Two fully equipped experimental nonlinear optics laboratories were established in the first year of the Centre. The laboratory equipment, which was partially supported by CUDOS funds, comprises:

• Three laser tables and continuous wave laser sources including 5W Verdi-V from Coherent as well as a number of other low power (<100mW) solid state lasers;
• A femtosecond laser system based on Verdi-V pumped Mira 900 from Coherent. This is a new facility, established in 2005. The system will be used, for instance, in the studies of short pulses propagation in periodic structures such as PPLN or liquid crystals-infiltrated microstructured fibers;
• A Hamamatsu X8267M optical beam shaping system based on liquid crystal two-dimensional spatial light modulator. This device has 1024x768 pixels and a phase shift of more than 2π in the wavelength range (400-600nm). The system is applied to the generation of optically induced photonic lattices as well as nontrivial (phase and amplitude modulated) beam profiles such as optical vortices or Bloch states of different symmetry points of the periodic structures.

In addition, the group has access to planar technology through our collaboration with Dr Arnan Mitchell and Professor Michael Austin, from RMIT, Melbourne. This facility enables us to fabricate titanium in-diffused waveguide structures in lithium niobate wafers.

 

Dragomir Neshev in the ANU Nonlinear Physics Laboratory with students.