Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Kerr nonlinearity”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Extrinsic Nonlinear Kerr Rotation in Topological Materials under a Magnetic Field

Topological properties in quantum materials are often governed by symmetry and tuned by crystal structure and external fields, and hence, symmetry-sensitive nonlinear optical measurements in a magnetic field are a valuable probe. Here, we report nonlinear magneto-optical second harmonic generation (SHG) studies of nonmagnetic topological materials including bilayer WTe 2 , monolayer WSe 2 , and bulk TaAs. The polarization-resolved patterns of optical SHG under a magnetic field show nonlinear Kerr rotation in these time-reversal symmetric materials. For materials with 3-fold rotational symmetric lattice structure, the SHG polarization pattern rotates just slightly in a magnetic field, whereas in those with mirror or 2-fold rotational symmetry, the SHG polarization pattern rotates greatly and distorts. Further, these different magneto-SHG characters can be understood by considering the superposition of the magnetic field-induced time-noninvariant nonlinear optical tensor and the crystal-structure-based time-invariant counterpart. The situation is further clarified by scrutinizing the Faraday rotation, whose subtle interplay with crystal symmetry accounts for the diverse behavior of the extrinsic nonlinear Kerr rotation in different materials. Our work illustrates the application of magneto-SHG techniques to directly probe nontrivial topological properties, and underlines the importance of minimizing extrinsic nonlinear Kerr rotation in polarization-resolved magneto-optical studies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Universal control in bosonic systems with weak Kerr nonlinearities

Resonators with weak single-photon self-Kerr nonlinearities can theoretically be used to prepare Fock states in the presence of a loss much larger than their nonlinearities. Two necessary ingredients are large displacements and a two-photon (parametric) drive. Here, in this study, we find that these systems can be controlled to achieve any desired gate operation in a finite-dimensional subspace (whose dimensionality can be chosen at will). Moreover, we show that the two-photon driving requirement can be relaxed and that full controllability is achievable with only one-photon (linear) drives. We make use of both Trotter-Suzuki decompositions and gradient-based optimization to find control pulses for a desired gate, which reduces the computational overhead by using a small blockaded subspace. We also discuss the infidelity arising from input power limitations in realistic settings, as well as from corrections to the rotating-wave approximation. Our universal control protocol opens the possibility for quantum information processing using a wide range of lossy systems with weak nonlinearities.

Yuan, Ming [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)] ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Topology and spectral entanglement in cavity-mediated photon scattering

Here, we develop a microscopic diagrammatic theory for cavity-mediated photon scattering in a topological one-dimensional insulator described by the Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model. Within the velocity-gauge formulation, we derive the photon self-energy and vertex corrections arising from virtual electron–hole excitations coupled to a quantized cavity mode, and we evaluate the resulting polariton dispersion and two-photon correlation spectra. Our analysis shows that vacuum fluctuations of the cavity field induce a momentum-resolved self-energy that mixes conduction and valence bands through virtual photon exchange, producing interband hybridization and avoided crossings in the electronic dispersion. This “cavity dressing” is symmetry-dependent, vanishing at the Brillouin-zone edge where the dipole matrix element is zero, and its strength is controlled by the spatial coherence range ζ ≈ (l c /a) 2 of virtual excitations. We further examine how the cavity modifies nonlinear optical observables, including the Kerr nonlinearity and biphoton spectral entanglement, and identify the regimes where these effects become sensitive to the underlying topological phase. The theoretical framework established here provides a unified description of light–matter coupling in topological and polaritonic systems, bridging solid-state cavity QED with the emerging field of cavity-modified quantum materials. Our results suggest that engineered photonic environments can coherently reshape the electronic landscape of topological insulators, offering new routes to control collective electronic and optical phenomena through vacuum-field fluctuations.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Nonlinear post-compression to sub-20 fs using a single-stage multipass cell filled with ambient air

Noble gas-filled multipass cells have proven to be very effective in compressing high-energy, hundreds-of-femtoseconds pulses down to tens of femtoseconds. Molecular gases can be an attractive alternative to noble gases since they provide additional Raman nonlinearities that can be much stronger than the electronic Kerr nonlinearity and can therefore enable more spectral broadening and shorter compressed pulses. Air at atmospheric pressure offers molecular gases in their simplest format, with both easy access and no costs for implementing a gas chamber. Here we demonstrate a single-stage, air-filled multipass cell that spectrally broadens 145- μ J, 185-fs pulses with >90% throughput, with a small fraction of the output compressed to sub-20 fs using a prism-pair compressor. The multipass cell uses standard broadband mirrors without dispersion engineering and ambient air as the nonlinear medium, making it the simplest and most cost-effective solution for generating few-cycle femtosecond pulses.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Nonlinear Loss Engineering in Near‐Zero‐Index Bulk Materials

Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) show unprecedented optical nonlinearities in the near infrared wavelength range, where the real part of their linear refractive index approaches zero. More specifically, the Kerr nonlinearities of these materials have sparked widespread attention due to their magnitude and speed. However, due to the absorptive nature of these nonlinear processes, it is of fundamental interest to further investigate the imaginary component of the nonlinear index. The present work studies the nonlinear optical absorption properties of aluminium‐doped zinc oxide (AZO) thin films in their near‐zero‐index (NZI) spectral window. It is found that the imaginary part of the refractive index is reduced under optical excitation such that the field penetration depth more than doubles. An optically induced shift of the NZI bandwidth of ≈120 nm for a pump intensity of 1.3 TW cm −2 is also demonstrated. Looking into the optically induced spectral redistribution of the probe signal, local net gain is recorded, which is ascribed to a nonlinear adiabatic energy transfer. The present study adds key information about the fundamental interplay between real and imaginary nonlinear indices in NZI media, while advancing parametric amplification as viable direction for loss compensation.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coherent Combining for High‐Power Kerr Combs

Abstract Kerr frequency combs enable the miniaturization of comb sources for applications such as data communications and spectroscopy. However, due to the high field confinement and effective nonlinearity, Kerr combs typically operate with low output comb powers. While nonsolitonic Kerr combs operating in the normal group velocity dispersion (GVD) regime can access high pump‐to‐comb conversion efficiencies and relatively flat spectral profiles, many frequency comb applications require even higher comb‐line powers that are otherwise fundamentally unattainable without the use of optical amplifiers. A high efficient coherent beam combining of Kerr combs is demonstrated via on‐chip synchronization to greatly enhanced comb‐line powers. Two normal GVD Kerr combs are coherently combined for a 2.9 dB increase in comb power compared to a single comb while maintaining a high total pump‐to‐comb conversion efficiency of 26%. Lastly, it is shown that via spectral engineering of two normal GVD combs, it should be possible to significantly increase the spectral flatness of a combined comb. This platform enables fully integrated systems with powers that can readily exceed that of an individual comb system by more than an order of magnitude.

Kim, Bok Young↗
DOE OSTI2023

Thermalization of the Kerr index of refraction in acetone and methanol using femtosecond pump-probe scattering spectroscopy

Femtosecond time-resolved pump-probe scattering is used to temporally investigate the index thermalization Δn(t) of the molecular motions associated with the Kerr nonlinear index n 2 . This is done using an intense 300 fs 1034 nm pump pulse and temporally probed by a 517 nm and supercontinuum pulse in acetone and methanol. The optically pumped molecular states change the index of refraction and through the processes of Raman and Rayleigh scattering are shown to engage in a 4-step energy relaxation process. Here, the pump first initiates the Kerr effect as well as populate resonant vibrational molecular motions, which act as a “mother” energy state. The electronic component of the Kerr effect is shown to couple with these vibrational modes through the process of Born-Oppenheimer coupling, which can be measured through the Raman scattering of the probe. The “mother” coupled state then decays into “daughter” anharmonic non-resonant states, which then further decay into “granddaughter” and thermal bath states. The population of these states alter the index of refraction in time, Δn(t), and can be measured through the changing in the probe beam’s Rayleigh scattering. This thermalization process takes ~5.5 ps in acetone and ~3.7 ps in methanol. The scattering signals from each Δn(t) thermalization stage in the localized region, (“mother”, to “daughter”, to “granddaughter”, to the bath states, to the ground state), are fitted to theoretical decay equations that show the rise and fall times of the energy decay routes.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Robust negativity in the quantum-to-classical transition of Kerr dynamics

Here, we quantify the quantum-to-classical transition of the single-mode Kerr nonlinear dynamics in the presence of loss. We establish three timescales that govern the dynamics, each with distinct characteristics. For times short compared with the Ehrenfest time, the evolution is classical, characterized by Gaussian dynamics. For sufficiently long times, as we increase the initial photon number, unitary Kerr evolution would generate macroscopic superpositions of coherent states (so-called kitten states). However, this is severely restricted in the presence of small photon loss, and the expectation values of observables coincide with their classical values. The intermediate timescale, however, shows resilient quantum behavior in the macroscopic limit. We show that in the mean-field non-Gaussian regime, the Kerr Hamiltonian (with small photon loss) generates a significant amount of Wigner-negativity, and classical flow is recovered only if the loss rate grows with system size. Our results broaden the usual understanding of quantum-to-classical transitions and demonstrate the potential for creating robust nonclassical resources for continuous-variable quantum information processing in the presence of loss.

