The fields of molecular synthesis and biophotonics, or fiber laser and information technologies today drive the quest for advanced tools of complex analysis. Innovative solutions of cellular diagnostics for early detection of infectious diseases, or for high-power beam delivery, beyond the capabilities of current single-mode fiber systems, are required. These photonic devices include a new class of space-time energetic “white-light” sources, which require in turn ground-breaking ultrafast techniques of generation and tunability of multicolor light with a simultaneous spatial control. The new way of thinking, based on tight combination of spatial and spectral features, only over the last couple of years has attracted a great research interest.

The aim of this project is to develop new technologies for the multidimensional control of light exploiting the ultrafast spatio-temporal dynamics of beams propagating in nonlinear multimode optical fibers. Special attention will be devoted to new concepts of beam cleaning, in which an optical beam having an initially random intensity and phase distribution, becomes self-organized, significantly improving its spatial quality. New physical mechanisms of light self-localization will be investigated theoretically and experimentally. Obtained results will allow for future low-cost, low-maintenance photonic systems, enforcing the European scientific-technological excellence in photonic technologies.

The project objectives are the following:

• Study and understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for, recently discovered, beam self-cleaning and spatiotemporal self-localization of light in presence of a great number of discrete spatial modes (> 200) in MMFs;
• Development of laser beam combining via spatiotemporal Kerr self-localization of light, capable to combine multiple nanosecond and picosecond lasers of tens of kW peak power each (tens μJ);
• Generation of energetic space-time SC (UV-IR) with high quality beam in MMFs.