Optical extinction, refractive index, and multiple scattering for suspensions of interacting colloidal particles.

We provide a general microscopic theory of the scattering cross-section and of the refractive index for a system of interacting colloidal particles, exact at second order in the molecular polarizabilities. In particular: (a) we show that the structural features of the suspension are encoded into the forward scattered field by multiple scattering effects, whose contribution is essential for the so-called "optical theorem" to hold in the presence of interactions; (b) we investigate the role of radiation reaction on light extinction; (c) we discuss our results in the framework of effective medium theories, presenting a general result for the effective refractive index valid, whatever the structural properties of the suspension, in the limit of particles much larger than the wavelength; (d) by discussing strongly-interacting suspensions, we unravel subtle anomalous dispersion effects for the suspension refractive index.

Optical phase conjugation in phase-modulated transmission systems: experimental comparison of different nonlinearity-compensation methods.

We experimentally compare the effectiveness of three different optical-phase-conjugation-based nonlinearity-compensation strategies on a transmission system employing phase-modulated signals, and hence affected by the Gordon-Mollenauer effect. We demonstrate that it is possible to obtain significant nonlinearity compensation, but that no improvement is obtained using configurations specifically aimed at the compensation of the nonlinear phase noise.

Confocal zero-angle dynamic depolarized light scattering.

We present a novel Dynamic Depolarized Scattering method based on a tight confocal, zero scattering angle, heterodyne scheme. The method is highly immune from parasitic multiple-scattering contributions, so that it can operate with non-index-matched samples presenting large turbidity. It provides measurements of both rotational and translational diffusion coefficients, the latter via number fluctuation spectroscopy.

Observation of nonlinear Airy-like beam evolution in lithium niobate.

We report the observation of Gaussian beam fragmentation into Airy-like waveforms during nonlinear propagation. The effect is supported by the high-intensity photovoltaic nonlinearity arising in unbiased pure congruent lithium niobate. The process is found to occur when the nonlinear response is dominated by the nonlocal effects associated with the charge-displacement process.

All-optical wavelength conversion of a 100-Gb/s polarization-multiplexed signal.

We present the results of an in-depth experimental investigation about all-optical wavelength conversion of a 100-Gb/s polarization-multiplexed (POLMUX) signal. Each polarization channel is modulated at 25 Gbaud by differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK). The conversion is realized exploiting the high nonlinear chi((2)) coefficient of a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide, in a polarization-independent configuration.