Created by sebastien.popoff on 08/09/2020

## Controlling multimode laser modes using wavefront shaping inside the cavity

[X. Wei et al., Light Sci. Appl., 9 (2020)]

Multimode cavity lasers, such as multimode fiber lasers, are attractive for the opportunity they offer to generate high energy pulsed lasers, provided that one can achieve spatiotemporal mode-locking. However, it can be complicated to control the laser properties as 1) spatiotemporal dispersion, nonlinearity, gain and loss can nonlinearly interact, and 2) dispersion and mode coupling in such a system are difficult to predict or control. In a typical wavefront shaping experiment, one modulates the output of a laser beam, which can come at the cost of a significant energy loss, and only allows to control the spatial profile of the beam. In this paper, the authors use a spatial light modulator, but inside the laser cavity to modulate its boundary conditions. Using a genetic algorithm, they are able to efficiently control the laser properties, namely the output power, the output mode profile, the optical spectrum, and mode-locking.

Created by sebastien.popoff on 01/09/2020

## Spatio-temporal shaping of light through a scattering medium

[A. Boniface et al., arxiv, 2007.09050 (2020)]

Controlling the spatial and temporal properties of a short pulse is already difficult in free space, and require a well-calibrated and specific setup. When the pulse propagates through a scattering medium, its temporal and spatial properties are randomized, leading to a spatio-temporal speckle. However, the effect of the medium can be described by means of the multi-spectral transmission matrix. In this paper, A. Boniface and his colleagues show that by measuring previously this matrix, and by only controlling the spatial input field using a spatial light modulator, they can modulate at will the spatio-temporal properties of the point spread function of a pulse traveling through a complex medium.

Created by sebastien.popoff on 25/08/2020

## Using prior information for speeding up the measurement of fiber transmission matrices

[S. Li et al., arxiv, 2007.15891, (2020)]

Due to disorder and dispersion, knowing the transmission matrix of a multimode fiber is usually required to reconstruct an input image for endoscopic applications. In the general case, its characterization for a fiber allowing $$N$$ guided modes requires at least $$N$$ complex measurements. However, we usually have additional information, the most common one being that the matrix is never totally random, and usually sparse, when expressed in the mode basis. In this study, the authors use such prior information to reduce drastically the number of measurements for the transmission matrix estimation using the framework of compressed sensing. They demonstrate the validity of such an approach for endoscopic imaging through multimode fibers.

Created by sebastien.popoff on 18/08/2020

## Taking advantage of imperfections to focus light in photonic crystals inside the stop gap

[R. Uppu et al., arxiv, 2007.11104v1 (2020)]

Photonic crystals have the ability to forbid the entrance of light for certain ranges of frequencies, that is even the usual reason why we build them. Within the spatial frequency range for which the stop band of a given photonic crystal exists, modulation of the input wavefront should not dramatically modify the penetration of light, which exhibits an exponential decay. In this paper, R. Uppu and collaborators from the University of Twente demonstrate that it is indeed possible to drastically change the penetration properties of light inside a photonic crystal by optimizing the wavefront taking advantage of unavoidable sources of disorder. They experimentally show the focusing of light inside such crystal beyond the expected maximal penetration length - the Bragg length.