A digital-electrical to analog-optical converter for converting a N-bit digital data signal uses a non-linear optical element that is susceptible to the Kerr effect. N digitally modulated optical bit stream sources are co-polarized and modulated according to individual bit streams of the digital data. The co-polarized digitally modulated signals interact with a polarized probe signal in the optical element causing the polarization of the probe signal to be changed. Propagating the polarization-changed probe signal output from the optical element through a polarizer provides an amplitude modulated optical signal corresponding to the N-bit digital signal.

A photonic crystal all-optical D-type flip-flop includes an optical switch unit, a photonic crystal structure unit including two signal-input ends, a signal-output end and an idle port, a wave absorbing load and a reference-light source; the clock signal-input port of the photonic crystal structure unit is connected with a clock control signal; a second port of the photonic crystal structure unit is an intermediate signal-input port, said intermediate signal-input end of the photonic crystal structure unit is connected with a first intermediate signal-output end of the optical selector switch; a logic signal is connected with the first signal-input end of the optical switch unit; the absorbing load is connected with a second intermediate signal-output end of the optical switch unit; said reference-light source is connected with a second signal-input end of the optical switch unit, which is a reference-light input end connecting with the output end of said reference-light source.

Optical component (10) for modulating light field (1) incident thereon, particularly amplitude and/or phase in dependency on intensity (I) thereof, includes stack (11) of refractive layers (12, 13) on substrate (14), made of materials having third-order nonlinearity, and having alternatingly varying refractive indices (n), including linear contribution (n.sub.0) and non-linear contribution (n.sub.2), and determining reflectance and transmittance spectra of the optical component, wherein refractive layers (12, 13) are configured such that reflectance and transmittance of the optical component have a Kerr effect based dependency on intensity (I) of the incident light field with n=n.sub.0+I.Math.n.sub.2, and refractive layers (12, 13) are made of at least one of dielectric and semiconductor layers, wherein non-linear contribution (n.sub.2) is below 10.sup.−12 cm.sup.2/W. A resonator device including the optical component, a method of modulating a light field using the optical component and a method of manufacturing the optical component are described.

An optical arrangement spectrally broadens laser pulses for nonlinear pulse compression. The optical arrangement has: a broadening section that is configured to guide a laser pulse repeatedly through at least one nonlinear broadening element. The nonlinear broadening element has a dispersion property that is selected such that the dispersion property compensates any self-focusing of the laser pulse in the nonlinear broadening element.

An optical arrangement spectrally broadens laser pulses for nonlinear pulse compression. The optical arrangement has: a broadening section that is configured to guide a laser pulse repeatedly through at least one nonlinear broadening element. The nonlinear broadening element has a dispersion property that is selected such that the dispersion property compensates any self-focusing of the laser pulse in the nonlinear broadening element.

An optical frequency comb light source and an optical frequency comb generation method, where the light source includes a laser diode, a coupler, a Kerr nonlinear device, a beam splitter, and a phase shifter. The laser diode is connected to one input port of the coupler, and the other input port of the coupler is connected to an output port of the phase shifter. An output port of the coupler is connected to an input port of the Kerr nonlinear device. An output port of the Kerr nonlinear device is connected to an input port of the beam splitter. One output port of the beam splitter is connected to an input port of the phase shifter. The other output port of the beam splitter is configured to output a plurality of optical frequency combs. A multi-wavelength light source with relatively high power may be provided.

An optical arrangement for enlarging spectral bandwidths by nonlinear self-phase modulation for shortening ultrashort pulses using a multipass cell and a nonlinear medium. The nonlinear medium is arranged within the multipass cell, and a laser beam having ultrashort pulses passes through the nonlinear medium multiple times. The laser beam is coupled into the multipass cell by way of a shaping optical unit. The laser beam is shaped into an astigmatic beam and coupled into the multipass cell by way of the shaping optical unit.

Multiple collimated laser beams can be arranged in a tightly packed non-overlapping array the goes through a telescope system to reduce the size of the beams and also the separation between the beam centers. The beams in the resulting smaller array then diverge until they reach a nonlinear lens, which collimates each of the beams individually so that all of the beams are collimated, pointing in the same direction and overlapping. The pulses in the beams are temporally separated from each other such that the nonlinear lens acts as a different lens for each of the beams. Such an arrangement facilitates scaling the far field average intensity by combining multiple temporally interleaved pulsed laser beams, allowing diverging pulsed laser beams to be collimated individually by utilizing the large nonlinear refractive index of certain materials.

A laser system includes a laser radiation source for providing pulsed laser radiation, and an optical system that includes a first polarization setting optical unit configured to set a circular polarization state of the pulsed laser radiation and a multipass cell having at least two mirrors. The pulsed laser radiation passes through the multipass cell with formation of a plurality of intermediate focus zones. The multipass cell is filled with a filling gas that has an optical nonlinearity and causes a spectral broadening of the pulsed laser radiation in the intermediate focus zones. A pressure of the filling gas is set in a pressure range so that there is an ionization behavior of the filling gas in a form of multiphoton ionization. Focus diameters of the intermediate focus zones are set such that the pulsed laser radiation passes through the multipass cell without ionization of the filling gas.

An optical frequency control device includes: a detection circuit to receive first light including a first frequency, receive second light including a second frequency, modulate the first light with a local oscillation signal, and detect a differential beat signal between the frequency of sideband light included in the modulated first light and the second frequency; a light source control circuit to change the second frequency by frequency-dividing the differential beat signal with a first frequency division number, by frequency-dividing a reference signal with a second frequency division number, and by outputting a phase error signal indicating a phase difference between the frequency-divided differential beat signal and the frequency-divided reference signal; and a signal processing unit to set each of the first frequency division number and the second frequency division number according to the set value of a frequency difference between the first frequency and the second frequency.