Abstract

Hollow core (HC) photonic crystal fibers (PCFs) have extended the fields of linear and nonlinear fiber optics well beyond the interaction of light with solid media [1]. The feasibility of designing and fabricating various HC-PCF structures allows tailoring their nonlinear and dispersive properties in distinct ways. Recently, HC-PCFs with kagome lattice have been used by Russell’s group at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in a series of groundbreaking experiments to study ultrafast nonlinear optics in the ionization regime [2]. Few-μJ femtosecond-scale pulses have been launched into argon-filled cm-long HC-PCFs, leading to the unique phenomenon of the photoionization-induced soliton self-frequency blueshift.

© 2013 IEEE