The course provides an overview of the physics and applications of ultrashort laser pulses and ultrafast nonlinear dynamical processes in optics. Topics to be covered include:

  • Methods for generating and characterizing ultrafast laser pulses;
  • the physical processes affecting ultrashort pulse properties;
  • Mathematical descriptions of ultrashort pulses including the time-frequency domain;
  • Devices for manipulating ultrashort pulses including spectral phase shaping;
  • Ultrafast nonlinear optics and nonlinear optics in fibers including pulse compression, solitons, self-similarity, and supercontinuum generation;
  • The nonlinear Schrodinger equation description of ultrashort pulse propagation in waveguides and its numerical solution;
  • The principles of nonlinear dynamics and applications in ultrafast photonics, including advanced topics in nonlinear delay-differential systems, machine learning etc.

 

Illustrations of ultrafast nonlinear dynamics in optical fibre