High-Transmittance Femtosecond Optical Kerr Gate with Double Gate Pulses Based on Birefringence Effect

Abstract

An optical Kerr gate (OKG) is an ultrafast optical switch based on the optical Kerr effect. The performance of a conventional OKG depends mainly on Kerr materials. Traditional Kerr materials do not demonstrate both large optical nonlinearity and an ultrafast response time. Therefore, the performance of a conventional OKG is limited by an inherent trade-off between high signal transmittance and fast switching time, which limits its application in many fields. We propose an improved femtosecond OKG with double gate pulses, based on the use of a birefringent crystal to realize an ultrashort switching time, even with a slow-response optical Kerr medium. We assessed the dependence of the double gate pulsed OKG (D-OKG)’s performance on the intensity ratio of the double gate pulses. A transmittance of 50% and a switching time of 142 fs were achieved. The D-OKG is convenient to construct, and its integrated performance is superior to that of a conventional OKG.