Temporal switching induced by cascaded third order nonlinearity

We investigate the impact of cascaded third harmonic generation and the intrinsic n(4) material nonlinearity on the propagation of ultrashort pulses in noble-gas filled Kagome fibers. We show that the pressure tunability of the cascade allows for the implementation of temporal switching. We also investigate the relative strengths of both effects and show their ratio to be pressure tunable. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America