Now available here: the HNLF exchange

Yes, this blog is dedicated to Kerr frequency combs and not to nonlinear fiber optics. But there are many links between the two and also experiments on Kerr frequency combs can involve highly-nonlinear fiber.

Once you work with some HNLF you will quickly find two things: First, how convenient it is to work with HNLF because you can just splice it to other fibers and the reliable, low-loss coupling is done. Compare this to the tedious and lossy coupling to PICs or other types of resonators. Second, how annoying it can be to get the right HNLF in first place.

To improve on the second point, there is now our HNLF exchange available. Check it out and contribute! Maybe you have still tens of meters of some HNLFs sitting on the shelves collecting dust as the experiments where these fiber were used for are long finished. Time to have a look and send us an email with the specs. We will add them. Maybe there is someone in the nonlinear optics community who is looking for such a fiber right now!

Active Research Groups updated

I finally got around to update the Active Research Groups page after I got some requests to add groups. Please have a look and let me know if a group is missing or in case of mistakes. There are no strict criteria to include or exclude groups. Loosely, the group should have published more than one paper on Kerr frequency combs in the last years by itself and not just contribute in some collaboration which publishes a Kerr frequency comb related papers.

As always, feedback is much appreciated.

Publication Updates now as a Zotero group

I have been using Zotero for a while now to manage references and also to make the lists for each Publication Update. Now, I figured it makes sense to try some of the group features of Zotero.

Starting with the latest edition, you can find the papers linked in the regular Publication Update posts also in a Zotero group named kerrfrequencycombs.org – Publication Updates. The papers not directly featuring Kerr frequency combs which you sometimes find after clicking the “Continue reading” link at the bottom of a Publication Update post will not be added to these folder to keep things a bit on topic.

It is a public group so everyone on Zotero should be able to join such that you get the papers directly pushed into your Zotero client. In Zotero you should then be able to just drag & drop them into your own database. As long as you do not do this, they will not be in your own database. So no need to worry that your database will be swamped with all kinds of Kerr frequency comb papers you find not relevant.

Curiosity driven research

Chicken and chick cartoon on curiosity driven vs directed research.
Curiosity driven research cartoon by Theodor Hänsch. Rights remain with the author.

After being reminded of this cartoon by Pascal Del’Haye, I could not find a proper version of it on the internet. So I asked the author directly and here it is with some digital polishing applied: the curiosity driven research, chicken-and-chick cartoon by Theodor Haensch.