Superresonant Radiation Stimulated by Higher Harmonics.

Solitons propagating in media with higher-order dispersion will shed radiation known as resonant radiation, with applications in frequency broadening, deep UV sources for spectroscopy, and fundamental studies of soliton physics. Using a recently proposed equation that models the behavior of ultrashort optical pulses in nonlinear media using the analytic signal, we find that the resonant radiation associated with the third-harmonic generation term of the equation is parametrically stimulated with an unprecedented gain. Resonant radiation levels, typically only a small fraction of the soliton, are now as intense as the soliton itself. The mechanism is universal and works also in normal dispersion and with harmonics higher than the third. We report experimental hints of this superresonant radiation stimulated by the fifth harmonic in diamond.