Accessed at least times
Lecturer office (ARL-Z03) hours: Tu 3:40pm - 5:40pm and Th 10:40am - 12:40am, or by appointment.
TA: Askin Kocabas, email: akocabas_at_fen.bilkent.edu.tr
TA office (ARL-101) hours: to be announced soon.
Announcement #12: The second exam is announced here.
Announcement #11: The first exam is announced here.
Announcement #10: Information on the term projects is available here.
Announcement #9: The second homework assignment is annouced, it can be downloaded from here.
Announcement #8: PROBLEM WITH SAPS: It has come to my attention that some of you who are registered in this course according to AIRS do not show on STARS, hence you did not receive my email last night. I will inquire about this problem. Note that the first HW has been announced.
Announcement #7: Your first homework assignment is annouced, it can be downloaded from here.
Announcement #6: Reference materials Boyd and Agrawal are on reserve at the library.
Announcement #5: We are changing the lecture hours, as noted above, pending classroom availability. It appears that we will be OK. Please sign up ASAP.
Announcement #4: The course now appears on the STARS system, please sign up ASAP.
Announcement #3: You have a mini-assignment, check out this
article on solitons, titled "Light guiding light", published in Optics & Photonics News in 1999.
This is very light reading and unfortunately a bit outdated in its technological outlook.
For a general intro to ultrafast optics, download (careful, 12 MB) these slides from Rick Trebino's lectures.
Announcement #2: There will be a 1 hour-long make up lecture on Monday, February 3, at 5:40 pm to partially compensate the two lecture hours lost on Wednesday due to snow. The location is the Physics Dept seminar room, unless posted otherwise. We are still going through introduction material, so you can still easily add the course.
Announcement #1: I am posting an explanation to the question about Kerr lensing's consistence with Fermat's principle of least time, click here. There is a slightly more subtle aspect about why lenses focus in the first place, but this is a diversion from this course and you can see me privately about it if you want.
Announcement #0: Note that because this course will be opened for the first time, the official procedure to add it to the system is still underway. Everyday I am told it will appear on STARS today. In the meantime, if you are planning to register, please send me a brief email with the following information: name, student number, department and year, your GPA, your research field, if doing research.
Supplemental lecture material on HHG and attosecond physics.
Supplemental lecture material on ultrafast measurements part I.
Supplemental lecture material on ultrafast measurements part II.
Supplemental lecture material on metrology.
Supplemental lecture material on various regimes of modelocking.
Supplemental lecture material on passive modelocking.
Supplemental lecture material on active modelocking.
Supplemental lecture material #6.
Supplementary material NLSE derivation.
Supplementary lecture material #3.
Supplementary lecture material #2.
Supplementary lecture material #1.
Detailed Description of the Contents
Grading (very tentative)
| Component | Percentage |
| Homework | 25 |
| Midterm (open book) | 15 |
| Final (open book) | 25 |
| Class Project | 35 |
Reading Material
Due to the nature of the subject, there is no textbook that I will follow closely, however the following resources will be helpful.
Syllabus (tentative)
Week 1. Introduction and Overview (Feb 1, 3)
Week 2. Propagation of Laser Beams in Media (Feb 8, 10)
Week 3. Nonlinear Pulse Propagation and Optical Solitons (Feb 15, 17)
Special Seminar: The Fascinating Physics of Optical Solitons
Week 4. Nonlinear Optical Susceptibility (Feb 22, 24)
Week 5. Laser Dynamics (Mar 1, 3)
Week 6. Active Mode-Locking of Lasers (Mar 8, 10)
Week 7. Passive Mode-Locking of Lasers (Mar 15, 17)
Week 8. Ultrafast Laser Dynamics (Mar 22, 24)
Special Seminar: Nonlinear Dynamics of Ultrafast Lasers
Week 9. Wave-Equation Description of Nonlinear Optical Processes (Apr 5, 7)
Week 10. Selected Second-Order Nonlinear Optical Processes (Apr 12, 14)
Week 11. Special Topic 1: Optical Frequency Combs and Quantum Limits to Noise (Apr 17, 19)
Week 12. Special Topic 2: Ultrafast Measurement Techniques (May 3, 5)
Week 13. Special Topic 3: Physics in the Attosecond Time Scale (May 10, 12)
Project Presentations (during finals week)
Last updated: February 3, 2006.
Accessed at least times since January 20, 2006.