allow for better control of ultra-short THz pulses.
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    Influence of tunnel ionization to third-harmonic generation of infrared femtosecond laser pulses in air
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2020) Tamulienė, Viktorija; Juškevičiūtė, Greta; Buožius, Danas; Vaičaitis, Virgilijus; Babushkin, Ihar; Morgner, Uwe
    Here we present an experimental as well as theoretical study of third-harmonic generation in tightly focused femtosecond filaments in air at the wavelength of 1.5μm. At low intensities, longitudinal phase matching is dominating in the formation of 3rd harmonics, whereas at higher intensities locked X-waves are formed. We provide the arguments that the X-wave formation is governed mainly by the tunnel-like ionization dynamics rather than by the multiphoton one. Despite of this fact, the impact of the ionization-induced nonlinearity is lower than the one from bound–bound transitions at all intensities. © 2020, The Author(s).
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    Symmetry breaking and strong persistent plasma currents via resonant destabilization of atoms
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Brée, Carsten; Hofmann, Michael; Babushkin, Ihar; Demircan, Ayhan; Morgner, Uwe; Kosareva, Olga G.; Savelev, Andrei B.; Husakou, Anton; Ivanov, Misha
    The ionization rate of an atom in a strong optical field can be resonantly enhanced by the presence of long-living atomic levels (so called Freeman resonances). This process is most prominent in the multiphoton ionization regime meaning that ionization event takes many optical cycles. Nevertheless, here we show that these resonances can lead to fast subcycle-scale plasma buildup at the resonant values of the intensity in the pump pulse. The fast buildup can break the cycletocycle symmetry of the ionization process, resulting in generation of persistent macroscopic plasma currents which remain after the end of the pulse. This, in turn, gives rise to a broadband radiation of unusual spectral structure forming a comb from terahertz (THz) to visible. This radiation contains fingerprints of the attosecond electronic dynamics in Rydberg states during ionization.
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    Regularizing aperiodic cycles of resonant radiation in filament light bullets
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2017) Brée, Carsten; Babushkin, Ihar; Morgner, Uwe; Demircan, Ayhan
    We demonstrate an up to now unrecognized and very effective mechanism which prevents filament collapse and allows persistent self-guiding propagation retaining larg portion of the optical energy on-axis over unexpected long distances. The key ingredient is the possibility of leaking continuously energy into the normal dispersion regime via emission of resonant radiation. The frequency of the radiation is determined by the dispersion dynamically modified by photo-generated plasma, thus allowing to excite new frequencies in the spectral ranges which are otherwise difficult to access.