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Press Releases

Ultrashort soliton molecules 

University of Bayreuth, Press Release Nr. 057/2022 - 21 April 2022


IN "NATURE COMMUNICATIONS": ATOMIC TERAHERTZ-VIBRATIONS SOLVE THE ENIGMA OF
ULTRASHORT SOLITON MOLECULES 

Stable packets of light waves – called optical solitons – are emitted in
ultrashort-pulse lasers as a chain of light flashes. These solitons often
combine into pairs with very short temporal separation. Introducing atomic
vibrations in the terahertz range, researchers at the Universities of Bayreuth
and Wrocław have now solved the puzzle of how these temporal links are formed.
They report on their discovery in Nature Communications. The dynamics of the
coupled light packets can be used to measure atomic vibrations as characteristic
"fingerprints" of materials in an extremely fast manner.

Coupling of two ultrashort solitons traveling between the mirrors of a laser
resonator: The first flash of light excites the atoms of the laser crystal to
oscillate, the following flash is influenced by it and kept at a stable
distance.

Georg Herink.


In ultrashort-pulse lasers, optical solitons can form particularly tight spatial
and temporal bonds. These are also called ultrashort "soliton molecules" because
they are stably coupled to each other, similar to the chemically bonded atoms of
a molecule. The research group in Bayreuth used a widely used solid-state laser
made of a sapphire crystal doped with titanium atoms to find out how this
coupling occurs. First, a single leading flash of light stimulates the atoms in
the sapphire's crystal lattice to instantly vibrate. These characteristic motion
oscillates in the terahertz range and decays again within a few picoseconds (a
picosecond corresponds to a trillionth of a second). In this extremely short
time span, the refractive index of the crystal changes. When a second flash of
light immediately follows and catches up with the first, it senses this change:
it is not only slightly affected by the atomic vibrations, but can also stably
be bound to the preceding soliton. A "soliton molecule" is born.

"The mechanism we discovered is based on the physical effects of Raman
scattering and self-focusing. It explains a variety of phenomena that have
puzzled science since the invention of titanium-sapphire lasers over 30 years
ago. What is particularly exciting about the discovery is that we can now
exploit the dynamics of solitons during their generation in the laser cavity to
scan atomic bonds in materials extremely rapidly. The entire measurement of a
so-called intracavity Raman spectrum now takes less than a thousandth of a
second. These findings may help to develop particularly fast chemically
sensitive microscopes that can be used to identify materials. In addition, the
coupling mechanism opens up new strategies to control light pulses by atomic
motions and, conversely, to generate unique material states by light pulses,"
explains junior professor Dr. Georg Herink, head of the study and junior
professor of ultrafast dynamics at the University of Bayreuth.

In parallel with the analysis of experimental data, the researchers have
succeeded in developing a theoretical model for soliton dynamics. The model
allows to explain the observations obtained in experiments and to predict novel
effects of atomic vibrations on the dynamics of solitons. The interactions of
solitons in optical systems and their applications for high-speed spectroscopy
are currently being investigated in the DFG research project FINTEC at the
University of Bayreuth.

Publication: 
Alexandra Völkel, Luca Nimmesgern, Adam Mielnik-Pyszczorski, Timo Wirth, Georg
Herink: Intracavity Raman Scattering couples Soliton Molecules with Terahertz
Phonons. Nature Communications 13, 2066 (2022). DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29649-y


IMAGE FOR DOWNLOAD

 * Coupling of two ultrashort solitons
   Image: Georg Herink.


PROF. DR. GEORG HERINKULTRAFAST DYNAMICS

Phone: +49 (0)921 / 55-3161
E-mail: georg.herink@uni-bayreuth.de
Fax: +49 (0)921 / 55-3802
Office: Building Naturwissenschaften II (NW II)


CHRISTIAN WISSLER

DEPUTY PRESS & PR MANAGER, RESEARCH COMMUNICATION

Phone: +49 (0)921 / 55-5356
E-mail: christian.wissler@uni-bayreuth.de



Webmaster: christian.wissler@uni-bayreuth.de


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