Raza, Mohsin [University of New Mexico, Albuquerqu↗
DOE OSTI2022

Construction of bias-preserving operations for pair-cat codes

Fault-tolerant quantum computation with depolarization error often requires demanding error threshold and resource overhead. If the operations can maintain high noise bias—dominated by dephasing error with small bit-flip error—we can achieve hardware-efficient fault-tolerant quantum computation with a more favorable error threshold. Distinct from two-level physical systems, multilevel systems (such as harmonic oscillators) can achieve a desirable set of bias-preserving quantum operations while using continuous engineered dissipation or Hamiltonian protection to stabilize to the encoding subspace. For example, cat codes stabilized with driven-dissipation or Kerr nonlinearity can possess a set of bias-preserving gates while continuously correcting bosonic dephasing error. However, cat codes are not compatible with continuous quantum error correction against excitation loss error, because it is challenging to continuously monitor the parity to correct photon loss errors. In this work, we generalize the bias-preserving operations to pair-cat codes, which can be regarded as a multimode generalization of cat codes, to be compatible with continuous quantum error correction against both bosonic loss and dephasing errors. In conclusion, our results open the door towards hardware-efficient robust quantum information processing with both bias-preserving operations and continuous quantum error correction simultaneously correcting bosonic loss and dephasing errors.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Single-shot observation of nonlinear pulse splitting in a Kerr medium

We report single-shot, time-resolved observation of self-steepening and temporal splitting of near-infrared, 50 fs, micro-joule pulses propagating nonlinearly in flint (SF11) glass. A coherent, smooth-profiled, 60-nm-bandwidth probe pulse that propagated obliquely to the main pulse through the Kerr medium recorded a time sequence of longitudinal projections of the main pulse’s induced refractive index profile in the form of a phase-shift “streak,” in which frequency–domain interferometry recovered with ∼10 fs temporal resolution. A three-dimensional simulation based on a unidirectional pulse propagation equation reproduced observed pulse profiles.

Chang, Yen-Yu↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantum Kerr learning

Quantum machine learning is a rapidly evolving field of research that could facilitate important applications for quantum computing and also significantly impact data-driven sciences. In our work, based on various arguments from complexity theory and physics, we demonstrate that a single Kerr mode can provide some 'quantum enhancements' when dealing with kernel-based methods. Using kernel properties, neural tangent kernel theory, first-order perturbation theory of the Kerr non-linearity, and non-perturbative numerical simulations, we show that quantum enhancements could happen in terms of convergence time and generalization error. Furthermore, we make explicit indications on how higher-dimensional input data could be considered. Finally, we propose an experimental protocol, that we call quantum Kerr learning, based on circuit QED.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

A perspective on nonlinear, microwave, and quantum photonics with Kerr microcombs

Microresonator Kerr optical frequency combs currently constitute a well-established research area in integrated, nonlinear, and quantum photonics. Furthermore, these systems have found a plethora of technological applications, while serving as an excellent platform to investigate fundamental scientific topics such as light–matter interactions, pattern formation in driven-dissipative systems, or entangled twin-photon generation. We here provide a brief overview of the topic, highlight some of the most recent advances, and discuss a few of the main challenges ahead in this field.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2026

Nonlinear regenerative amplification using tunable intracavity cascaded quadratic nonlinearities

Conventional nonlinear regenerative amplification utilizes Kerr (i.e., self-focusing) nonlinearity to broaden the spectrum via self-phase modulation during the direct amplification of ultrashort pulses, which helps overcome spectral gain narrowing for high-energy, ultrashort-pulse generation. We introduce cascaded quadratic nonlinearities from a type-I second-harmonic generation crystal, which can be tuned in both magnitude and sign via the phase-mismatching condition, inside a regenerative amplifier to enable nonlinearity-tunable regenerative amplification. We demonstrate, both experimentally and numerically, a nonlinear Yb:YAG thin-disk regenerative amplifier with either positive or negative net nonlinearity that delivers 1-kHz, >0.4-mJ pulses as short as ∼200 fs and high-quality beams free of self-focusing. The laser’s average power can be scaled to >100 W when seeded and operated at a much higher repetition rate to benefit various applications.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Extreme-value statistics in nonlinear optics

