Energy and spectral enhancement of femtosecond supercontinuum in a noble gas using a weak seed.
We experimentally demonstrate that the use of a weak seed pulse of energy less than 0.4% of the pump results in a spectral energy enhancement that spans over 2 octaves and a total energy enhancement of more than 3 times for supercontinua generated by millijoule level femtosecond pulses in Krypton gas. Strong four-wave mixing of the pump-seed pulse interacting in the gas is observed. The spectral irradiance generated from the seeding process is sufficiently high to use white-light continuum as an alternative to conventional tunable sources of radiation for applications such as nonlinear optical spectroscopy.
College of Optics & Photonics: CREOL & FPCE, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816-2700, USA.
Trenton R
TR
Ensley
Dmitry A
DA
Fishman
Scott
S
Webster
Lazaro A
LA
Padilha
David J
DJ
Hagan
Eric W
EW
Van Stryland
D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007834:Lasers; D008027:Light; D005741:Noble Gases / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000528:radiation effects*; D012542:Scattering, Radiation
D005741:Noble Gases