Wave-front Shaping Controls Nonlinearity in Complex Media
Wavefront shaping can enhance imaging through turbid media such as fog, or endoscopes. A CU Boulder STROBE team led by Rafael Piestun implemented a new kind of control that enables optimization of highly non-linear interactions through fibers. Tailoring the wave-front shape at the input, the system controls the generation of nonlinear phenomena known as stimulated-Raman-scattering cascades and four-wave-mixing, generating and shaping the different colors of the light pulses at the output of the fiber. This research has implications for the understanding of so-called adaptive systems, optical communications, fiber lasers, and imaging.