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.

This disclosed subject matter allows short pulses with high peak powers to be obtained from seed pulses generated by a gain-switched diode. The gain-switched diode provides a highly stable source for optical systems such as nonlinear microscopy. The disclosed system preserves the ability to generate pulses at arbitrary repetition rates, or even pulses on demand, which can help reduce sample damage in microscopy experiments or control deliberate damage in material processing.

An Optical Information Transfer Enhancer System includes a first system for producing an information bearing first optical wave that is impressed with a first information having a first information strength wherein the first optical wave has a first shape. A second system produces a second optical wave. An information strength enhancer module receives the first and said second optical waves and impresses the first optical wave upon the second optical wave via cross-phase modulation (XPM) to produce an information-strength-enhanced second optical wave having a second information strength that is greater than the first information strength of the first optical wave. Following a center-wavelength changer by an Optical Information Transfer Enhancer System improves its performance.

The present invention provides systems and methods for producing short laser pulses that are amplified and spectrally broadened in a bulk gain media. The bulk material, having laser gain and nonlinear properties, is concurrently exposed to an optical pump input and a seed input, the pump power being sufficient to amplify and spectrally broaden the seed pulse.

A laser pulse spectral broadening apparatus (100) for spectral broadening of laser pulses (1A) comprises a multi-pass cell device (10) with multiple mirror elements, which are arranged for providing a beam path (2) extending from an input section to an output section of the multi-pass cell device (10), wherein the mirror elements comprise focussing mirror elements having a concave curvature, and with a pulse spectral broadening device (20) including at least one optical non-linear medium (21) being arranged in the beam path (2) for spectral broadening of the laser pulses passing the pulse spectral broadening device (20), wherein the mirror elements have a configuration providing multiple passages of the beam path (2) through the pulse spectral broadening device (20), wherein the mirror elements further comprise folding mirror elements having a close to plane shape, wherein the absolute value of the radius of curvature of the folding mirror elements (11, 12) is larger than 10 m, the folding mirror elements span a folded collimation portion (3) of the beam path (2) and the beam path (2) has a degree of collimation along the whole collimation portion (3), such that an accumulated collimation portion Gouy phase parameter G.sub.col in the collimation portion (3) is ?/15<G.sub.col<?//2, and the mirror elements are arranged such that an accumulated half round trip Gouy phase parameter Ghrt per half round trip through the multi-pass cell device (10) differs from n*?//2, with n being a natural number. Furthermore, a laser source apparatus and a method of creating laser pulses (1B), employing the laser pulse spectral broadening apparatus (100), are described.

The present invention relates to an integrated circuit, in particular a photonic integrated circuit, for generating an electrical and/or optical frequency comb signal, the integrated circuit comprising: a pulse generation unit comprising an input port for receiving an optical high frequency signal. The present invention provides a Kerr-ring for the generation of an optical frequency comb signal. The use of the Kerr-ring for the optical frequency comb generation makes the integration possible. The present invention further relates to an optical system and a test and measurement device.

The present invention relates to an electrically tunable photonic resonator device for a component having a fast and flat actuation response. The photonic resonator device includes at least one optical waveguide with an optical interface for coupling in laser light. The photonic resonator device includes at least one optical resonator including a waveguide made of an optical resonator material. A laser light coupled via the optical waveguide is coupled into at least one optical resonator. The photonic resonator device includes at least one piezo actuator to apply mechanical stress onto the optical resonator. The optical resonator, the piezo actuator, and the optical waveguide are monolithically integrated on a common substrate of the photonic resonator device. The photonic resonator device includes a mechanical mode suppression means configured to attenuate one or more mechanical modes of oscillation caused by an AC operation of the piezo actuator.

A system and method involve using a first laser to generate a laser-induced plasma filament within an optically-transparent medium, using a second laser to generate a communication signal, and using a signal combiner positioned within the path of both the first laser and the second laser to direct the communication signal through the laser-induced plasma filament to a receiver located within the optically-transparent medium.

A nonlinear nanocomposite optical-element comprising a nanocomposite comprising one or more optically nonlinear (NLO) nanofillers dispersed in a cured organic-matrix. The NLO nanofillers have a high .sup.(3) susceptibility relative to a linear nanofiller. The distribution of the NLO nanofiller has a nanofiller gradient that changes based on optical radiation intensity.

In one aspect, a method is provided for generating supercontinuum laser pulses within a continuous mid-infrared spectral range in a chalcogenide material. This method includes focusing an input laser beam of femtosecond pulses with a pulse energy higher than 10 microjoule along an optical path of the input laser beam; placing a chalcogenide material at a selected location along the optical path of the laser beam so that the laser intensity at the chalcogenide material is sufficiently high to cause nonlinear optical absorption that causes conversion of input optical energy into supercontinuum laser pulses of a pulse energy at or above a microjoule level at optical wavelengths within a broad continuous mid-infrared spectral range without damaging the chalcogenide material; and simultaneously moving the chalcogenide material laterally relative to the input laser beam to avoid damage to the chalcogenide material.