Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to R S Windeler.
We present experimental and numerical results for nonlinear polarization evolution of femtosecond pulses during propagation in microstructure fiber. Numerical modeling shows that fiber dispersion permits a long interaction length between the components polarized along the two principal axes, thereby enhancing the effective nonlinear polarization evolution in microstructure fiber.
The effect of structural irregularities in photonic crystal fibers on scalar and vector modulational instability (MI) processes is studied by numerical simulations and experiments. For an anomalous-dispersion regime pump, variations in core ellipticity as small as 0.5% over length scales of the order of several meters are shown to have a negligible effect on scalar MI, yet they completely suppress vector MI. In contrast, for a normal-dispersion regime pump, vector MI is shown to be robust against such fluctuations.
Supercontinua generated by femtosecond pulses launched in microstructure fiber can exhibit significant low-frequency (<1-MHz) amplitude noise on the output pulse train. We show that this low-frequency noise is an amplified version of the amplitude noise that is already present on the input laser pulse train. Through both experimental measurements and numerical simulations, we quantify the noise amplification factor and its dependence on the supercontinuum wavelength and on the energy and duration of the input pulse. Interestingly, the dependence differs significantly from that of the broadband white-noise component, which arises from amplification of the input laser shot noise.
Broadband noise on supercontinuum spectra generated in microstructure fiber is shown to lead to amplitude fluctuations as large as 50% for certain input laser pulse parameters. We study this noise using both experimental measurements and numerical simulations with a generalized stochastic nonlinear Schrödinger equation, finding good quantitative agreement over a range of input-pulse energies and chirp values. This noise is shown to arise from nonlinear amplification of two quantum noise inputs: the input-pulse shot noise and the spontaneous Raman scattering down the fiber.