Background Generation of ultra-short pulses is in demand for a variety of applications ranging from telecommunication and optical computing to ultrafast science and high-resolution spectroscopy. In spite of the relative maturity of ultra-short pulse generation in the visible and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum, there remains...

Background Recent innovations have allowed us to manipulate light for uses in a variety of applications such as information processing and quantum computing. More specifically, polarization of light has become an attractive method for communicating optical data, demonstrating better sensitivity, signal in free space, and capacity than conventional...