Slow-light soliton beam splitters

We study electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and nonlinear pulse propagation in a resonant atomic gas confined in a microwaveguide. We find that the quantum-interference effect in this system can be greatly enhanced due to the reduction of the mode volume of the optical field. In particular, compared with atomic gases in free space, the EIT transparency window in the present confined system can be much wider and deeper, the group velocity of the probe field can be much slower, and the Kerr nonlinearity of the system can be much stronger. We show that a more efficient production of ultraslow optical solitons in the present system may be achieved with much slower propagating velocity and lower generation power. Features of EIT and pulse propagation in the present system are very promising for practical applications in optical information processing and transmission.

$X$ waves are a special type of wave packet that can maintain their transverse profile of $X$ shape during propagation, and they are of much interest for the study of fundamental physics and practical applications. Here we present a scheme to generate nonlinear $X$ waves and realize their active control by using a cold gas of Rydberg atoms via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that, due to the EIT effect contributed by a control laser field and the strong, nonlocal Kerr nonlinearity contributed by Rydberg-Rydberg interaction between atoms, the system supports high-dimensional, nonlocal, and nonlinear optical $X$ waves, which have low propagation loss, ultraslow propagation velocity, and ultralow generation power. We also show that the stability domain of such $X$ waves can be greatly enlarged by increasing the nonlocality degree of the Kerr nonlinearity, and their motion trajectory can be manipulated by using an external magnetic field. Our study opens a route for generating and controlling nonlocal ultraslow nonlinear optical $X$ waves, which may have promising applications in optical information processing and transmission.

We investigate the formation and propagation of the Thirring spatial optical solitons in asymmetric quantum wells (QWs). By virtue of the quantum interference effect, the cross-phase modulation (XPM) can be enhanced greatly while the self-phase modulation and linear absorption are well suppressed with proper system parameters. Diffraction of the probe fields can be well balanced by the enhanced XPM alone, which results in their stationary propagation and the formation of Thirring vector optical solitons. In comparison with traditional vector optical solitons, such Thirring spatial optical solitons generated in the QWs can be of various widths and peak powers, implying their more prospective applications in optical communications and optical information processing.

Due to its complex spatial distribution, the higher-order Hermite–Gaussian mode possesses significant application in fields such as precision measurement and optical communication. The spatial light modulator, with its capability to modulate the complex amplitude distribution of the incident light field, finds extensive applications in optical information processing and adaptive optics, thus making it an indispensable tool in these fields. Using cascaded spatial light modulators can efficiently and superbly generate a higher-order Hermite–Gaussian mode; however, the experimental system is challenging, and there are many influencing factors, such as the misalignment between the optical field on the plane of the second spatial light modulator and the hologram loaded onto it, as well as the spot size of the optical field on the plane of the second spatial light modulator. In this paper, we analyzed the influence of the above factors on the quality of generating a higher-order Hermite–Gaussian mode, providing a reference for the efficient and high-quality generation of the higher-order Hermite–Gaussian mode.

Nonlinear photonic crystals made from polystyrene materials that have Kerr nonlinearity can exhibit ultrafast optical switching when the samples are pumped by ultrashort optical pulses with high intensity due to the change of the refractive index of polystyrene and subsequent shift of the band gap edge or defect state resonant frequency. Polystyrene has a large Kerr nonlinear susceptibility and almost instantaneous response to pump light, making it suitable for the realization of ultrafast optical switching with a response time as short as a few femtoseconds. In this paper, we review our experimental progress on the continual improvement of all-optical switching speed in two-dimensional and three-dimensional polystyrene nonlinear photonic crystals in the past years. Several relevant issues are discussed and analyzed, including different mechanisms for all-optical switching, preparation of nonlinear photonic crystal samples by means of microfabrication and self-assembly techniques, characterization of optical switching performance by means of femtosecond pump-probe technique, and different ways to lower the pump power of optical switching to facilitate practical applications in optical information processing. Finally, a brief summary and a perspective of future work are provided.

Quantum well lasers have attracted a great deal of attention by their many advantages such as low threshold current density, excellent temperature feature, high modulation rate and wavelength adjustability etc. The investigation on quantum well laser in mainland China started in the early 80s. AlGaAs/GaAs QW laser diode and InGaAs/GaAs strained layer QW laser diode have been developed using MBE technology with extremely low threshold current and high T0. Now the growth technologies for QW structure have been expanded to MOCVD technology. Emission wavelengths, on longer wavelength sides have been expanded up to 1.3 µm and 1.55 µm with InGaAsP/InP material system for application in optical fiber communication. On shorter wavelength sides, the emission wavelength has been expanded to lower than 670 nm, for applications in optical information processing. The characteristics of these devices will be demonstrated in this paper. The QW-DFB LD and low-dimension quantum wire and quantum dot lasers are under investigation.

Image-amplifying optical cavities offer an intriguing platform for nonlinear optical processing of two-dimensional signals, with potential applications in optical information processing and optically implemented artificial neural networks. Here, we analyze the performance of a self-imaging degenerate cavity via numerical simulations and show the existence of a cavity size-dependent minimum spread in the transverse mode resonances. This non-degeneracy, in turn, leads to an inherent trade-off between the amplification and the fidelity of the intracavity image as the cavity finesse changes. Our results point to a promising path to nonlinear image processing in a low-power, small-form-factor optical cavity.

