Nonlinear Photonics in Midinfrared Quantum Cascade Lasers

This thesis provides deep insights into currently controversial questions in laser filamentation, a highly complex phenomenon involving nonlinear optical effects and plasma physics. First, based on the concrete picture of a femtosecond laser beam which self-pinches its radial intensity distribution, the thesis delivers a novel explanation for the remarkable and previously unexplained phenomenon of pulse self-compression in filaments. Moreover, the work addresses the impact of a non-adiabatic change of both nonlinearity and dispersion on such an intense femtosecond pulse transiting from a gaseous dielectric material to a solid one. Finally, and probably most importantly, the author presents a simple and highly practical theoretical approach for quantitatively estimating the influence of higher-order nonlinear optical effects in optics. These results shed new light on recent experimental observations, which are still hotly debated and may completely change our understanding of filamentation, causing a paradigm change concerning the role of higher-order nonlinearities in optics.

This thesis examines laser generation from the ultraviolet to the short edge of the mid-infrared band by exploiting the nonlinear effects in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). Several different physical mechanisms are investigated by using homemade PCFs with elaborately customized dispersion profiles.

The book describes recent advances in terahertz and ultrafast laser applications. Chapter address such topics as terahertz quantum cascade lasers, femtosecond lasers in ophthalmology, laser surface texturing, and laser ablation.

This book explores the impact of nonlinearity on a broad range of areas, including time-honored fields such as biology, geometry, and topology, but also modern ones such as quantum mechanics, networks, metamaterials and artificial intelligence.

Deals with photonics in free space and special media such as anisotropic crystals.
* Covers all important topics from Fourier optics, such as the properties of lenses, optical image processing, and holography to the Gaussian beam, light propagation in anisotropic media, external field effects, polarization of light and its major applications.

This book is a collection of original research articles on silicon photonics. This book should be of interest to academic researchers and engineers.

This book presents a unique approach to the design and analysis of beneficial nonlinearity, which can take an important and critical role in engineering systems and thus cannot be simply ignored in structural design, dynamic response analysis, and parameter selection. A key issue in the area is thus systematically addressed about how to analyze and design potential nonlinearities introduced to or inherent in a system, which is a must-do task in many practical applications involving vibration control, energy harvesting, sensor systems and robots, etc.