Geometric and Optical Parameter Scaling for Efficient Generation of Vacuum Ultraviolet Light

Light in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectral region exhibits a strong light-matter interaction, making VUV light a powerful tool but difficult to generate efficiently. Couch et al. [1] demonstrated that the highly efficient guiding of photonic crystal fibers enabled generation of VUV light through a cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) process. A recent improvement on this technique by Thurston et al. [2] demonstrated significantly enhanced generation of VUV light near the ^229mTh resonance. Here, we present the roles various geometric and optical parameters play in the generation of VUV light via FWM in photonic crystal fibers. Making use of spatially-resolved dynamics enabled by numerical simulation of the unidirectional pulse propagation equation [3], we systematically examine and push the limits of the system to disentangle the influence of each parameter on the efficient generation of VUV light.

[1] D. E. Couch, D. D. Hickstein, D. G. Winters, S. J. Backus, M. S. Kirchner, S. R. Domingue, J. J. Ramirez, C. G. Durfee, M. M. Murnane, and H. C. Kapteyn. Ultrafast 1mhz vacuum-ultraviolet source via highly cascaded harmonic generation in negative-curvature hollow-core fibers. Optica 7(7):832:837, Jul 2020.

[2] J. Thurston, I. Dickson, E. Burton, K. Finger, B. Shearer, D. Morrill, M. Lebrat, A. Becker, M. M. Murnane, and H. C. Kapteyn. In preparation. 

[3] M. Kolesik, J. V. Moloney, and M. Mlejnek. Unidirectional optical pulse propagation equation. Phys, Rev. Lett., 89:283902, Dec 2002