Related papers: Transform-limited pulses are not optimal for reson…
We present a theoretical analysis of two-photon absorption of classical and squeezed light valid when one-photon absorption to an intermediate state is either resonant or far-detuned from resonance, and in both the low and high intensity…
Propagation of ultrashort optical pulses in a dense resonant medium is considered in the semiclassical limit. In our analysis, we place emphasis on several main points. First, we study transformations of spectra in the process of pulse…
Backward Raman amplification is limited by relativistic nonlinear dephasing resulting in saturation of the leading spike of the amplified pulse. Pump detuning is employed to mitigate the relativistic phase mismatch and to overcome the…
Light scattering in inhomogeneous media induces wavefront distortions which pose an inherent limitation in many optical applications. Examples range from microscopy and nanosurgery to astronomy. In recent years, ongoing efforts have made…
We present experimental results demonstrating that, relative to continuous illumination, an increase of a factor of 3-10 in the photon efficiency of algal photo-synthesis is attainable via the judicious application of pulsed light for light…
Many experiments in biological and medical sciences currently use multiphoton microscopy as a core imaging technique. To date, solid-state lasers are most commonly used as excitation beam sources. However, the most demanding applications…
Direct generation of ultrashort, transform-limited pulses in a laser resonator is observed theoretically and experimentally. This constitutes a new type of ultrashort pulse generation in mode-locked lasers: in contrast to the well-known…
Specific features of nonlinear interference processes at quantum transitions in near- and fully-resonant optically-dense Doppler-broadened medium are studied. The feasibility of overcoming of the fundamental limitation on a…
We experimentally demonstrate coherent control of the nonlinear response of optical second harmonic generation in resonant nanostructures beyond the weak-field regime. Contrary to common perception, we show that maximizing the intensity of…
Strongly magnetizing a plasma adds a range of waves that do not exist in unmagnetized plasmas and enlarges the laser-plasma interaction (LPI) landscape. In this paper, we use particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to investigate strongly…
Multi-photon resonant spectroscopies require tunable narrowband excitation to deliver spectral selectivity and, simultaneously, high temporal intensity to drive a nonlinear-optical process. These contradictory requirements are achievable…
We experimentally demonstrate two-photon absorption (TPA) with broadband down-converted light (squeezed vacuum). Although incoherent and exhibiting the statistics of a thermal noise, broadband down-converted light can induce TPA with the…
Multiphoton microscopes employ femtosecond lasers as light sources because the high peak power of the ultrashort pulse allows for multiphoton excitation of fluorescence in the examined sample. However, such short pulses are susceptible to…
Raman amplification of a short laser pulse off a long laser beam has been demonstrated successfully for moderate probe intensities ($\sim 10^{16}$ W/cm$^2$) and widths ($\sim 50$ micron). However, truly competitive intensities can only be…
We study in detail coherent phase control of femtosecond resonance-mediated (2+1) three-photon absorption and its dependence on the spectral bandwidth of the excitation pulse. The regime is the weak-field regime of third perturbative order.…
We investigate the prospects of creating broad rotational wave packets by means of molecular interaction with long sequences of intense femtosecond pulses. Using state-resolved rotational Raman spectroscopy of oxygen, subject to a sequence…
We describe how active feedback routines can be applied at limited repetition rate (5 Hz) to optimize high-power $>10$ TW) laser interactions with clustered gases. Optimization of x-ray production from an argon cluster jet, using a genetic…
Recent theoretical and experimental studies have shown that squeezed states of light can be engineered to enhance the resolution of nonlinear optical measurements. Here, we analyze non-degenerate two-photon absorption signals obtained from…
Backward Raman amplification of laser pulses in plasmas can produce nearly relativistic unfocused output intensities and multi-exawatt powers in compact devices. The largest achievable intensity depends on which of major competitive…
We use optimal control in order to find the optimal shapes of pulses maximizing the population transfer between two bound states which are coupled via a continuum of states. We find that the optimal bounded controls acquire the…