Published in

Optica, Optics Express, 21(22), p. 24951, 2014

DOI: 10.1364/oe.22.024951

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Experimental realization of transverse mode conversion using optically induced transient long-period gratings

Journal article published in 2013 by Tim Hellwig, Martin Schnack, Till Walbaum, Sven Dobner, Carsten Fallnich
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Red circle
Preprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We present the experimental realization of transverse mode conversion in an optical fiber via an optically induced long-period grating. The transient gratings are generated by femtosecond laser pulses, exploiting the Kerr effect to translate intensity patterns emerging from multimode interference into a spatial refractive index modulation. Since these modulations exist only while the pump beam is present, they can be used for optical switching of transverse modes. As only a localized part of the grating was written at a time and the probe beam was co-propagating with the pump beam the required pulse energies could be reduced to 120\,nJ which is about a factor of 600 lower than in previous quasi-continuous-wave experiments. Accompanying numerical simulations allow a better understanding of the involved effects and show excellent agreement to the experimental results.