title: Few-cycle solitons and supercontinuum generation with cascaded quadratic nonlinearities in unpoled lithium niobate ridge waveguides.
abstract: Formation and interaction of few-cycle solitons in a lithium niobate ridge waveguide are numerically investigated. The solitons are created through a cascaded phase-mismatched second-harmonic generation process, which induces a dominant self-defocusing Kerr-like nonlinearity on the pump pulse. The inherent material self-focusing Kerr nonlinearity is overcome over a wide wavelength range, and self-defocusing solitons are supported from 1100 to 1900 nm, covering the whole communication band. Single cycle self-compressed solitons and supercontinuum generation spanning 1.3 octaves are observed when pumped with femtosecond nanojoule pulses at 1550 nm. The waveguide is not periodically poled, as quasi-phase-matching would lead to detrimental nonlinear effects impeding few-cycle soliton formation.
authors.forename: Hairun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Xianglong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Binbin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bache