Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generators Based on Temporal and Spectral Shaping of Optical Pulses in Nonlinear Metamaterials

摘要

The final goal of the research project is the theoretical design of new optical devices on a Lithium Niobate and Tantalate platform; in particular we will focus on low-cost integrated optical pulse shapers on periodically poled Lithium Niobate and Tantalate waveguides. Our approach will be mainly used to design pulse shapers, but it also might open new design perspectives for other optical devices. In fact the continuous progress in the control of linear and nonlinear properties of optical waveguides has led nowadays to the possibility of engineering the design of integrated photonic components down to the sub micrometer space scale. Such waveguides exhibit a spatially periodic micro or nano-structure which enables the engineering of their dispersive and nonlinear properties to a degree that was previously unconceivable. This key technology has opened up new possibilities in diverse applications; in particular, from the system point of view, this entails that we can now imagine devices with performances that were totally unconceivable only a few years ago. As research continues to advance in this area new frontiers are explored: currently there is intense activity directed, on the one hand, to achieve even higher precision in the control of the linear and nonlinear properties of optical devices, and on the other hand to conceive new device functionalities, thanks to the increased number of degrees of freedom of the fabrication parameters. The latter issue might also open a new design perspective: up to now optical devices have been mainly designed on a try and test procedure that was reasonable since only a small number of parameters was free for the design (i.e. controllable in the fabrication process).