High Energy Ultrashort-Pulse Microresonator Sources

能够及时产生超短脉冲的激光源在精密加工、眼科手术、波长转换、深层组织成像和全光时钟等应用中是非常理想的。这些源的相关宽带也是光谱学、电信和测距应用的理想选择。目前的短脉冲激光技术非常强大，但由于激光增益介质的精心安排，在尺寸、成本、波长和脉冲性能等方面受到限制。另一方面，最近的微谐振器设备没有这种增益限制，但脉冲能量非常低，这限制了它们更广泛的适用性。本研究的目标是将微谐振器源的能量性能提高一千倍，以开发高适应性的超短脉冲光源。除了显著提高当前微谐振器在电信和光谱学中的应用性能外，本研究还可以实现廉价、简单、小、轻和波长通用的微谐振器源，可以取代传统超短脉冲应用中的标准脉冲激光器，包括生物成像、频率转换和全光时钟。除了技术影响之外，该项目还将在纳米技术、超快非线性光学和先进光学技术的接口领域培养两名具有重大技术重要性的博士生，pi将把这个重要的平台整合到常规课程中，以及罗切斯特大学的课外光学暑期学校项目中。技术描述基于芯片的频率梳源已被证明是包括光谱学，电信，测距和信号处理在内的应用的宝贵资源。然而，目前的微谐振源具有低单脉冲效率和非常低的能量，在飞焦耳水平。目前的应用需要外部放大，这限制了源带宽，并抵消了片上源的优势。这项研究的目标是开发多功能片上设备，用于产生高效率的频率梳和超短脉冲，能量比目前最先进的设备高1000倍。微谐振腔孤子的能量受限于在孤子失稳之前可以通过色散补偿的光学非线性量。我们将通过实验证明如何在强过耦合腔中通过损耗工程来设计这一极限。我们将开发具有集成光谱滤波器的正常色散腔，以产生一种新的啁啾脉冲孤子，该孤子最近被PI证明可以在相关的光纤腔中支持非常高的能量。这些技术的成功实施，除了显著提高当前微谐振器应用的性能外，还将使廉价、简单、小、轻和波长通用的微谐振器源成为可能，这些微谐振器源可以取代锁模激光器，用于传统的超短脉冲应用，包括生物成像、频率转换和频率梳自参考。除了技术影响之外，该项目还将在纳米技术、超快非线性光学和先进光学技术的接口领域培养两名具有重大技术重要性的博士生，pi将把这个重要的平台整合到常规课程中，以及罗切斯特大学的课外光学暑期学校项目中。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Laser sources that can generate ultrashort pulses in time are highly desirable for applications including precision machining, ocular surgery, wavelength conversion, deep-tissue imaging, and all-optical clocks. The associated broad bandwidth from these sources is also ideal for spectroscopy, telecommunications, and distance ranging applications. Current short-pulse laser technology is very powerful but is restricted in size, cost, wavelength, and pulse performance by the requirement of a carefully arranged laser gain medium. More recent microresonator devices, on the other hand, operate without this gain limitation, but suffer from very low pulse energies, which limits their wider applicability. The objective of this research is to improve the energy performance of microresonator sources by up to a thousand times to develop highly adaptable sources of ultrashort pulses of light. In addition to significantly improving the performance of current microresonator applications in telecommunications and spectroscopy, this research can enable cheap, simple, small, light, and wavelength-versatile microresonator sources that can supplant standard pulsed lasers for traditional ultrashort-pulse applications including bio-imaging, frequency conversion, and all-optical clocks. Beyond technological impact, this project will train two PhD students in an area of large technological importance at the interface of nano-technology, ultrafast nonlinear optics and advanced optical technologies, and the PIs will integrate this important platform into the regular curriculum as well as into the extra-curricular optics summer-school program at the University of Rochester. Technical descriptionChip-based frequency-comb sources have proven to be a valuable resource for applications including spectroscopy, telecommunications, ranging, and signal processing. However, current microresonator sources have low single-pulse efficiencies and very low energies, at the femtojoule level. Applications currently require external amplification, limiting the source bandwidth and negating the benefits of an on-chip source. The objective of this research is to develop versatile on-chip devices for generating frequency-combs and ultrashort pulses with high efficiencies and up to a thousand times higher energies than the state-of-the-art. The energy of microresonator solitons is limited by the amount of optical nonlinearity that can be compensated by dispersion before the soliton destabilizes. We will experimentally demonstrate how this limit can be engineered through loss-engineering in strongly over-coupled cavities. We will develop normal dispersion cavities with integrated spectral filters to generate a type of novel chirped-pulse soliton that was recently shown by the PI to support very high energies in related fiber cavities. Successful implementation of these techniques, in addition to improving the performance of current microresonator applications significantly, will enable cheap, simple, small, light, and wavelength-versatile microresonator sources that can supplant mode-locked lasers for traditional ultrashort-pulse applications including bio-imaging, frequency conversion, and frequency-comb self-referencing. Beyond technological impact, this project will train two PhD students in an area of large technological importance at the interface of nano-technology, ultrafast nonlinear optics and advanced optical technologies, and the PIs will integrate this important platform into the regular curriculum as well as into the extra-curricular optics summer-school program at the University of Rochester.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.