An apparatus for spectral broadening of laser pulses includes a main body, a plurality of mirror elements fastened to the main body, each having a mirror surface formed thereon and configured to reflect the laser pulses the plurality of mirror elements being fastened to a main body, and at least one nonlinear optical medium for the passage of the laser pulses for the generation of a nonlinear phase (Φ.sub.NL) by self-phase modulation. The at least one nonlinear optical medium may be a sheet-like and disk-shaped solid-state optical medium and/or a gaseous optical medium.

This invention provides a pulse shaping technique that can yield a pulsed laser having a smaller energy fluctuation than that of a conventional pulse shaping technique using one or two non-linear optical crystals. A pulse shaping device includes: a non-linear optical crystal group including at least three non-linear optical crystals arranged side by side on an optical path of an input pulsed laser.

An optical system for increasing contrast of pulsed laser radiation includes a first polarization setting optical unit for setting an elliptical polarization state of the pulsed laser radiation, and a multipass cell having at least two opposing mirrors. The pulsed laser radiation passes the multipass cell with formation of a plurality of intermediate focus zones. The multipass cell is filled with a gas having an optical nonlinearity that causes an intensity-dependent rotation of an alignment of the elliptical polarization state of the pulsed laser radiation, such that the multipass cell outputs beam portions having differently aligned elliptical polarization states on account of the intensity-dependent rotation. The optical system further includes an optical beam splitting system for splitting the beam portions having differently aligned elliptical polarization states.

It discloses a system and a method for generating heralded single photons, wherein the system comprises a high-quality optical ring cavity, a PPKTP nonlinear crystal, a polarization beam splitter, a dichroic mirror, a light filtering device, a reflector module, an atomic vapor cell and a single photon detector, wherein: the high-quality optical ring cavity is formed by a first plano-concave reflector, a second plano-concave reflector, a third plano-concave reflector and a fourth plano-concave reflector; the PPKTP nonlinear crystal and the polarization beam splitter are positioned in an optical path between the first plano-concave reflector and the second plano-concave reflector; the dichroic mirror is positioned in an optical path behind a reflecting end of the polarization beam splitter.

An optical resonator frequency comb (1) comprising a main optical resonator (2) being made of a resonator material, which has a third order nonlinearity and an anomalous resonator dispersion; a continuous wave (cw) laser (4) configured for supplying continuous laser light into an optical waveguide (5), which is coupled with the main optical resonator. The cw laser (4), the optical waveguide (5) and the main optical resonator (2) are arranged for resonantly coupling the cw laser light into the main optical resonator (2) for forming a single dissipative soliton circulating in the main optical resonator (2) corresponding to the generation of a frequency comb. Furthermore, the optical resonator frequency comb further comprises an auxiliary optical element (3, 25, 26) configured to induce a phase shift to a frequency comb component at the cw laser frequency to enhance the conversion efficiency of a generated frequency comb. The disclosure also relates to an associated method.

It discloses a system and a method for generating heralded single photons, wherein the system comprises a high-quality optical ring cavity, a PPKTP nonlinear crystal, a polarization beam splitter, a dichroic mirror, a light filtering device, a reflector module, an atomic vapor cell and a single photon detector, wherein: the high-quality optical ring cavity is formed by a first plano-concave reflector, a second plano-concave reflector, a third plano-concave reflector and a fourth plano-concave reflector; the PPKTP nonlinear crystal and the polarization beam splitter are positioned in an optical path between the first plano-concave reflector and the second plano-concave reflector; the dichroic mirror is positioned in an optical path behind a reflecting end of the polarization beam splitter.

An optical resonator frequency comb comprising a main optical resonator being made of a resonator material, which has a third order nonlinearity and an anomalous resonator dispersion; a continuous wave (cw) laser configured for supplying continuous laser light into an optical waveguide, which is coupled with the main optical resonator. The cw laser, the optical waveguide and the main optical resonator are arranged for resonantly coupling the cw laser light into the main optical resonator for forming a single dissipative soliton circulating in the main optical resonator corresponding to the generation of a frequency comb. Furthermore, the optical resonator frequency comb further comprises an auxiliary optical element configured to induce a phase shift to a frequency comb component at the cw laser frequency to enhance the conversion efficiency of a generated frequency comb. The disclosure also relates to an associated method.

An integrable, non-reciprocal optical component, with guidance, between two magneto-plasmonic interfaces each formed between a dielectric and a metal. An optical port and an input signal passes through a selection region providing a selected signal whose energy is concentrated in a single plasmonic mode, LRSPP or SRSPP, by a selection aperture of a width for which these modes have optical impedances that differ significantly from each other, one of which (z1eff) is close to, or equal to, the input optical impedance (z0eff). The selected signal passes through a differentiation region, which enhances the asymmetry between the two magneto-plasmonic interfaces, to concentrate its energy on a single magneto-plasmonic interface. The differentiated signal passes through a non-reciprocal treatment region formed by two magneto-plasmonic interfaces of non-equivalent geometries. The input signal will thus undergo different treatment from a reverse signal.

The present invention discloses an high-contrast photonic crystal “OR”, “NOT” and “XOR” logic gate, comprising a six-port two-dimensional photonic crystal, a nonlinear cavity unit and a cross-waveguide logic gate unit; the high-contrast photonic crystal “OR” logic gate includes a first reference-light input port, two first idle ports, two first signal-input ports and a first signal-output port; the high-contrast photonic crystal “NOT” logic gate includes two second reference-light input ports, two second idle ports, a second signal-input port and a second signal-output port; and the high-contrast photonic crystal “XOR” logic gate includes a three reference-light input port, two three-idle ports, two three-signal input ports and a three-signal output port; the cross-waveguide logic gate unit is arranged with different input or output ports; and the nonlinear cavity unit is coupled with the cross-waveguide logic gate unit. The structure of the present invention is easy to integrate with other optical logic elements.

A laser system for nonlinear pulse compression includes a laser source configured to generate laser pulses with a pulse energy of at least 50 mJ, a spectral broadening device for spectrally broadening the high-energy laser pulses using self-phase modulation, and a compression device including a grating compressor having at least two diffraction gratings and configured to compress the spectrally broadened high-energy laser pulses. The laser system is configured to generate a pulse duration of the high-energy laser pulses of less than 100 fs.