We show that, although nonlinear optics may give rise to a vast multitude of statistics, all these statistics converge, in their extreme-value limit, to one of a few universal extreme-value statistics. Specifically, in the class of polynomial nonlinearities, such as those found in the Kerr effect, weak-field harmonic generation, and multiphoton ionization, the statistics of the nonlinear-optical output converges, in the extreme-value limit, to the exponentially tailed, Gumbel distribution. Exponentially growing nonlinear signals, on the other hand, such as those induced by parametric instabilities and stimulated scattering, are shown to reach their extreme-value limits in the class of the Fréchet statistics, giving rise to extreme-value distributions (EVDs) with heavy, manifestly nonexponential tails, thus favoring extreme-event outcomes and rogue-wave buildup.

Zheltikov, Aleksei M. (ORCID:0000000291380576)↗
DOE OSTI2026

Interplay between Ultrafast Electronic and Librational Dynamics in Liquid Nitrobenzene Probed with Two-Color Four-Wave Mixing

Here, we present an experimental and theoretical study of the interplay between ultrafast electron dynamics and librational dynamics in liquid nitrobenzene. A femtosecond ultraviolet pulse and two femtosecond near-infrared pulses interact with nitrobenzene molecules, generating a four-wave mixing nonlinear signal measured in the Optical Kerr Effect geometry. The signal is measured to be nonzero only at negative time delays, corresponding to the near-infrared pulses arriving before the ultraviolet pulse. We perform time-dependent Quantum Master Equation calculations with classical libration to simulate the experiment. The simulations support the conclusion that the near-infrared pulses launch librational motion while creating electronic coherences resulting in a libration-modulated electronic nonlinear response. The analysis of the phase-matched four-wave mixing signals suggests a nonparametric process leaving the molecules in an excited electronic state, providing new insight into ultrafast nonlinear optical interactions in liquids and advancing toward probing ultrafast electronic coherences in complex molecular liquids.

Shivaram, Niranjan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab↗
DOE OSTI2024

Terahertz electric-field-driven dynamical multiferroicity in SrTiO 3

The emergence of collective order in matter is among the most fundamental and intriguing phenomena in physics. In recent years, the dynamical control and creation of novel ordered states of matter not accessible in thermodynamic equilibrium is receiving much attention. The theoretical concept of dynamical multiferroicity has been introduced to describe the emergence of magnetization due to time-dependent electric polarization in non-ferromagnetic materials. In simple terms, the coherent rotating motion of the ions in a crystal induces a magnetic moment along the axis of rotation. Here we provide experimental evidence of room-temperature magnetization in the archetypal paraelectric perovskite SrTiO 3 due to this mechanism. We resonantly drive the infrared-active soft phonon mode with an intense circularly polarized terahertz electric field and detect the time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect. A simple model, which includes two coupled nonlinear oscillators whose forces and couplings are derived with ab initio calculations using self-consistent phonon theory at a finite temperature, reproduces qualitatively our experimental observations. A quantitatively correct magnitude was obtained for the effect by also considering the phonon analogue of the reciprocal of the Einstein–de Haas effect, which is also called the Barnett effect, in which the total angular momentum from the phonon order is transferred to the electronic one. Our findings show a new path for the control of magnetism, for example, for ultrafast magnetic switches, by coherently controlling the lattice vibrations with light.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Giant optical second- and third-order nonlinearities at a telecom wavelength

A material platform that excels in both optical second- and third-order nonlinearities at a telecom wavelength is theoretically and experimentally demonstrated. In this TiN-based coupled metallic quantum well structure, electronic subbands are engineered to support doubly resonant inter-subband transitions for an exceptionally high second-order nonlinearity and provide single-photon transitions for a remarkable third-order nonlinearity within the 1400–1600 nm bandwidth. The second-order susceptibility χ (2) reaches 2840 pm/V at 1440 nm, while the Kerr coefficient n 2 arrives at 2.8 × 10 −10 cm 2 /W at 1460 nm. The achievement of simultaneous strong second- and third-order nonlinearities in one material at a telecom wavelength creates opportunities for multi-functional advanced applications in the field of nonlinear optics.

Chen, Ching-Fu (ORCID:0000000262510722)↗