Chiral organic materials have garnered significant interest in nanophononics due to their ability to manipulate polarized light and encode optical information. Herein, chiral one‐dimensional (1D) organic microplates based on benzocyclazine form homochiral crystals that exhibit excellent optical waveguiding properties. These microplates exhibited highly asymmetric light propagation that depends on the handedness of circularly polarized light (CPL). These homochiral microplates demonstrated selective transmission, with R‐microplate favouring left‐handed CPL and S‐microplate favouring right‐handed CPL, showcasing distinct optical loss coefficients for each enantiomer. Multichannel light propagation was observed, where the intensity varied based on the excitation position. These results highlight the potential of 1D chiral microplates for advanced nanophotonic devices, offering chiral‐dependent control over light transmission for future applications in optical information processing.

Volume holographic optical elements are of considerable interest for applications in optical information processing and computing systems and in optical interconnect technology. Typical volume holographic optical elements are fabricated from bulk photosensitive materials, such that the holographic recording process occurs throughout the entire volume. We have investigated an alternative approach to the fabrication of such elements by employing a number of thin photosensitive layers interleaved among much thicker optically inactive buffer layers. As few as five thin but spatially separated active layers can exhibit essentially the same Bragg selectivity as a single distributed volume hologram. Performance characteristics of stratified volume holographic optical elements have been studied by the anisotropic optical beam propagation method,1 including angular alignment sensitivity, buffer layer thickness sensitivity, crosstalk, and diffraction efficiency as a function of the number of active layers and relative layer thicknesses. Such a concept may allow highly photosensitive and very fast response time materials such as multiple quantum well (MQW) structures in III–V or II–VI compound semiconductors to be used in fabricating volume holographic optical elements, even though such materials are very difficult to grow in layer thicknesses sufficient to individually exhibit the requisite thick holographic characteristics. In addition, novel and intriguing device designs can be envisioned in MQW structures by utilizing applied electric fields to tune the device absorption and phase modulation resonances.

ABSTRACTLiquid crystals (LCs) are widely used in nonlinear optics because of their sensitive responses to optical stimulation. Combined with other optoelectronic materials such as azo dyes, quantum dots (QDs), etc., LCs show very large optical nonlinearity which makes them suitable for applications in optical information processing, including holographic display and holographic storage. In this review, we present an overview of recent efforts on holographic display and storage based on liquid crystalline materials. Emphasis is placed on the dynamic holographic display which uses fast-response LCs doped with azo dye and QD. In this application, we discuss how to improve the response speed, resolution, and diffraction efficiency of liquid crystalline materials to realize high frame rate, large-size and high-brightness holographic displays. Some LC materials for holographic storage are also introduced, including polymer-dispersed liquid crystals, blue-phase liquid crystals, and azobenzene polymer liquid crystals, which have permanent response to light stimulation. The mechanisms of optical nonlinearities are discussed in detail, as a foundation for the physical process of LC-based holographic display and storage.

The paper represents a brief overview on theoretical and experimental investigations of feedback acousto-optic systems carried out in Moscow State University in recent years. These systems are of great interest by reason of their complicated and intriguing behavior as well as in view of novel applications in optical information processing.

Optical chirality, which plays important roles in liquid crystal display and biological and chemical detection, has been attracting scientists' attention due to its potential applications in optical information processing. Usually, the chiral optical response of natural molecules is very weak. However, the emergence of metasurfaces offers a promising solution to solve this issue. By judiciously designing the geometry of meta-atoms, we have realized strong optical circular dichroism (CD) in both linear and nonlinear optical regimes. However, tuning of the CD with a metasurface remains challenging. Here, we propose the twist-angle-controlled nonlinear CD effect by using the second-harmonic generation process on a gold-crystal hybrid metasurface. The CD effect of the second-harmonic waves can be tuned well by controlling the twist angle between the two constituent materials. The proposed hybrid metasurface may open new avenues for developing ultracompact and multifunctional nonlinear optical devices.

Photorefractive crystals of the sillenites (Bi12GeO20, Bi12SiO20, Bi12TiO20) have the promising applications in optical information processing, including spatial light modulators, optical memories, phase conjugation, image inversion, and optical interconnects.1 In comparison to other sillenities, bismuth titanium oxide (Bi12TiO20, BTO) exhibits a higher sensitivity for red lights that permit the use of a cheap HeNe laser. In addition, BTO crystals have a lower optical activity ρ, which is favourable for many applications. However, some technological problems (the incongruent melting of Bi12TiO20, the high tendency of Bi2O3-containing melts to the supercooling, etc.) created difficulties for producing large single crystals of high optical quality.

When studying the spin-noise-induced fluctuations of Kerr rotation in a quantum-well microcavity, we have found a dramatic increase of the noise signal (by more than two orders of magnitude) in the vicinity of anti-crossing of the polariton branches. The effect is explained by nonlinear optical instability of the microcavity giving rise to the light-power-controlled amplification of the polarization noise signal. In the framework of the developed model of built-in amplifier, we also interpret the nontrivial spectral and intensity-related properties of the observed noise signal below the region of anti-crossing of polariton branches. The discovered effect of optically controllable amplification of broadband polarization signals in microcavities in the regime of optical instability may be of interest for detecting weak oscillations of optical anisotropy in fundamental research and for other applications in optical information processing.

We investigate the coherent control of dressing interaction in four-wave mixing (FWM) in a Y-type four-level atomic system based on the dressed states theory. We study the density matrix equation acted by two dressing fields simultaneously governing FWM signal intensity and the eigenvalues under the dressed state formalism. It is shown that the peak position and intensity of Autler–Townes splitting both originate from the dressing interaction as the detuning of the probe field is scanned. Moreover, it is observed that the interaction could be controlled by the dressing fields. Such flexibly controlled nonlinear signal has potential applications in optical communication and quantum information processing.