All-optical switching and nonlinear optical properties of HBT in ethanol solution

This paper demonstrates an all-optical switching model system comprising a single pulsed pump beam at 355 nm and a CW He-Ne signal beam at 632.8 nm with 2-（2＇-hydroxyphenyl）benzothiazole （HBT） in ethanol solution. The origins of the optical switching effect were discussed. By the study of nonlinear optical properties for HBT in ethanol solvent, this paper verified that the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer （ESIPT） effect of HBT and the thermal effect of solvent worked on quite different time scales and together induced the change of the refractive index of HBT solution, leading to the signal beam deflection. The results indicated that the HBT molecule could be an excellent candidate for high-speed and high-sensitive optical switching devices.

All-optical switchings of 3-hydroxyflavone in different solvents

3-hydroxyflavone （3-HF） is an organic molecule with an excited-stated intramolecular proton transfer （ESIPT） effect. All-optical switchings and beam deflections of 3-HF in three kinds of solvents （cyclohexane, ethanol and dimethyl sulfoxide） have been investigated by using the third-harmonic generation （355 nm） of a mode-locked Nd：YAG laser as a pump beam and a continuous-wave （cw） He-Ne laser （632.8 nm） as a probe beam. The nonlinear refractive indices of 3-HF in the three different solvents are determined by using the Z-scan technique under an ultraviolet （UV） pump beam at a wavelength of 355 nm. It has been found that the optical switching and beam deflection effects result from the change in refractive index of 3-HF under the irradiation of the pump beam. On the basis of the analyses of absorption spectra and fluorescence spectra, we conclude that the change in refractive index of 3-HF is due to not the thermal effect but the ESIPT effect of 3-HF under the pump beam. As the ESIPT is exceedingly fast, 3-HF might be an excellent candidate for high-speed optical switching.

Supercontinuum generation pumped by a regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser

Supercontinuum(SC) generation in a dispersion-shifted fiber(DSF) pumped by a 10 GHz regeneratively mode-locked fiber laser(RMLFL) is presented.Optimization of pump wavelength leads to a 20 dB bandwidth of 58.73 nm,which covers the whole C band and part of L band.Using an angle-tuning thin film filter,multi-wavelength and pico-second pulse trains of low chirp could be chosen from the SC spectrum.Amplified spontaneous emission(ASE) induced degeneration of the achieved pulse trains is observed and discussed.

Thermal Effect in KTP Crystals During High Power Laser Operation

We report on the theoretical and experimental studies of the thermal effect of the KTP crystal during high power operation. From the dependence of the refractive index temperature coefficients on wavelength, the dependence of the optimum phase-matching angles on temperature is derived. In the experiment, the angle of the frequency-doubled KTP crystal is tilted to compensate for the thermal effect and to obtain △φ = 0.7° when the green laser output power is 30 W and the KTP crystal temperature is about 80°C. We obtained the highest stable output power greater than 40 W with an L-shaped flat-flat intracavity frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser. The experimental results are very consistent with the theoretical analysis.

Femtosecond Time-Resolved Exciton Recombination Dynamics in ZnO Microcrystallite Thin Films at Room Temperature

We report the femtosecond time-resolved studies of room temperature exciton recombination and ultrafast stimulated emission dynamics in ZnO microcrystallite thin films.A free exciton photoluminescence lifetime of a few tens of picoseconds and a decay time of a few picoseconds for the stimulated emission were observed.The relatively slow rise time(3ps)for the P band as the result of exciton-exciton scattering compared with the 0.8ps rise time for the N band attributed to electron-hole plasma recombination clearly distinguished the two stimulated emission processes.

Femtosecond Degenerate Four-Wave-Mixing in ZnO Microcrystallite Thin Films

Transient third-order optical nonlinearityχ^(3)of ZnO microcrystallite thin films is measured at various temperatures by using femtosecond degenerate four-wave-mixing.Room-temperature excitonic enhancement of is observed.The magnitude ofχ^(3)ranges between 10^(-4)to 10^(-6)esu from 4.2K to room temperature.The measuredχ^(3)response time ranging from 200 to 300 fs ultrafast for temperature down to 4.2K.

Widely and continuously tunable optical parametric generator based on MgO-doped periodically poled LiNbO_3 crystal

A widely and continuously tunable optical parametric generator （OPG） pumped by a 1064-nm acoustooptically Q-switched diode-end-pumped Nd：YAG laser based on MgO-doped periodically poled LiNbO3 crystal with a multigrating structure （29.2—30.4 μm） is reported. A broad continuous signal spectrum of 1513—1700 nm is obtained by changing the crystal grating periods from 29.2 to 30.4 μm and by tuning the crystal temperature from 30 to 180 ℃ simultaneously. When the average pump power is 1.82 W with pulse duration of about 70 ns operating at a repetition rate of 10 kHz, the maximum signal output power of the periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate （PPMgLN） OPG is about 210 mW corresponding to the idler and total powers of 118.4 and 328.4 mW respectively.

Infrared OPO temperature tuning based on periodically-poled lithium niobate

An optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on periodically-poled lithium niobate (PPLN) and pumped by 1064.2-nm laser is demonstrated, which can be conveniently tuned by the means of changing its operating temperature. The parameters of the set-up and experimental results are introduced in this paper. We adjusted the operating temperature from 80 to 250 ℃, the output wavelength shifted from 1485.4 to 1540.7 nm. The average of the shifts is 0.33 nm/℃.