Simulation of spatiotemporal light dynamics based on the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.

We establish a first-principle model for the simulation of spatiotemporal light pulse dynamics based on the combination of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and the unidirectional propagation equation. The proposed numerical scheme enables computationally efficient simulation while being stable and accurate. We use the new model to examine self-focusing of a short pulse in atomic hydrogen and show that an accurate description of the excited-levels dynamics can only be achieved by a propagation model with an ab-initio description of the light-matter interaction, which accounts for the laser-dressed multilevel structure of the system, including bound and free states, and its sub-cycle response.

Tunable in situ near-UV pulses by transient plasmonic resonance in nanocomposites.

We propose a concept for generation of ultrashort pulses based on transient field-induced plasmonic resonance in nanoparticle composites. Photoionization and free-carrier plasma generation change the susceptibility of nanoparticles on a few-femtosecond scale under the action of the pump pulse. This opens a narrow time window when the system is in plasmonic resonance, which is accompanied by a short burst of the local field.

Non-instantaneous third-order optical response of gases in low-frequency fields.

It is commonly assumed that for low-intensity short optical pulses far from resonance, the third-order optical nonlinear response is instantaneous. We solve the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom and show that this is not the case: the polarization is not simply proportional to the cube of the electric field even at low intensities. We analyze the fundamental-frequency and third-harmonic nonlinear susceptibilities of hydrogen, investigate their dependence on intensity, and find that the delays in the Kerr response rapidly approach the femtosecond time-scale at higher intensities, while the delays in the third harmonic generation remain much lower.

Propagator operator for pulse propagation in resonant media.

We show that, for the case of resonant media, the available models for unidirectional propagation of short pulses can face serious challenges with respect to numerical efficiency, accuracy, or numerical artifacts. We propose an alternative approach based on a propagator operator defined in the time domain. This approach enables precise simulations using short time windows even for resonant media and facilitates coupling of the propagation equation with first-principle methods such as the time-dependent Schödinger equation.

Sub-4 fs laser pulses at high average power and high repetition rate from an all-solid-state setup.

The generation of high average power, carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stable, near-single-cycle pulses at a repetition rate of 100 kHz is demonstrated using an all solid-state setup. By exploiting self-phase modulation in thin quartz plates and air, the spectrum of intense pulses from a high-power, high repetition rate non-collinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (NOPCPA) is extended to beyond one octave, and pulse compression down to 3.7 fs is achieved.

Symmetry Breaking and Strong Persistent Plasma Currents via Resonant Destabilization of Atoms.

The ionization rate of an atom in a strong optical field can be resonantly enhanced by the presence of long-living atomic levels (so-called Freeman resonances). This process is most prominent in the multiphoton ionization regime, meaning that the ionization event takes many optical cycles. Nevertheless, here, we show that these resonances can lead to rapid subcycle-scale plasma buildup at the resonant values of the intensity in the pump pulse.

Raman gas self-organizing into deep nano-trap lattice.

Trapping or cooling molecules has rallied a long-standing effort for its impact in exploring new frontiers in physics and in finding new phase of matter for quantum technologies. Here we demonstrate a system for light-trapping molecules and stimulated Raman scattering based on optically self-nanostructured molecular hydrogen in hollow-core photonic crystal fibre. A lattice is formed by a periodic and ultra-deep potential caused by a spatially modulated Raman saturation, where Raman-active molecules are strongly localized in a one-dimensional array of nanometre-wide sections.

Nonlinearity of surface-plasmon polaritons in sub-wavelength metal nanowires.

We investigate the nonlinear propagation of surface plasmon polaritons guided on gold nanowires surrounded by silica glass. Based on the Lorentz reciprocity theorem, we derive a formula for the complex nonlinear susceptibility, and study its dependence on waveguide parameters and wavelength for the fundamental mode. Depending on these parameters both positive and negative signs of the real and imaginary parts of the nonlinear coefficient are predicted.

Application of mid-infrared pulses for quasi-phase-matching of high-order harmonics in silver plasma.

We demonstrate the quasi-phase-matching of a group of harmonics generated in Ag multi-jet plasma using tunable pulses in the region of 1160 - 1540 nm and their second harmonic emission. The numerical treatment of this effect includes microscopic description of the harmonic generation, propagation of the pump pulse, and the propagation of the generated harmonics. We obtained more than 30-fold growth of harmonics at the conditions of quasi-phase-matching in the region of 35 nm using eight-jet plasma compared with the case of imperforated plasma.

Boosting terahertz generation in laser-field ionized gases using a sawtooth wave shape.

Broadband ultrashort terahertz (THz) pulses can be produced using plasma generation in a noble gas ionized by femtosecond two-color pulses. Here we demonstrate that, by using multiple-frequency laser pulses, one can obtain a waveform which optimizes the free electron trajectories in such a way that they acquire the largest drift velocity. This allows us to increase the THz conversion efficiency to 2%, an unprecedented performance for THz generation in gases.

Multi-meter fiber-delivery and pulse self-compression of milli-Joule femtosecond laser and fiber-aided laser-micromachining.

We report on damage-free fiber-guidance of milli-Joule energy-level and 600-femtosecond laser pulses into hypocycloid core-contour Kagome hollow-core photonic crystal fibers. Up to 10 meter-long fibers were used to successfully deliver Yb-laser pulses in robustly single-mode fashion. Different pulse propagation regimes were demonstrated by simply changing the fiber dispersion and gas.

