Polarization-Tailored Raman Frequency Conversion in Chiral Gas-Filled Hollow Core Photonic Crystal Fibers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel helically-twisted hollow-core photonic crystal fiber that maintains circular polarization during Raman frequency conversion, enabling tunable, broadband, circularly-polarized light sources for advanced scientific applications.

Contribution

The study demonstrates the use of helically-twisted fibers with circular birefringence to preserve and control circular polarization in gas-based Raman conversion, a significant advancement over traditional fibers.

Findings

Achieved robust circular polarization preservation in Raman scattering.

Demonstrated continuous polarization tuning via gas pressure adjustment.

Enabled generation of pure circularly-polarized Stokes and anti-Stokes signals.

Abstract

Broadband-tunable sources of circularly-polarized light are crucial in fields such as laser science, biomedicine and spectroscopy. Conventional sources rely on nonlinear wavelength conversion and polarization control using standard optical components, and are limited by the availability of suitably transparent crystals and glasses. Although gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber provides pressure-tunable dispersion, long well-controlled optical path-lengths, and high Raman conversion efficiency, it is unable to preserve circular polarization state, typically exhibiting weak linear birefringence. Here we report a revolutionary approach based on helically-twisted hollow-core photonic crystal fiber, which displays circular birefringence, thus robustly maintaining circular polarization state against external perturbations. This makes it possible to generate pure circularly-polarized Stokes and anti-Stokes signals by rotational Raman scattering in hydrogen. The polarization state of the frequency-shifted Raman bands can be continuously varied by tuning the gas pressure in the vicinity of the gain suppression point. The results pave the way to a new generation of compact and efficient fiber-based sources of broadband light with fully-controllable polarization state.