Free-carrier-induced soliton fission unveiled by in situ measurements in nanophotonic waveguides
| Autor: | Laurens Kuipers, Simon Lefrancois, Benjamin J. Eggleton, Sylvain Combrié, Matthias Wulf, Gaëlle Lehoucq, Chad Husko, Alfredo De Rossi |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Fission
530 Physics Science Nanophotonics General Physics and Astronomy Physics::Optics 02 engineering and technology 01 natural sciences General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology Article 010309 optics symbols.namesake Quantum mechanics 0103 physical sciences Scaling Nonlinear Schrödinger equation Nonlinear Sciences::Pattern Formation and Solitons Physics Multidisciplinary General Chemistry 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Computational physics Supercontinuum Nonlinear system symbols Soliton 0210 nano-technology Order of magnitude |
| Zdroj: | Nature Communications, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-7 (2016) Nature Communications |
| ISSN: | 2041-1723 |
| Popis: | Solitons are localized waves formed by a balance of focusing and defocusing effects. These nonlinear waves exist in diverse forms of matter yet exhibit similar properties including stability, periodic recurrence and particle-like trajectories. One important property is soliton fission, a process by which an energetic higher-order soliton breaks apart due to dispersive or nonlinear perturbations. Here we demonstrate through both experiment and theory that nonlinear photocarrier generation can induce soliton fission. Using near-field measurements, we directly observe the nonlinear spatial and temporal evolution of optical pulses in situ in a nanophotonic semiconductor waveguide. We develop an analytic formalism describing the free-carrier dispersion (FCD) perturbation and show the experiment exceeds the minimum threshold by an order of magnitude. We confirm these observations with a numerical nonlinear Schrödinger equation model. These results provide a fundamental explanation and physical scaling of optical pulse evolution in free-carrier media and could enable improved supercontinuum sources in gas based and integrated semiconductor waveguides. Solitons are nonlinear waves that exist in diverse forms of matter. Here, Husko et al. use near-field measurements to observe the spatio-temporal evolution of optical pulses in a nanophotonic semiconductor waveguide, demonstrating that nonlinear photo-carrier generation can induce fission of solitons. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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