PHz-wide spectral interference through coherent plasma-induced fission of higher-order solitons

Abstract

We identify a novel regime of soliton-plasma interactions in which high-intensity ultrashort pulses of intermediate soliton order undergo coherent plasma-induced fission. Experimental results obtained in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fibers are supported by rigorous numerical simulations. The cumulative blueshift of higher-order input solitons with ionizing intensities results in pulse splitting before the ultimate self-compression point, leading to the generation of robust pulse pairs with PHz bandwidths. The novel dynamics closes the gap between plasma-induced adiabatic soliton compression and modulational instability.

References in corpus (4)

• Ultrashort filaments of light in weakly-ionized, optically-transparent media
• Phase-Matched Generation of Coherent Soft-X-Rays
• Supercontinuum generation in the vacuum ultraviolet through dispersive-wave and soliton-plasma interaction in noble-gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber
• Photoionization-induced emission of tunable few-cycle mid-IR dispersive waves in gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Hybrid photonic-crystal fiber
• UV soliton dynamics and Raman-enhanced supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber
• Stable high-dimensional weak-light soliton molecules and their active control
• Multi-stage generation of extreme ultraviolet dispersive waves by tapering gas-filled hollow-core anti-resonant fibers
• Dispersion-tuning of nonlinear optical pulse dynamics in gas-filled hollow capillary fibers
• Pump-probe study of plasma dynamics in gas-filled photonic crystal fiber using counter-propagating solitons