Shock wave generation triggered by a weak background in optical fibers

G. Xu (1) , Arnaud Mussot (1) , Alexandre Kudlinski (1) , Stefano Trillo (2) , F. Copie (1) , Matteo Conforti (1)

1 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523
2 Engineering Department [Ferrara]

We experimentally report the observation of dispersive shock waves from a short pulse superimposed onto a small continuous wave background in optical fibers. We show that the background allows to strongly enhance the extension and contrast of the oscillatory wave train inherent to the dispersive shock. More than 7 periods of oscillations with a high contrast are observed experimentally and confirmed with numerical simulations. The dynamics of the process is simply explained from spectro-temporal representations.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]; Formation de Structures et Solitons [nlin.PS]; Optique / photonique

G. Xu, Arnaud Mussot, Alexandre Kudlinski, Stefano Trillo, F. Copie, et al.. Shock wave generation triggered by a weak background in optical fibers. Optics Letters, 2016, 41 (11), pp.2656-2659. ⟨10.1364/OL.41.002656⟩. ⟨hal-02386570⟩