Post Doctoral Scholar

Martin Centurion

Contact Info

• office:      Moore 236

• phone:      626 395 4713
• fax:          626 568 8437
• email:       mcenturi@sunoptics.caltech.edu
• Mailing Address
  Mail Stop 136-93
  Pasadena, CA  91125

Projects

• Optical pattern formation and spatial solitons
  The nonlinear interaction of light with matter leads to numerous interesting phenomea such as frequency generation, phase conjugation, white light generation, saturable and induced absorption, etc. We are interested in the formation of optical patterns and spatial solitons generated with femtosecond pulses. We are studying the breakup of high power optical beams into large numbers of spatial solitons. Our goal is to use the very rich behavior of nonlinear optical to do computations in the femtosecond time scale.
   
• Ultrafast holography
  We have developed a technique to capture light propagation with femtosecond time resolution. Light pulses with a very high intensity can change the properties of the material through which they propagate. These changes can be short-lived (they dissapear after the pulses is gone) or leave a permanent damage on the material. We use femtosecond pulses to capture holograms of the transient index changes in the material. The index changes are generated either through the optical Kerr effect (positive index change) or through multiphoton ionization of the material (negative index change). By probing the material with femtosecond pulses we can obtain a snapshot of the light pulse. The holograms are recorded directly on a CCD camera and reconstructed digitally. A time sequence of the propagation of a single pulse can be captured by multiplexing several holograms on a single frame of the CCD camera.
   

Publications

• Self-organization of spatial solitons
• Dynamics of filament formation in a Kerr medium
• Holographic recording of laser-induced plasma
• Holographic capture of femtosecond pulse propagation through liquids
• Holographic recording of fast events on a CCD camera