Soliton-induced relativistic-scattering and amplification
Abstract
Solitons are of fundamental importance in photonics due to applications in optical data transmission and also as a tool for investigating novel phenomena ranging from light generation at new frequencies and wave-trapping to rogue waves. Solitons are also relativistic scatterers: they generate refractive-index perturbations moving at the speed of light. Here we found that such perturbations scatter light in an unusual way: they amplify light by the mixing of positive and negative frequencies, as we describe using a first Born approximation and numerical simulations. The simplest scenario in which these effects may be observed is within the initial stages of optical soliton propagation: a steep shock front develops that may efficiently scatter a second, weaker probe pulse into relatively intense positive and negative frequency modes with amplification at the expense of the soliton. Our results show a novel all-optical amplification scheme that relies on relativistic scattering.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.0256,
title = {Soliton-induced relativistic-scattering and amplification},
author = {E. Rubino and A. Lotti and F. Belgiorno and S. L. Cacciatori and A. Couairon and U. Leonhardt and D. Faccio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.0256},
year = {2013}
}