172

OPTICS LETTERS

/ Vol. 17, No. 3 / February

1, 1992

Self-focusing of light pulses in the presence of normal group-velocity dispersion

P. Chernev and V Petrov
Department of Quantum Electronics,Faculty of Physics,Sofia University,5 A. Ivanov Boulevard, BG-1126Sofia, Bulgaria
Received July 8, 1991

The influence of normal group-velocity dispersion on the self-focusing of light pulses is numerically studied. Temporal splitting of the field envelope is observed when the critical power is exceeded along with diffraction of the spatially sharpened central part of the pulse. Dispersion increases considerably the self-focusing threshold for short pulse durations.

The close analogy between diffraction and groupvelocity dispersion when they act simultaneously with Kerr-type nonlinearity is a well-known phenomenon.' It is demonstrated when steady-state self-focusing and plane-wave propagation in a nonlinear dispersive medium are studied. It has been recently shown2 that in the anomalous-dispersion region the temporal-spatial effect becomes simple

derivative of the propagation constant obtained at

the carrier frequency XL [kL"
=

3 (AO d2 no/dA02)/2irC2 ],

2 and the nonlinear length LNL = no/kLn %0 , with n2 2 the nonlinear part of the index of refraction n = 2. no + n2 IWI The dimensionless parameters a and /3 in Eq. (1) are defined as

a=

LDF/LDS,

/3 =

LDF/LNL.

(3)

for an analytical treatment when dispersion and

nonlinearity have a comparable contribution and when light bullets (pulses that preserve their temporal and spectral shape) can propagate. No attempt has been made, however, to consider diffraction,

We note that the parameter ,3 is proportional to the ratio of the input power to the critical power for selffocusing. If this ratio p is derived from numerical steady-state calculations of self-focusing of Gaussian spatial beams,' then p = P/1.885. We prefer to use

normal dispersion, and nonlinearity in a threedimensional pulse propagation problem. In this

Letter we present a numerical study of the effect of

further the parameter p rather than the analytical

parameter /3 since our calculation is numerical, and in the absence of dispersion the critical value for self-focusing with Eq. (2) as the initial condition is p = 1.1 A direct integration procedure has been used to solve Eq. (1). The grid contained 128 points in the radial dimension and 130 points in local time. The derivatives are calculated by a symmetric sevenpoint scheme. Several checks of the calculation procedure have been performed, including planewave pulse propagation in a nonlinear dispersive medium and pure self-focusing in the absence of group-velocity dispersion (a = 0).5 The pulse energy was monitored during each simulation: it was kept constant, with an error of <0.0002. The presented simulations do not violate the paraxial approximation in Eq. (1) since they do not approach the focal region. Figure 1 shows the propagation behavior of the pulse spatial and temporal center, i.e., the value of lulat 7) = 0 and p = 0. The critical parameter p is varied, and a = 0.0755 in all cases. The normalized self-focusing length is SSF= LSF/LDF, where LSF = 0.367LDF[(P" 2 - 0.852)2 - 0.0219] 112 is the

group-velocity dispersion on the nonlinear pulse

propagation at power levels that exceed the critical value for self-focusing. We treat the normaldispersion case only. The dimensionless reduced wave equation for the normalized slowly varying amplitude of the electric
field u reads 3 2 (a2/ap + p'a/ap -

4ia/la-

2aa2/a7)2 )u
2 + 4,B1u1 u =

0,

(1)

where u = i/%o,

p = r/wo, = Z/LDF, and -j = (t - z/vg)/ro are normalized quantities so that the initial pulse is given by
2 u(; = 0) = exp(-7) _ p2).

(2)

The local time 7) (vg is the group velocity) is normalized to To, which corresponds to the initial exp(-1) level of the field amplitude. The radial coordinate

is normalized to the initial waist parameter wo,

which also corresponds to the exp(-1) amplitude level, and the field amplitude 6 is normalized to its initial value, i.e., u = 56/Co The propagation coor0. dinate z is normalized to the diffraction length of a Gaussian beam LDF = wo2kL/2, where kL = 2 r/A = 27rno/AO is the vacuum wavelength). It is con(Ao venient to use the characteristic lengths in the selfphase-modulation theory 4 : the dispersion length 2 2 is LDS = Tro /kL", where kL" = (a2k/daW )W=oL the second
0146-9592/92/030172-03$5.00/0

numerical fit obtained for steady-state Gaussian

beams (Eq. 6.4 of Ref. 1). When p is increased the pulse center passes through a maximum value and then decreases. The steeper decrease for values of p > 1.3 is due to pulse temporal and spatial splitting, as seen in Fig. 2. Consideration of the groupvelocity dispersion leads to considerable deviations from the conventional self-focusing results.1 5 Not
C 1992 Optical Society of America