Combined action of the bound-electron nonlinearity and the tunnel-ionization current in low-order harmonic generation in noble gases.

We study numerically low-order harmonic generation in noble gases pumped by intense femtosecond laser pulses in the tunneling ionization regime. We analyze the influence of the phase-mismatching on this process, caused by the generated plasma, and study in dependence on the pump intensity the origin of harmonic generation arising either from the bound-electron nonlinearity or the tunnel-ionization current. It is shown that in argon the optimum pump intensity of about 100 TW/cm² leads to the maximum efficiency, where the main contribution to low-order harmonics originates from the bound-electron third and fifth order susceptibilities, while for intensities higher than 300 TW/cm² the tunnel-ionization current plays the dominant role.

Slow light in dielectric composite materials of metal nanoparticles.

We propose a method for slowing down light pulses by using composites doped with metal nanoparticles. The underlying mechanism is related to the saturable absorption near the plasmon resonance in a pump-probe regime, leading to strong dispersion of the probe refractive index and significantly reduced group velocities. By using a non-collinear scheme, we predict a total fractional delay of 43.

Polarization gating and circularly-polarized high harmonic generation using plasmonic enhancement in metal nanostructures.

We investigate possibilities to utilize field enhancement by specifically designed metal nanostructures for the generation of single attosecond pulses using the polarization gating technique. We predict the generation of isolated 59-attosecond-long pulses using 15-fs pump pulses with only a 0.6 TW/cm2 intensity.

Carrier-envelope phase stabilization with sub-10 as residual timing jitter.

We demonstrate carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilization of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator with unprecedented timing jitter of eight attoseconds. The stabilization performance is obtained by a combination of two different stabilization approaches. In a first step the drift of the CEP is stabilized with a conventional feedback loop by means of controlling the oscillator pump power with an acousto-optic modulator (AOM).

High-order harmonic generation employing field enhancement by metallic fractal rough surfaces.

We numerically investigate high-order harmonic generation (HHG) in noble gases in the vicinity of fractal structures of metallic rough surfaces described by the restricted solid-on-solid model. The calculated intensity enhancement factors in the range of 10³ enables HHG up to the 50-th order with low pump intensity down to tens of GW/cm². The increased interaction volume of "hot spots" in the case of grazing incidence of s-polarized pump pulses leads to an efficiency of harmonics in the plateau region of about 10⁻⁷.

Saturable absorption in composites doped with metal nanoparticles.

We study saturable absorption and the nonlinear contribution to the refractive index of metal-nanoparticle composites by using a modifie self-consistent Maxwell-Garnett formalism for spherical nanoparticles and a generalization of the discrete-dipole formalism for particles of arbitrary shape and size. The results for fused silica doped with silver nanoparticles show that the saturation of loss of the composites is strongest near the surface plasmon resonance and the saturation intensity is in the range of 10 MW/cm(2). The nonlinear refraction index decrease with increasing intensity and its sign depends on frequency and fillin factor.

Two-octave supercontinuum generation in a water-filled photonic crystal fiber.

Supercontinuum generation in a water-filled photonic crystal fiber is reported. By only filling the central hollow core of this fiber with water, the fiber properties are changed such that the air cladding provides broadband guiding. Using a pump wavelength of 1200 nm and few-microjoule pump pulses, the generation of supercontinua with two-octave spectral coverage from 410 to 1640 nm is experimentally demonstrated.

High-power soliton-induced supercontinuum generation and tunable sub-10-fs VUV pulses from kagome-lattice HC-PCFs.

We theoretically study a novel approach for soliton-induced high-power supercontinuum generation by using kagome lattice HC-PCFs filled with a noble gas. Anomalous dispersion and broad-band low loss of these fibers enable the generation of two-octave broad spectra by fs pulses, with high coherence and high spectral peak power densities up to five orders of magnitude larger than in standard PCFs. In addition, up to 20% of the output radiation energy forms a narrow UV/VUV band, which can be tuned by controlling the pressure in the range from 350 nm to 120 nm.

Low-threshold supercontinuum generation in glasses doped with silver nanoparticles.

We present a comprehensive study of low-threshold supercontinuum generation using the large frequency-dependent enhancement of the nonlinearity in glasses doped with silver nanoparticles. We predict octave-spanning asymmetric, blue-shifted spectral broadening of fs pulses with intensity in the range of tens of GW/cm(2). We also demonstrate the dependence of the spectral broadening on different physical parameters such as central operating wavelength, pulse duration, input power and the filling factor of the nanoparticles.

Soliton-effect pulse compression in the single-cycle regime in broadband dielectric-coated metallic hollow waveguides.

We study soliton-effect pulse compression in the single-cycle region in dielectric-coated metallic hollow waveguides filled with a noble gas exploiting the broad region of anomalous dispersion in these waveguides. We predict the compression of a 20-fs pulse to a FWHM duration of 1.7 fs with an energy of 6 muJ and study the physical factors determining the limitations on shortest pulses in the single-cycle regime.

Supercontinuum generation in aqueous colloids containing silver nanoparticles.

We numerically study low-threshold supercontinuum generation using the significant enhancement of nonlinearity in aqueous colloids with silver nanoparticles. We predict octave-spanning spectral broadening by femtosecond pulses with an intensity in the range of tens of GW/cm2. The strong frequency dependence of the effective nonlinear coefficient of the composite significantly influences the spectral broadening by self-phase modulation and leads to a large blueshift of the spectra.