Nonlinear engineering of ultrashort-pulse fiber lasers and applications for nanostructure self assembly

by Prof. F. Ömer Ilday (Bilkent University, Ankara)

Thursday 16 Jun 2011, 09:15 → 10:00 Europe/Stockholm

FA31

This talk will focus on the physics of the similariton laser [1] and the solitonsimilariton laser [2] and how we have come to understand femtosecond laser physics better through the lens of these developments. The similariton laser was the first laser design to work with nonlinear effects, rather than trying to avoid or compensate for them. This laser has been duplicated in countless laboratories in the world and forms the basis of a number of commercial products. Recently discovered, the soliton-similariton laser goes one step further, where the propagation dynamics are, in fact, everywhere nonlinear. This new design combines, for the first time, two distinct nonlinear waves within the same cavity, matched by strong dissipative transitions, to yield extremely robust and low-noise performance. In the final part, I will give a short overview of the applications being pursued at Bilkent University, such as femtosecond nanosurgery, material processing and ultra-precise RF signal generation. [1] Ilday et al., Physical Review Letters, 2003. [2] Oktem et al., Nature Photonics, 2010.