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Highly nonlinear optic nucleic acid thin-solid film to generate short pulse laser.
Marjan Ghasemi1, Pulak Chandra Debnath2, Byungjoo Kim3
1Photonic Device Physics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 120-749, South Korea.
Scientific Reports
|October 15, 2023
Summary
Researchers fabricated thin films of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as saturable absorbers for ultrafast optics. RNA demonstrated comparable or superior performance to DNA in laser applications.
Area of Science:
- Optics and Photonics
- Materials Science
- Biophysics
Background:
- Saturable absorbers (SAs) are crucial for ultrafast nonlinear optics.
- Developing novel SA materials is an ongoing research area.
- Nucleic acids offer potential as bio-based optical materials.
Purpose of the Study:
- To fabricate and characterize thin solid films of RNA and DNA.
- To investigate their performance as all-fiber integrated saturable absorbers (SAs) for ultrafast laser systems.
- To compare the nonlinear optical properties of RNA-SAs and DNA-SAs.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of thin solid films using aqueous precursors.
- Deposition of films onto a fiber optic platform.
- Integration of RNA and DNA SAs into an Erbium-doped fiber ring-laser cavity.
- Characterization of nonlinear transmission, modulation depth, saturation intensity, and pulsed laser output.
Main Results:
- Successfully fabricated thin solid films of RNA and DNA.
- Both RNA-SAs and DNA-SAs enabled efficient passive Q-switching.
- RNA-SAs facilitated robust mode-locking, generating transform-limited soliton pulses (633 fs).
- RNA-SA performance was comparable or superior to DNA-SA.
Conclusions:
- Thin solid films of RNA and DNA can function as effective saturable absorbers.
- RNA presents a viable, potentially superior, alternative to DNA for ultrafast laser applications.
- This research opens new avenues for nucleic acid-based nonlinear photonic devices.