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173

VI

the given value of p is possible if the radial confinement of the beam is neglected. This can be done by using the analytical results for dispersive broadening of a plane wave by estimation of the critical point

where dispersion prevents self-focusing, which

2 iy\

causes temporal splitting, from Figs. 3 and 4. This gives a rather rough approximation, but it seems justified since the radial dimensions in Figs. 3 and 4 are modified by a factor of <2 before and if temporal splitting takes place. The self-focusing distance (SF is a function of p, and p varies with ; since the pulse broadens. In the absence of spatial effects we have4

p(;) = p(O)[1 (2<a)2]-1/2 +

(4)

Fig. 1. Normalized central amplitude Jlo versus vfor six values of the critical parameter: p = 1.054 (curve I),

p = 1.15 (curve II), p = 1.245 (curve III), p = 1.341

(curve IV), p = 1.437 (curve V), and p = 1.533 (curve VI).
The corresponding values of CSF are 3.96, 2.26, 1.68, 1.37, 1.17, and 1.03, respectively.

N cZS

(a)

'1

Fig. 2. Temporal and radial dependence of Jul at ; = 4 for the case of curve V from Fig. 1.

only are qualitatively new features observed (Fig. 2), but, more importantly, the critical value of 63(or is p) substantially increased in comparison with that of the dispersionless case. Larger values of a permit extremely high powers to be focused without collapse of the pulse. Just before the self-focusing tendency is exhibited, pulse splitting is observed at a propaga-

(b)

N.

tion distance corresponding roughly to the selffocusing distance in the absence of dispersion. The splitting is caused by strong diffraction of the peak of the pulse, which is extremely steep and deviates substantially from the Gaussian radial dependence.5

The strong temporal and spatial splitting effect

could be observed only in the presence of groupvelocity dispersion since in that case only was it possible to study pulse propagation for p > 1. In the absence of dispersion, a substantially weaker spatial multipeak structure could be observed at values ofp approaching or only slightly exceeding unity. A rough estimation of a lower limit of the parameter a that prevents self-focusing from occurring at
Z

3 1

Fig. 3. Evolution of the temporal field amplitude dependence with propagation distance ; at p = 0. (a), (b), and (c) give the cases of curves I, IV, and V from Fig. 1, respectively.

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OPTICS LETTERS

/ Vol. 17, No. 3 / February

1, 1992

where p(O) _ p. The self-focusing length VSF becomes infinite at a critical distance
1C = (p 2 _ 1)-12/2

(5)

(a)

calculated from Eq. 6.4 of Ref. 1. At ; = 4, the pulse duration is increased by a factor of p. It can be assumed that self-focusing is avoided if Vc< FrsF, where TsF is calculated at ; = 0, i.e., usingp(0) = p. The constant F should satisfy F > 1 since in reality the radial confinement begins at ; = 0 if p > 1 and it can be fitted by the onset of temporal splitting as seen from Fig. 3. In the range p = 1 ... 5 a good fit is F = 5. For values of p >> 1 this estimation leads to the following relation:

a
terials. 6

20.27p

3 12

(6)

We note that values of p >> 1 are relevant to fem-

tosecond compression experiments in bulk maThe sample lengths used6 are, however,

shorter than the self-focusing distance, and comparison with these experimental results is not possible. Relation (6) is an approximate relation that corresponds to the onset of temporal oscillations. The exact dependence of the critical power for selffocusing on the group-velocity dispersion requires great numerical efforts and is a subject of our future research. It remains unclear whether in the limit of extremely large p the pulse collapses at all in the presence of dispersion, although other nonlinear effects are playing a preventing role in this limit, too.'

so

(b)

In conclusion, we have presented what is to

our knowledge the first study of self-focusing of light pulses with consideration of normal groupvelocity dispersion. Temporal splitting of the pulse occurs just before the spatial confinement becomes significant.

References
1. J. H. Marburger, Prog. Quantum Electron. 4, 35 (1975).
g1 2 6

2. Y. Silberberg, Opt. Lett. 15, 1282 (1990). 3. V Petrov, W Rudolph, and B. Wilhelmi, J. Mod. Opt. 36, 587 (1989).

(c)

Fig. 4. Evolution of the radial field amplitude dependence with the propagation distance ; at -q = 0. (a), (b), and (c) give the cases of curves I, IV, and V from Fig. 1, respectively.

4. W Rudolph and B. Wilhelmi, Light Pulse Compression (Harwood, Chur, Switzerland, 1989). 5. P. Chernev and V Petrov, "Numerical simulation of nonlinear pulse propagation in the self-focusing limit," submitted to Appl. Opt.
6. C. Rolland and P. B. Corkum, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 5, 641 (1988).