Applied Sciences (Jun 2019)

Generation of Ultrafast Optical Pulses via Molecular Modulation in Ambient Air

  • Yuta Nakano,
  • Anton D. Shutov,
  • Totaro Imasaka,
  • Alexei V. Sokolov

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/app9122509
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 12
p. 2509

Abstract

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We investigated the possibility of making ever-shorter optical pulses by using the nonlinearity of ambient air. We produced a broad spectrum consisting of mutually coherent optical sidebands via collinear Raman generation driven by two picosecond laser pulses that are Raman-resonant with molecular vibrations of nitrogen. We demonstrated the ability to adjust the sideband phases via dispersion control which we accomplished by changing the optical path length of the generated multi-color beam through a pair of tilted glass plates. The resultant measured phases suggest the generation of a 3-fs optical pulse train.

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