Spatio-spectral beam control in multimode diode-pumped Raman fibre lasers via intracavity filtering and Kerr cleaning

Multimode fibres provide a promising platform for boosting the capacity of fibre links and the output power of fibre lasers. The complex spatiotemporal dynamics of multimode beams may be controlled in spatial and temporal domains via the interplay of nonlinear, dispersive and dissipative effects. Raman nonlinearity induces beam cleanup in long graded-index fibres within a laser cavity, even for CW Stokes beams pumped by highly-multimode laser diodes (LDs). This leads to a breakthrough approach for wavelength-agile high-power lasers. However, current understanding of Raman beam cleanup is restricted to a small-signal gain regime, being not applicable to describing realistic laser operation. We solved this challenge by experimentally and theoretically studying pump-to-Stokes beam conversion in a graded-index fibre cavity. We show that random mode coupling, intracavity filtering and Kerr self-cleaning all play a decisive role for the spatio-spectral control of CW Stokes beams. Whereas the depleted LD pump radiation remains insensitive to them.

Quantum enhanced imaging of nonuniform refractive profiles

In this work, quantum metrology techniques are applied to the imaging of objects with a nonuniform refractive spatial profile. A sensible improvement on the classical accuracy is shown to be found when the “Twin Beam (TWB) State” is used. In particular, exploiting the multimode spatial correlation, naturally produced in the Parametric Down Conversion (PDC) process, allows a 2D reconstruction of complex spatial profiles, thus enabling an enhanced imaging. The idea is to use one of the spatially multimode beams to probe the sample and the other as a reference to reduce the noise. A similar model can also be used to describe wave front distortion measurements. The model is meant to be followed by a first experimental demonstration of such enhanced measurement scheme.

Spatial and temporal coherence in optical parametric devices pumped with multimode beams

We investigate the emergence of spatial and temporal coherence for the fields in the noncritical nondegenerate parametric second-order down-conversion process pumped with low spatial and temporal coherence beams. It is shown that in this scenario, which is of considerable practical importance, the parametric gain in the near field breaks down into an ensemble of mutually incoherent beamlets containing parametric waves. The field generated in a single beamlet is fully spatially coherent. The size of such coherent parametric gain regions is governed by the near-field spatial coherence radius of the pump, which also acts as a parameter, restraining the linear diffraction of the parametric waves generated in the nonlinear interaction. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate how the spatial and temporal coherence can be substantially enhanced by manipulating the spatial field correlation of the multilongitudinal and multi-transversal mode pump.

Non-classical Signature of Parametric Fluorescence and its Application in Metrology

The article provides a short theoretical background of what the non-classical light means. We applied the criterion for the existence of non-classical effects derived by C.T. Lee on parametric fluorescence. The criterion was originally derived for the study of two light beams with one mode per beam. We checked if the criterion is still working for two multimode beams of parametric down-conversion through numerical simulations. The theoretical results were tested by measurement of photon number statistics of twin beams emitted by nonlinear BBO crystal pumped by intense femtoseconds UV pulse. We used ICCD camera as the detector of photons in both beams. It appears that the criterion can be used for the measurement of the quantum efficiencies of the ICCD cameras.